Rep Power: 0

Hello everyone,

I am new to the civic forum, recently I sold my car and bought a civic, so far i fixed 2 of it's problems with the help of this site that users had posted solutions (door lock actuator and drl buzzing noise).

Ok so I have a 2003 civic si coupe 1.7 vtec automatic. The car currently has 177xxx km and it's in great shape, it runs amazing except for one problem.

So the problem is when the car is cold or hasn't been turned on for a while (30 minutes+), when you give the car gas, it just won't accelerate, the rpm's won't move either, so i have to pull to the side and turn off the car and restart it and it's good to go with no problem. Also from time to time when I start the car when its cold again, you feel like the car is going to turn off on you, it shakes shakes and shakes, same thing, when i turn it off and on again its good to go.

Let's say the car is cold and i turn it on and right away i turn it off and then i turn it on again, the car will be good to go.

I have no idea what the problem is, i have had many cars before and never have experienced a problem like this.

If anyone has experienced this problem or know the solution to this problem, please help me out.

Cheers!!

 
Rep Power: 0

Anyone...???

 
Rep Power: 233

When was the last time you did a tune-up?

Things to check:

Primary- battery and fuel pressure

Secondary- compression, vacuum leak(s), weak spark, bad gas

 
Rep Power: 0

I recently bought this car, had it checked out by a mechanic and he told me that a tune up was done no to long ago, spark plugs are still in perfect shape, and it's not bad gas, i always pump at esso, i pump regular and I pump that into all my previous cars never had a problem with it....but i havent checked for fuel pressure, compression and vacuum leaks..

& for the battery I believe that its running good because the car never has a problem starting

 
Rep Power: 209

If I understand you correctly, the problem is only when you first start and if you stop and restart it goes away. If this is correct I would be looking for something electrical, a sensor or connector. Things like spark plugs, bad gas, compression and others don't change when you simply restart.

 
Rep Power: 0

That is correct, but lets stay i stop to pump gas, the car is turned off for about 5 min, then when i start it runs fine.

 
Rep Power: 209

It sounds like it might be some what temperature related. It occurs mostly when the car is cold.

My point was problems such as a bad plug or fuel does not change simply by restarting an engine. Most problems that are intermitant tend to be electrical and tough to track down.

 
Rep Power: 0

Did you find what was wrong? I have a 2002 civic that does the same thing.

 
Rep Power: 0

Were you able to find the cause of the problem? If so what did you do to fix it?

Thanks

 
Rep Power: 193

Maybe a coolant temperature sensor?

 
Rep Power: 312

Might be a dirty throttle body.

 
Rep Power: 0

It's the fuel pump.

 
Rep Power: 312

Ignore all this nonsense.

-Start by cleaning the throttle body properly, because its free.
-Get your battery checked
-Then do a quick compression test on the cylinders to make sure everything is okay.
-Replace your spark plugs with NGK or Denso ones if you haven't already.
-Replace your air filter.

Basically going through a standard tuneup and check before you start tearing into this. Are you using coolant, or is the level okay? Is your overflow magically overfilling?