Wumbles

Got a 2004 civic coupe with about 248k kms on it.

Recently in the mornings or after its sat for a couple hours I'm having a weird issue.

Put the key in, wait maybe 10 seconds then turn

It will crank then stop then crank and stop again and finally crank normally and the engine fires up. All while having the key turned. There is no grinding noises or anything out of the ordinary when it stops. Will start without this issue if I turn it off then on.

To clarify the engine never starts then stops, just tries to crank then pauses for a good second before cranking again

The spark plugs are new, the ignition coils have a little bit of age, the timing belt was done recently and the battery is an oem honda that's about 6 months old

I'll try to get a video tomorrow

Colin42

how are your battery and starter connections and terminals?

Wumbles

the battery terminals are clean, the starter terminals I'm not sure of.

I have a general understanding of how things work but pretty much zero mechanical insight. Where would I check the starter terminals and connections?

Colin42

on the starter, need to make sure all connections are clean (shiny metal) and tight.
try and wiggle the battery connections see if they're loose.

Slumpertcivic

First thought it’s the starter.

Personally as mine failed it would start from cold fine, but acted as if the battery was dead once it warmed up.

Put a replacement in and instantly I could tell it was spinning up the engine at least twice as fast as the old one did.

Spent more time looking online how to replace it than the actual repair took..

I love that kind of repair.

Wumbles

Just an update to this thread, bit late but better than nothing

It's been a good 5ish months. After my initial problems I ended up cleaning all the terminals, I feel that they all looked to be 9/10 condition besides the one which is kind of under the starter itself, it was a bit foggy so I lightly sanded it with I believe it was 340 or 600 grit. This worked great for these last couple months. Then in the past 2 weeks its back to what it used to do but worse. It's still intermittent but this time with added grinding noises. You could turn the key it would grind out, so you lay off the key wait a couple seconds then try again, bang no problem. Now I don't know the internal workings of a starter but it seems to be a dead zone? I understand that the starter has something that pops out to engage the engine to turn? I also read that perhaps the solenoid is "sticky".

Going to have the starter replaced sometime in the next 2 days and hopefully I'll remember to update the thread this time.

Colin42

Sounds like it might be on the way out. Not to hard to do, I pull the intake tube and silencer box so I have more room