Honda Civic ??? Big Time OT

[55 Fargo]

Hi all, a friend I work with recently bought a 2007 used Honda Civic. He bought this in the LA area, he then brought it all the way to Winnipeg Canada, which is 2000 miles north east of LA.

Car looks and runs great, except now that he has it here, and the weather is much cooler than southern California the car is doing some strange things.

As he is driving the car, it dies on him, no engine service light goes on, it just ups and dies, but runs fine before this happens, and the car will eventually restart afterwards. But this has happend a number of times in the last few days.Wednesday night, the temp dropped to about 4 above farenehit, last night it went down to about 22 f, today it was up close to 30 f.

Does a car built for the state of Cal, have some emission components that might not work well in cold weather operation, can't see why, he says the car throws great heat, runs fine, but keeps dieng.

To me, this almost sounds like a fuel or fuel pump issue, I think the car would have an electric fuel pump.

So far one shop has found nothing wrong with the car, it will be going into a Honda dealership next.

If anyone has any idea what may be causing this problem I would appreciate it...............Fred

[Norm's Coupe]

Fred,

That was your friends mistake, buying a California car. We all know the people and cars from California can't take the cold we have.

Seriously though, minus a service manual it will probably be hard to track down the problem. Could be a number of things from simple gas line freeze, to some type of electrical problem. When does the car die, when he's moving or when he comes to a stop? If it's when he stops at a light, etc., it could be in the transmission. I had a problem with my Lumina van a couple of years ago. Would die every time I came to a stop. Turned out to be the Torque Control Valve Switch had taken a dump. Replaced that an all was ok again. It's either hanging on the outside of the transmission or inside the with an access plate to get to it. Could be some other electrical problem too.

[55 Fargo]

Hey Norm, I tried to tell him, but he insisted on having this car, as he has been getting tired of his dogsled and Huskies lately.

On the serious side, he bought this car, it had been a write-off, but was repaired very well. But when he got it here, he had "trouble big time" with our DMV, they would not saftey this car at first without pictures with the collision damage, he had to go through a bunch of hoops to get a waiver over this, he had to have 3 inspections, 2 federal, and one provincial, to be able to register and insure this car,it cost him $500 for the inspections.

[Norm's Coupe]

Oops, if the car's been banged up that bad it could be a simple thing like a wire shorting out. However, that simple thing could be very hard to track down, especially if he doesn't know how. That could be hard even at a dealer. They could possibly spend up to a day looking for it.

[greg g]

There is a cold start enrichment some where in the FI system. It act like a choke as is on a circuit the runs of a temp sensor. If might be hanging on causing an over rich system, it should set off the CE light due to he O2 sensor detecting an over rich mix. Maybe it just tries to compensate till it gets confused and trips over itself. If the deal was rebuilt, might be a pinched wire or some rubbed off insulation. Does everything shut down including electrics or does it just stall and still have all electric stuff? I had an older Civic that would just shut off. Everything looked and tested fine. Under the insulation the positive battery cable had corroded down to about 3 wires in the bundle then finally crapped out. Also like all modern cars these new systems age fround sensitive. Make sure there is a grount strap ruunning from the engine to the chassis. Usually they go from a valve cover fastener to the radiator support.