Rep Power: 0

2001 Civic LX with 176K miles.

The car does start, but it takes a couple seconds of cranking before it will. Most days I only drive the car twice, once in the morning to work, once in the afternoon to home, and it might take 2 or 3 seconds of cranking before it starts up. Once the car has started up, it runs without any problems at all - I have a 25 mile commute and it drives perfectly the whole way once I get going.

Last Saturday I was out and about and the first start of the day was no problem, went to get lunch and it took 2 or 3 seconds, then went to see a movie and after that it took 4 or 5 seconds, then went to play tennis and after that it took 6 or 7 seconds, just kept taking longer to start after each activity. Then didn't drive it at all on Sunday and on Monday it started up in just 2 or 3 seconds again. Which makes me wonder if there could be a relationship between the temperature of the engine compartment and how long it takes to start...

So, I took it to a Honda dealership ( it is conveniently close to my office...) and they couldn't even reproduce the problem. Apparently if you start and stop the car repeatedly in a short time frame, it starts up without any noticeable problem at all. When I went to pick it up, after it had been sitting in the parking lot, in the sun, for maybe an hour, it took 3 or 4 seconds to start. The service rep was there and he heard it, and he brought the mechanic out and we had a nice long talk. He theorized it was probably the relay, but a small chance it could be the fuel pump. Brought the car back to the dealership the next day and again they couldn't reproduce it and couldn't find anything to fix. Again I go to pick up my car and again it takes 3 or 4 seconds to start. Needless to say, I won't be going back to that dealership again...

Long story complete I'd like to get this figured out and fixed before it just completely refuses to start, but I'm as clueless as the dealership mechanic. I'm not much of a DIY person when it comes to cars, but I'd like to have some sense of likely causes when I do take it to another mechanic, or if it might be a fairly simple DIY type of problem I could try fixing it myself... But I need some thoughts first on what it might be.

Thanks for reading my novel!