Hey there!
My girlfriend's 94 Honda Civic coupe is having a hard time. The engine shuts off while driving regardless of speed/gear/whatever. When it shuts off, the dashboards lights stay on, without any error check signs. I can turn it back on if I give it a bit of gas, and drive it for a couple of yards until it shuts off again. Strangely, before it shuts off, it kind of "hiccups", i.e., RPMs go from 2k-3k to 0 in 1 second, then back up and down again a couple of times. Sometimes the engine seems to die and start on its own without key ignition, but it then dies off. Its similar to what happens when you're out of gas, but I'm sure I have gas on the tank. I was able to "drive" it like this to a car shop.
Once in the shop, we turned the car on and had it idling for more than 15 min and nothing happened. We then reved up the engine quite a bit for a while without any problems. We took the distributor out and checked for bad wires and whatnot; everything seemed ok there so we placed it back on. I tried driving it again and after 1 mile it started doing the same crap again...
I should point out that problems started happening after my girlfriend decided to install a new alarm system with an inbuilt engine cut off, and she says that the guy who did the job knew very little of what he was doing.
Help us out please, we are in love with this car.
I’d normally say it’s time to pressure test your fuel pump. However, since your troubles started after the alarm system was installed, try disconnecting that & see if the problem reappears in future.
Who’s idea was it to install an alarm on a 1994 Civic? By somebody who didn’t know what they were doing?
Thank you for your reply. The car had an alarm system before that would work in a very weird way. This specific car is a thief magnet where I live. Also, I think my father-in-law also did it so he would have a remote control to lock/unlock the car. After some time the old alarm system started to give problems (e.g., setting off the alarm when we try to unlock it, etc..), so my father-in-law decided to have it replaced. The people who I say know very little about setting up alarms are the actual representatives of the alarm's brand. My father-in-law and girlfriend tend to trust mechanics and people like this too much. I would never leave a car like this on a car shop and just let them go at it, especially after noticing that these people tend to give the impression that they know a lot, while they know very little. Also, they say that they replaced this and that, charge you for those manipulations, and it turns out they didn't do anything to the car.
We will try to disable this alarm system first. If the problem persists, I will look into how to test the fuel pump myself, but would like to know what is your rationale on suggesting it.
Again, thank you so much for your reply.
In addition to what @yaser has written below, here’s what Scotty has to say - https://youtu.be/hzYONeD9xUU
I would say change the fuel filter and then pressure test the fuel pump. Your fuel system is not providing enough fuel.
Thanks guys. Fuel pump pressure was fine. The car is running fine now, it seems the problem was a faulty distributor coil. This issue seems to be prevalent among old Civics.
I will get back to you guys if the problem persists.
Thanks once more!!