Rep Power: 0

I'm freaking out right now! Here is what happened, went to take a u-turn and had to accelerate fast in order to avoid traffic. I get on the gas and all of a sudden the car starts jerking and my check engine light is flashing. I let off the gas, the light turns off, and I have to slowly get up to speed. Come to the next light and give it a decent amount of gas. First gear is alright, second gear was fine too, but once I got to third and forth gears it would start to jerk again about 3000RPM. What is going on? Head gasket? Or even worse tranny? It's a 2003 Coupe EX, btw. I'm going to run my code reader on it tomorrow and I'll be back with what comes up.

 
Rep Power: 0

It's an automatic too.

 
Rep Power: 811

flashing check engine light means serious damage is being done. i hope you did not drive it with the light flashing too long. im only guessing here, but maybe the hard turn caused some sort of fluid starvation (oil or fuel) and it threw off the a/f mix causing misfires. it should have gone back to normal tho after the turn. have you turned the car off and then restarted it? engine light came back?

 
Rep Power: 192

Yeah my first thought would be low oil.

 
Rep Power: 0

I didn't drive it too long after that. Once I got home I shut the car off and turned it back on. Everything wad fine. Started right up, let it idle, it idled fine. No check engine light at that time.

 
Rep Power: 0

Oil was changed less than 1,000 miles ago. I'll check the old dip stick tomorrow just to be sure.

 
Rep Power: 233

I'm thinking oil or fuel starvation but, could be a short that only happens when you accelerate hard during a turn.

 
Rep Power: 0

Just ran the code reader.. Worse than any of you thought...

1. P0118-Engine coolant temperature circuit high
2. P1259- Manufactures controlled fuel and air metering
3. P0302- Cylinder 2 misfire detected
4. P0304- Cylinder 4 misfire detected
5. P0300- Ranom/Multiple misfire detected

So yeah.. not good. Going to take it in on Monday

 
Rep Power: 233

P1259 is the VTEC system- usually caused by low oil level. Did you check the oil level?

 
Rep Power: 181

So the same thing happened to my friend in his jetta. They changed the coils for the spark plugs and the spark plugs, and after that it was fine... But then again, it's kinda apples and oranges here. If I were u i'd check tho

 
Rep Power: 811

ECT should be easy to change, and the vtec is prolly low oil or you have a clogged solenoid screen or bad solenoid valve. i would not bother with the misfires until the ECT is replaced. that can greatly affect how the car runs because it feeds data to the ecu. its one of the most important sensors. i would try to fix those yourself because they are easy enough. the sensor is pointing up from the thermo housing, all you do is wrench it off and put the new one. vtec solenoid is behind the engine and has a few bolts. also not terribly difficult (easier if you have aftermarket intake).

 
Rep Power: 0

What exactly is the ECT? I checked the oil and it was actually too high ...

 
Rep Power: 192

Engine Coolant Temperature sensor.

 
Rep Power: 811

oil too high isnt good either. thats been known to cause problems with the vtec system...

 
Rep Power: 0

I really need to start doing my own oil changes....

But why would this problem show up after such amount of time has gone by since the oil change? I got the oil changed on October 1st with 118905 miles. The problem occured on October 21st with about 1194XX miles. Thats 20 days and 500 miles!!

 
Rep Power: 192

I'm sure the sharp turn had something to do with it.

Maybe the ECU will detect high oil pressure too and go into limp mode, I'm not sure on that.

Have you had the problem since?

 
Rep Power: 0

The only time I've touched the car is to drive it around the block to show my dad what was happening (which it did occur at that time) and to check the oil and plug in my code reader. Other than that the car has not even been touched. I'm going to take it in tomorrow and I'll tell you all what is wrong once I get a call about it. I'm just hoping it's not too too expensive!!

 
Rep Power: 0

Alright got it back today from the shop. You guys were pretty close!!! First of all the engine was two quarts overfilled!!! They changed the oil and put the correct amount in. Symptoms were still occuring. Here is there summary...

"We took a look and found the VTEC solenoid was commanded "on" by the engine controlled, but the VTEC oil pressure switch did not change states and the engine was definitely not performing properly during this event. We verified that the solenoid was getting proper signal from the engine controlled, but the solenoid was not responding consistently. Although many problems with the VTEC system could cause misfires, we suspected that there were other issues causing the misfire codes to set."

In order to replace just what they needed the needed to get the entire assembly for that one solenoid which was called the "Cam adjustment solenoid assembly" So all together it was about $800, but more than half of that was just in labor!!

 
Rep Power: 233

Man, they really raked you over the coals on that solenoid assembly. Glad you got it solved though.

 
Rep Power: 0

I just keeping thinking it could have been A LOT worse!!!

 
Rep Power: 192

Who the heck changed your oil and put 6 quarts in? Maybe they thought you dropped a 402 in your Civic....

 
Rep Power: 811

this happened to me a while back too. shop kept overfilling the oil, i started to get check engine lights for the vtec system, and going back to normal level did not work. finally i started doing my own oil changes and got a whole new solenoid assembly for $150 and installed myself (took less than 30 mins to bolt it in).