prplglide

I have a 07 civic coupe LX with almost 120K on the odo. Recently, I've started experiencing some hard starting issues in cold weather (below 25 F). If I turn the key to start the engine, it will crank really slowly (turns over maybe 2x) and the dies. If I wait a few seconds after that, it starts right up.

The battery is only a few months old and I also recently took the car on a 4 hour trip (one way) and had no issues with it starting after it sat in the motel parking lot for several days (temps were't very cold, but did get colder than 25 F).

After doing some research, this seems to be a fairly common problem with civics, and Hondas in general. I also was reading threads in http://honda-tech.co...e-else-2221261/ and http://www.8thcivic....ld-weather.html and both kind of pointed to the same thing; an issue with fuel circulation due to cold weather.


I was thinking that maybe the starter was starting to go, and when it didn't want to start, it simply hit the spot, in the starter, where the brushes are starting to wear out.

I'm not so sure on that theory anymore, hence this post.

Any gurus out there have any other theories they'd like to share?

Thanks.


Update:

Battery was load tested at WalMart and came back good. Car still does not start. I'm leaning towards the starter or relay,

ezone

Slooooow cranking speed but battery is good..... usually needs a starter.

I'd want to do some voltage drop testing to make sure there isn't a poor connection problem before tossing a starter at it. The ground cable attachment point on the body can be troublesome (corrosion, rust) along with the ground cable bolted immediately behind it on the body (grounds transmission to body)

prplglide

Thanks for the reply!

You mentioned the ground cable attachment to the body as a possible issue; is this fairly easy to get at, without having to be contortionist (LOL)?

I'd like to check that out first.

Thanks again.

ezone

Open the hood and look, follow the cable. You'd probably have to remove the battery to work though.

prplglide

Yeah, I found it by tracing the negative battery cable back to the frame.

I took the ground off, cleaned it up (it looked better than your picture, but I cleaned it up anyway cause ya never know), and it still didn't start.

prplglide

Issue turned out to be a bad starter. Once replaced, it fired right up.