EthanJM

Hey, I'm not good with electrical issues and this could be something stupid or serious, I'm just not sure. It is a 98 civic dx.
So this has happened twice, first time I didn't witness it (happened to my fiancee) but this time I just saw it happen.

The first time this happened it was to my fiancee, she turned the car off in a parking lot and decided to turn it back on so she could listen to a song, the car was acting fine, got her to her destination just fine, but when she went to start it back up right after turning it off the car did absolutely nothing, no lights, no crank, no tick, radio, etc. I got a call from her, my friend and I got there, neither of us had a multimeter, but when we were jumping it it acted as if the battery was low after letting it charge for a minute.

The next day (today) the car was just started in a parking lot after doing numerous errands with no problems, but this time the radio shut off and came back on, then the srs (airbag) light came on. The car drove fine, we got it home, I turned it off and tried to start it right back up and there was nothing, no lights, the starter did nothing, it was as if the battery was 100% flat. I opened the hood and just moved the positive terminal a little and the headlights came on, checked the voltage on the battery and it was 12.5v, from there the car started back up. The previous owner had a radio amp on there, there was no fuse though, I took it off just in case. When the car is running the multimeter reads 14.5 volts, so the alternator seems okay.

Could there be a bad ground somewhere or could a bad terminal do this? I just pulled the positive terminal off as the car was running to see if I could replicate some of the symptoms, it did nothing strange, srs light did not come on and it did not mess with the radio. I'd think if the terminal was bad it would only effect start ups, but maybe I don't understand something.

Anyone know what could be going on?

ezone

It would seem your problem is a bad connection, and you have isolated it to that specific area. Poor or loose connection between post/clamp, or clamp/cable(s).


Could have a flaky ignition switch. If you can slowly roll the key back and forth and see the dash lights flicker or engine shut off, that's a problem.

Don't EVER do that. This isn't the 60s, you can fry expensive electronics....and newer cars just have more of it and they cost a lot more to fix.

EthanJM

I'm thinking it must be the wire, I need to investigate it more, but it looks like someone at some time has messed with it, under that rubber fitting on the positive side I see some electrical tape. The clamps are snug though, and it was snug when it happened too. No corrosion.

It seems to be in connection though. Could the bad connection on the positive terminal cause the ignition switch to act up?

I'd think my above question is probably answered here. Do you think that when driving or started a bad connection to the battery caused the ignition switch to malfunction causing all the other weird symptoms? It definitely all coincided with each other. And thanks for the warning, I've seen people do it, never knew it was a danger, first time I had done it though, I won't do it again.

Thanks for the quick response.

ezone

I was only thinking of common stuff based on the things you wrote that you noticed....and switch problems are not uncommon.
Fix the obvious problem first (battery connection), then see what happens.
The car battery acts as a huge capacitor, it absorbs AC voltage from the alternator and can suppress voltage spikes.
If it is taken out of the circuit, bad things can happen. Electronics can be very quickly affected.
Not always, but can.....and would be an expensive mistake if anything does go bad because of it.

There are plenty of real tools that can tell you if the charging system is working or not.

HTH

Colin42

I had an ignition switch go on me, and it would give me some weird no start issues, but it wouldn't act up when driving. I got a replacement (just the electrical portion) off rockauto for less that $40. It was pretty to install, just had to transfer a couple wires over from the old switch to the new one.


Click here if you want:
https://www.civicforums.com/forums/2...art-issue.html

EthanJM

Well for now it is working, It's been cleaned, I added a tiny amount of oil to the terminals, and positive and negative are both clean. I'm going to wait and see if it acts up again, if it does I will probably need new wires.