Ok quick question...
I love my car, its a great car, we have gone everywhere together. She has about 160k miles right now but a lot of the parts have been replaced like distributor, spark plugs, hoses, radiator, belts, starter and other little things for normal routine. I do oil changes every 3k and use Mobil 1 5w 30


So as all of you know times are tough, jobs are tough to come by (even for me a college student) and money right now is hard to save. And I'm not ready to give up on my accord and go out and buy that new civic I have been eyeballing for the past year and have a car payment.

I have never let my car go under a quarter of a tank of gas before filling up. Well these past couple of months I have been trying to get the most out of my fuel economy where as I fill up I have about 2 bars from the empty point. Not to the point where the gas light comes on but its pretty low. My car has been running sluggish these past couple of days, like its loosing power and I have to rev to about 3.2 RPMS (kick in the vtech) to keep up with traffic stop and go. I mean I know accords are heavy but still... I thought maybe its just hot and weird things happen (I'm staying in Las Vegas at the moment where it can reach 115F) so I thought it would just go away.

Well yesterday on my way back from work I was picking up a pizza for dinner for me and my girlfriend. As I was driving it seemed like I had to enable the VTECH in order to accelerate at an adequate speed. It felt like I was driving a car full of people. As soon as I stopped at the stop light the car seemed like it misfired a little (kinda shook a bit) and then died with the battery and oil light on. I freaked out and turned off the car hoping to god i didn't seize up the engine and turn it into a block of metal with no oil. I then had to push the car by myself in the middle of an intersection in neutral while my gf drove it. Luckily some guy jumped out of his car and helped me push a bit. (People are ********, just watching me push by myself, I helped people in the past, I guess good deeds don't carry over).

As soon as I got it into a parking lot, I checked the oil and sure enough there was oil at about half way mark on the oil dipstick. I checked my hoses, fluids, battery voltage reading and distributor but not the spark plugs themselves. I couldn't figure it out. It would try to crank but wouldn't turn over and start. I was stumped. Honestly you guys, I replaced just about everything in my car so I wouldn't have a car payment or any problems. I thought maybe it was all the crud at the bottom of the gas tank all those years that accumulated and made its way into the fuel lines and clogged the fuel injectors? Maybe? I checked the fuses and they seemed ok. There were 3 fuses adjacent to the battery at the top left and corner in a little fuse box area that had no connectivity but I figured they went on when the car turned over? I pulled them out and they weren't split in half like when a fuse goes bad. I tried listening to the fuel pump with the key in II position last night but I couldn't hear it turn or make that buzzing noise.

This morning I went over to my car to see if it would start and sure enough it did! But the RPM'S were at about 1500-1600 and usually its at about 1100-1200. Now I'm wondering if I should get some fuel injector cleaner like lucas (heard its notorious for cleaning) and maybe that will fix it or it could be something else. I'm going to have my car towed to my mechanic in about an hour who only specialize in Honda's and Acuras (I know same thing) but before I do I would really really appreciate some help from some of the notorious Honda experts on here like Jim Blake, DessertHonda and cjdm98 to name a few and help me diagnose this to get me back on the road. Thank you for reading! I will check this periodically to see if I myself can answer some questions! Oh and yes I have gas in my car. I'm only a quarter of a tank from full.

-Andre

 

A bad main relay or flaky ignition switch can explain it cranking & not starting.
But that doesn't explain the lack of power. Fouled injectors, maybe, but it's not that common. I don't really buy the story about crud on the bottom of the gas tank. The pump sucks from the bottom of the tank ALL THE TIME.

I know it's probably at the mechanic by now, so you'll have to let us know what happens.

 

I have a 98 Honda Accord with a V-tech 2.3 engine. I love this car but today I could not get the car start. The fuel pump has been replaced and for a while it started now it won't start again. What else besides the fuel pump will enable the car to start? Keep in mind that the battery is fully charge, lights and radio turn on. It sounds like it wants to start but it just won't kick over.

 

When the key is turned to "on"/pos II - does the fuel pump run for ~3 seconds?