Civic - Honda :: Idling Slowly - Dies At 300 Rpm
Apr 2, 2015
Noticed my beater Honda del Sol (177k miles) idling slowly the other day. Normal 45F day, light urban driving. Usually idle is ~800rpm (indicated), was dropping to 600rpm and even 500rpm. Holding her at 1000rpm then releasing the gas pedal yielded ~300rpm and it almost died, followed by ~500rpm. Ran fine at any other speed; it had no hesitation, no noises, and no warning lights.
So my GF said, "you're probably low on oil; my Cooper S did that once". Huh? Why would low oil, other than if it were so low that it starved the engine and caused friction, impact the idle? If anything, I'd think it would idle faster with less fluid to pump, and/or with hotter and hence thinner oil (assuming it'll run hotter if it has less oil, which it didn't appear to be).
Sure enough, I checked and it was about a quart low. I've never had a car that uses oil, plus my cars usually have oil pressure & oil level indicators (i.e. Porsche 944S2). So I've never run those lower than near the bottom of the "normal" range.
Searching "The Google" only provided unsatisfactory answers about metal-to-metal grinding and galling slowing down the engine, which is not what is happening here. There is still oil pressure, the oil light does not come on, and the engine sounds "normal". And adding oil immediately cured the slow idle.
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In the Car Talk column on 1/3/2016, it sounds like Lynnette's 1991 Honda Civic wagon was experiencing very similar symptoms to my wife's 2001 Honda Odyssey (189,000 mi) a few months ago. Rough idle, engine almost dies sometimes at stops, groans during acceleration. Additionally, accelerating between 40-60 mph our Honda would feel like it was "loading up," running rich or in the wrong gear climbing hills. I replaced the idle air control valve, which fixed the rough idle but not the other symptoms. Turned out I needed to reset (power cycle) the ECM and go through a curb idle/rev warm-up procedure so it would relearn the throttle position sensor's operating range after replacing the IAC valve. I disconnected the battery, removed and reinserted the hazard fuse, then reconnected the battery. Then from a cold start held the throttle at 3000 rpm until the engine warmed up to normal or the electric fans kicked on. Since then it's back to smooth, strong acceleration we expect from the Honda we love.
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diagnose a problem with their 1995 Ford Windstar. The van slowly dies when idling. It runs for a few seconds after being jumped and then the dash lights slowly dim after which the van stops running. We replaced the battery and the van ran for about a day or so without issue. However, the problem is back. I suspected the alternator was faulty, so we pulled it and took it to a parts store to be bench tested. It was tested twice and passed both times. Does this sound like an alternator problem? Could there be an issue with the battery cables? What else might be causing this?
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I have a 2011 Honda Civic EX-L sedan with 10,000miles on it. I've noticed that the brakes often make a squeaking noise when I am driving slowly and come to a stop at a stop sign. It seems to happen most often after a cold start (e.g. I notice it in the morning when I start my drive to work and otherwise when I have not been driving around in my car). I took it to the dealership today and they said everything was fine with the brakes; they are in great shape and starting to wear normally. They found nothing wrong and they did not hear the squeaking although I heard it this morning and last night.
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I recently had an oil change and 30,000 mile service at a Honda dealer. Car was running perfectly when I took it in, but now infrequently 'moans'. The low moan usually happens after I have driven the car for awhile, at a stop sign and I slowly accelerate to take off. In SF, there are lots of stop signs! As soon as I accelerate to full speed, the noise stops.
Can happen as often as five times in ten mins or not at all if I am only driving on the flat. Have had it back to the dealership numerous times since, test driven it three times with them and only heard the noise once (with a technician). They cannot find a reason for it and seem to have given up.
The car is a 2009, has 16477 miles on it and is under a Honda Care warranty. I purchased the car in 2012 as a preowned certified Honda and have had no problems with it and as I only drive about 3000 miles a year have had no previous services or maintenance issues.
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My 2008 Honda Civic 1.8L LX surges forward when driving down circular parking garage ramp with foot on brake; otherwise, the only problem is occasional hesitation. What is the cause?
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I am at my wits' end with my 98 Honda Civic LX. The problem starts around late summer of last year. It is sporadic, so I didn't quite pay attention until one day the engine died on the highway after I picked up the kids at the school. It didn't make any sound nor giving any warnings, just suddenly died. After that highway episode, it seems like it just taken its own fancy schedule as far as when to die, so to say. In a given day, it could 4 episodes in a day. Then it runs perfectly for some weeks then it starts again and went away again.
It just quietly dies while being driven. I had to turn it completely off, wait for some moment and try to turn it on again. Sometimes it just turns on again without me being frustrated and there were moments when I had to do several attempts. Once I heard clicking sound before the engine died, only once, the rest makes no sound at all. No lights are on.
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Right after I filled the gas tank, the car will start for a few seconds and shortly die afterwards. Could it possibly be the purge control solenoid? Right now I'm completely lost...
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I just changed the engine in my 96 Honda civic, 1.6 base model. The change over went well and had no problems. When I have the car idle and it gets up to temp, the RPM's go from 2000 down to 500 then jumps to 2000 then down 500 again. When I put it into gear, drive or reverse, it stops jumping. What did I do wrong?
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2004 civic ex with over 300,000 miles
For last 5 months or so, I have to keep full tank of gas. If the tank is half, the car starts stalling, and the first sign of it is when I am taking a sharp right turn on highway exit. It's like the engine dies for a second or two and comes back when the right turn is over. If I keep driving and the tanks get lower, it will happen even without the right turn. I just fill up the tank and the problem is fixed.
Check engine light is on sometimes (but not always) with these codes P0171B and P0497, but I am not sure it's related.
There is sometime also a short delay in starting the car, irrelevant if the tank is full, (a second or two of extra cranking) but that might be a different issue too.
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This has been a great car, until it developed this weird thing. It will occasionally stall while being driven. no warning, the motor just dies. It is a manual trans. and sometimes will restart if I downshift. I have become adept at slamming on the hazard lights and pulling over.
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My 1989 Honda Civic engine randomly dies usually while driving. When it dies I hear a relay click sound coming from the area of the glove box. The tachometer and speedometer go immidiately to 0. The dashboard indicator lights all go out. The turn signals windshield wipers and electric windows all quit working, but the emergency flashers, radio, and comfort system blower continue to work. I think the transmission goes immediately into neutral too because deceleration is much slower than it would be if the engine were running and I take my foot off the accelerator. So far I have always been able to restart the engine and continue driving, though it often takes many tries before it will successfully restart and keep running.
In an unsuccessful restart the engine will fire and start to rev up but die again as soon as I release the key from the Start position. Occasionally the engine will spontaneously restart while we are coasting to a stop. We took it on a long trip this summer and it would almost always work fine until we stopped for gas, food or restroom break. After the break it would die one to three times in the first 5 miles and then would work fine until the next break. My mechanic says the computer is not storing any failure codes and he is having a hard time troubleshooting it because the problem only randomly occurs. I'm wondering if the problem might be a flaky electrical connector somewhere.
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My car has been having idling issues for about a year now. While idling the RPMs oscillate between 1 krpm and almost 0, with a frequency of about one oscillation per second. That got worse over time, and it started dying while idling too. I ignored the problem because it wasn't that bad, until a few weeks ago it died about 7 times on a 2 mile trip. (I developed a technique of using my right foot to press the gas and the brake simultaneously so I could come to a stop while keeping the engine going. But that only gets you so far.) I took it to a garage, they said I probably need a new IACV. Instead of having them do it, I just bought one and put it in myself. I'm not an experienced mechanic, but this seemed fairly easy; I'm pretty sure I didn't screw it up.
So, now it's displaying almost the exact same symptoms. It's not oscillating like it was before, but it's still dying pretty frequently, only on idle. I'd like to know if there's anything else I can try before I take it back to the shop.
A little more information about my car:- Replaced the motor about a year and half ago, put a few thousand miles since then. I don't know what other parts were replaced as part of the motor, but probably not many considering what I've had to replace. - Since the motor replacement, I've had the following replaced: rear main seal, clutch, distributor, distributor again, and water pump- The odometer reads 223k miles, but I don't know how many miles the new motor has. - 1990 Honda Civic LX 1.5L
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I am desperately seeking info about my 1998 Honda Civic. My engine keeps quitting on me when I am either stopped at a stop light idling or the rpm's are really low. This seems to happen at random with no warning or check engine light. I keep my tank more than half full with gas so I don't believe this could be it. I have been to my mechanic and they said it could be a multitude of things wrong with it so it doesn't make sense to put money into the car if it won't necessarily fix it. I am desperate to figure something out so it can get fixed because I have to drive to work everyday and I'm sick of feeling anxious while driving all the time!
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Ok, did an intake manifold cleaning on my 99 Accord the other day, and now I have problems...
Long story short, some time ago my car started to have a very rough idle. Took me awhile to find the problem. Turned out the air hose, between the filter and throttle body, had developed a big hole on the underside. So I replaced it and while I was at it used some throttle body cleaner, spraying into the intake manifold chamber. Lot of junk blew out the tailpipe. The car ran much better, but the idle could still be a little rough. I ran it that way for awhile, and finally the other day decided there was probably still some junk in there and it was time to really clean it out. So I took ff the throttle body and intake manifold housing. There was a lot of junk in there! The small intake on the passenger side was completely clogged shut. (I understand this isn't surprising on these cars.) I used a bunch of rags and 2 cans of Valvoline throttle body cleaner and a lot of elbow grease and cleaned it out. I was thinking to myself that whatever I didn't get with the rags flushed through OK, but I didn't want to take the whole intake manifold out.
So I put it all back together. (I took a video before I started, so I'm pretty sure it's all back together right.) But now I have problems. The car starts. It idles fine mostly, but can be a bit rough. But the trouble starts when I put the pedal down. If I do it in Park, well, if I push it quick the engine just dies. If I push it slow, the engine revs then quits, revs and quits, over and over. Similar if it's in gear. If I push it hard, the engine stalls. If I push it gentle, it revs up, but chugs along a bit.
I've run some seafoam through it, thinking it was clogged up with all that junk, and sure enough, lots of smoke comes out, but nothing is improving so far. What have I done wrong?
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I have a 2006 Buick Lacrosse with the 3800 Series 3 V6. It has 140K miles. Lately on warmish starts (after shopping for example) the car will start then slowly die (not all the time but a good chunk of the time). It starts fine when truly warm, and usually when it's cold it's fine too. It runs great otherwise. It never stalls or dies otherwise.The car has new plugs and wires, a newish battery, a new air filter and I cleaned the MAF sensor. I've only had the car about 6 months, and noticed the problem in the last couple.I scanned for codes and there are none, also there is no check engine light. The car doesn't have an IAC valve or a fuel filter (I know those are common culprits)But it starts easier when cold (even -20) than when warmish. Here are two videos I took of me starting it. *note the coolant temperature gauge. It's partially warm.
[URL] ....
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I had my minivan stop running while i was on the freeway. My electrical seemed a bit off, the speed decreased and it slowly died. I tested the battery and it was fine, tested the alternator and it failed. I changed the alternator and still wouldn't start. I changed the battery as well and it worked for about 2 days and then it did the same thing. Radio started to flicker, all the lights turned on and the car decreased until it didn't run anymore?What could this be? Bad gearing? A faulty brand new alternator?
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I have a 1990 chevy lumina 2.5 L 4 cyl. 100,000 miles....The car recently started chugging while in drive and will not accelerate correctly, when I do get it to 55 mph there's still chugging, Ive replaced the fuel filter, spark plug and wires, fuel system clean, new battery, there is a inch crack in the exhaust manifold on the front of the engine, not sure if that would make me lose power to accelerate, the car idles fine, but chugs when put in drive, and will occasionally die when put in reverse....
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Iv got this escort from my sister, i assume it has been hardly maintained considering the... state. I bought it because she was tired of dealing with the problem... driving, it will turn off. She said it got to the point where she just stopped driving it, although it only happened twice. It began when first time it shuttered then died. Took air filter off and it only ran it like that to get it home. Now it doesn't run but for a few seconds even without air filter, so Its the best choice to leave in.
Anyway, I've replaced:
-PCV Valve
-Fuel Filter
-Some dry-rotted hoses
-I didn't replace it, but i cleaned throttle body and MAF sensor in the intake.
I've tested alternator and batter, both are good. I tried fuel treatment. Being honest this is the extent of my.. automotive understanding. But Im fairly certain it is a fuel system problem.
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I own a 2009 Prius and have had occasional issues with the car not starting in cold weather and have had to jump start it a few times. Fortunately that was successful. Today I noticed a new problem. In the past we have had problems with the car making a beeping noise, and the car with key symbol would blink. I have ignored that issue as it only lasted a short time. Today the car was beeping and when pushing the start button the car turned on but the dash lit up with the red triangle and exclamation point. We have had this happen before and would press the parking brake, then release it, push power button and it would shut off and we would restart without problems. Today the right headlamp went out followed by the left one about 30 seconds later. The fuel indicator began blinking as well as the drive/park indicator on the far left of the dash. The car eventually went dead although had very little light for overhead and glove box lights. The brake lights also worked. We have 125,000 miles on it with the original battery. Does this mean the battery finally went. If so how will we be able get the car out of the garage?
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My car will start up but wont idle when it idle it starts to die and gas just overflows thee carb and the motor slowly dies. Its a 1966 pontiac starchief with a rochester carb and 421....
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