Rep Power: 0

Hey guys. The other day I was driving my 01 civic for about 30-40 mins with the a/c on. It was driving like normal and the temp gauge was a little below halfway (as always). I parked downtown and left my car in idle for about a minute with the a/c on while I was looking up something on my phone. Suddenly, my engine starts shaking and the CEL came on. I immediately turned the car off and figured it was low on coolant. I got out, went to do my errands, and picked up a bottle of water for coolant. But when I opened up the hood, the coolant levels were fine and like I said the temp gauge was at normal, even when the CEL came on. It cranked perfectly fine (CEL still on), reversed normally as I backed out, but as soon as I put it in drive the engine started shaking again and the car stalled. I cranked the heat to full blast to cool the engine off and after that it drove perfectly fine. I drove all the way back home with the heat blasting and never had any issues, even while going up hills and stopping and going in traffic.

I checked the code and it gave the P1361 faulty TDC sensor code. That makes sense, but what doesn't make sense is why turning the heat on and cooling the engine off made it work perfectly fine. When I got it home, my dad checked the top radiator hose and noticed it was stiff. He said it shouldn't be that stiff if the thermostat was opening, but like I said it didn't overheat. I also drove with the heater on full blast and it was a cloudy, cool day so it's possible there wasn't a need for the thermostat to open that frequently. Both the thermostat and TDC sensor were replaced last summer. I've only put maybe 20,000 miles on it since then, and like I said at no point did it overheat. It seems like something else is going on that's causing the TDC sensor to be faulty. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 
Rep Power: 517

Throw a Honda sensor at it. Sensor failures are quite often affected by temperature changes. That means nothing. Ignore him for now.

Installed discount parts?

 
Rep Power: 118

 
Rep Power: 0

Finally got around to looking at it the other day. Took the valve cover off and noticed the spark plug tube seals were pretty shot so I replaced those. Not sure if that was related but needed to be done anyway. Also replaced the valve cover gasket as well while I had it apart. The TDC sensor looked fine and gave similar voltage outputs as the new one I bought. Went ahead and replaced it anyway. Test drove it for about 5 miles or so after it had been roasting in the heat all day and it drove fine, even with the a/c on full blast. Hopefully that was the only problem but I won't know until I drive it longer. I hope this isn't a common occurrence with this civic model because getting my hands on that tiny engine is a pain in the ***.

 
Rep Power: 118

 
Rep Power: 0

Update: Today I was pulling on to the road and the engine just completely died on me. It started up fine, it was fine when I was backing up and then while rolling down my driveway with it in drive. Then as soon as I pulled out on the road the engine started shaking again and then stopped. I turned it off and started it up again, and it drove perfectly fine after that. No check engine light came on. I'm starting to think it's the wiring or the computer going bad. I've been having this problem the last two years or so where sometimes when I start it after it's sat overnight and start driving, it'll become unresponsive to the accelerator. It's like the accelerator feels "sticky" when I press it and isn't engaging the engine. It'll putt down the road for like 3-5 seconds at around 2k rpms in first gear and then suddenly the car drives fine. It only happens one time when I first put the car in drive and never again the rest of the time I drive it that day, even if I turn the car off and back on again. It also doesn't happen all the time and does it more frequently during the colder months. I'm starting to think what happened the other day and today is related to that and it's an electrical issue.

 
Rep Power: 517

This one is easy LOL

You have this down to a specific pattern, you know exactly when it's most likely to act up. 10-30 seconds after startup.





Unplug the primary (front) O2 sensor.
Drive it a few days.
See if it still acts up when you expect it to.

If it won't act up as long as the sensor is unplugged.... Replace primary O2 sensor.

 
Rep Power: 0

The O2 sensors were replaced last summer when I got a code about them. Haven't gotten a code about them since then. You don't think it could be the computer going bad or a problem with the wiring? It's so weird how sometimes it'll drive fine with no problems, and other times it'll do this. It only has 190k miles and I've heard people driving civics this old into the 300k-500k mile range without retiring them.

 
Rep Power: 517

I just wanted you to do this simple test: