Rep Power: 0

2000 Honda Civic EX Sedan.

To date, new timing belt, water pump, crankshaft sensor. Last week, due to a serious idling issue and supposing that was part of the problem, replaced intake manifold gasket (seemed to fix idling issue) and ignition rotor.

The problem: the car normally starts fine on cold starts, but after it has been running for a while it may or may not start. After a while, when the engine cools down, it starts up, only to repeat the frustrating problem again. Mechanic (a guy people around here trust) said there was oil in the timing belt area and he thought that might have been part of the problem as oil was covering everything. No biggie, at 200k it was tie to change that anyway. Got the car back today, seemed fine, but tonight, right back where we started (or didn't start) from $1,000 worth of repairs later.

What I know to be wrong with the car at this point is an exhaust issue that I need to repair, and by repair, I mean I'm going to replace the exhaust. No codes show on the OBDII so there's nothing there to go on.

Admittedly, I can change oil, change a starter, do struts, and other bolt on type jobs, but when it gets to diagnostics, I'm a fool....and a fool that gets pretty pissed over spending a grand to be no further ahead than I was to start with.

Any ideas?

 
Rep Power: 125

I’m guessing you didn’t use an OEM crank sensor. If not, that’s your problem. Honda’s are super finicky with aftermarket electronics.

 
Rep Power: 222

This would be my guess as well

 
Rep Power: 0

Thanks, guys. A mechanic actually did the job, but I checked the cost of the part and it was $46. Seems like the price of the Denso part is substantially higher than that. So I'm guessing he went aftermarket.

 
Rep Power: 0

I just talked with the mechanic. He put in an aftermarket crank sensor as suspected. Now ordering a Denso and will install it. I'll let you guys know if that did the trick.