minabear

This issue with my car is about to make us nuts! I have a 2001 Civic LX automatic trans, 262k miles, very well maintained. We've always done any work on it ourselves except for the tranny rebuild.

When I first start out a day running errands my car seems to do fine. After it heats up it starts idling rough while standing. When I accelerate from a stop is will almost stalls unless I turn off the AC and if the AC is off there's no problem. If I was slowing down and pulling into a parking space I would also almost lose the power steering

My son took the car to a mechanic friend of his and he said the AC was over charged and the condenser fan was bad, not cooling the AC system causing the gas to expand in the system and causing too much load on the engine. Changed the fan, and recharged the system to the right pressure.

Car seemed fine for a day or two. Went on a short run to the store and it started acting up again. I'm wondering if it might have something to do possibly it being hot outside or maybe when the fuel level gets to 1/4 tank or less?

Something else the car has done for years that I also wonder if it's related is the AC kicking off when accelerate getting on the freeway. I just thought it was a fuel saving system but now I'm wondering. One thing we did after some internet research was to bleed cooling system. I was very surprised at how much more antifreeze we were able to add!

Does anyone have any ideas as to what we should check next? PLEASE, I love my car and don't have money for a new car and I know this can be fixed

lowlife9

clean your iacv,throtle body,egr valve and pcv valve.

minabear

Changed IACV no change. Will do the others next Thank you so much!

ezone

If the radiator had lost a significant amount of liquid, why was it low? Where did it go?
Does it have a leak?
Is the head gasket blown? Could a blown head gasket be causing it to run poorly?

Got check engine light? Got any fault codes?


Fuel tank level should not affect how it runs, unless it's almost empty or the pump inlet strainer is clogged.


AC compressor cycling on and off to maintain a certain temperature range (like vent temp 40-50 degrees) is normal operation, but if it shuts off and stays off that's not normal.
Both radiator fans must turn on whenever the AC compressor cycles on. If either fan quits, that can lead to the excessive pressure issues you mentioned.



Idle relearn?

Helixlail

Ezones the man. Check the ac belt of tension. Could be the pulley on the belt starting to lock up and it strains it to use. My guess is either map sensor, upstream O2 sensor or electronic load detector these seem to go bad in the 7th gens. But a loose belt can cause havoc on the part it runs.i wish the fuel filters were like the 6th gens. Make sure both if the fans run too like ozone said you don't want those to stop working for any reason BCL

Helixlail

Oh yeah the ac kicking off when accelerating is normal in 7th gens it's a computer thing.