Kendall.thomas

So the other night after work my car was dead. I got a friend to jump the battery and drove home. I drove about 30 minutes and checked to make sure it would restart, it did. Until the next morning. I jumped it again in order to take it to Walmart to test the battery. This is when I noticed it shaking from time to time. The front frame of the car would shake at random times. (Not during acceleration or braking, just randomly). Walmart replaced my battery and as I was leaving the car began shaking and flat out died 4 times. I went to the mechanic there and he had me restart it. We popped the hood and watch as the engine would sporadically shake. Suddenly there was a loud screeching noise and it began to smoke. This noise/ smoke came from the left side of the engine (if you're looking at it from the front of the car).

I know nothing about cars and am worried sick that I am about to pay a thousand dollars to get this thing fixed. What could be the cause? And how much can I expect to pay.

SCH1MPF

Sounds like a alternator problem to me

ezone

All this describes what happens when the AC clutch is stuck on due to a bad relay. Very common, kills the battery in a short time and can burp freon out of the system due to overpressure. See if this is the problem, replace the relay if it is, and you might need to have the AC recharged if it doesn't blow cold now.

Read my replies in this thread, they explain more about this. https://www.civicforums.com/forums/3...ml#post4608423


The pic of the fusebox in that thread isn't the same as yours (this relay has been a common fault for several years now).
The pic in this post is yours: https://www.civicforums.com/forums/1...ml#post4607306


MSRP on the relay has gone up almost $0.50 since I made those posts.

HTH

Kendall.thomas

Would that explain the shaking? I'm sorry, I am clueless about cars, but this sounds like something I could do myself and save some money on mechanic fees. Do you have a picture of what the AC clutch looks like. And how to know if it is engaged or not. Thank you so much!

ezone

It shakes as the AC system reaches excessive pressures, it takes a lot of power to pump that much at idle.

Hard to describe the actions of the clutch with text......

Just pull the relay out (location described in that 2nd link earlier) and see if the car goes back to normal. Of course the AC won't work with the relay out, but all of the problems should be eliminated (shaking and killing the battery). Then get the new relay to replace the bad one.

HTH