Four days ago, when on the freeway and doing ~65mph, suddenly my check engine light came on concurrent with a sudden loss of power. When I tried to accelerate nothing seems to happen - the feeling was one of choking or driving through a viscous fluid. The battery light and the oil light also came on before I came to a halt and turned off the engine. When I tried restarting, all the lights were off (normal) and the engine worked just fine. I took it to a mechanic and he said that one cannot read engine failure codes unless the light is continuously on. He did a simple engine inspection and test drove the car and could find nothing obviously wrong. However, the exact same thing happened with my again today - this time the sudden loss of power on the freeway was pretty scary as I had to change many lanes before coming to the shoulder. Could anyone point me to what might be happening here? I'd appreciate any thoughts.

More info: I bought the 1992 Honda AccordEX 14 months ago with 136000 miles on it. It drove beautifully and I already have 158000 miles on it.

Thanks

 

the code should still be stored. jump the plug under your glove box with a paper clip and turn the ignition to the II position. the CEL should blink the code

1 long flash = 10 1 short flash = 1

so two long flashes followed by 2 short flashes would be code 22.

there is a link in the diy forum with a detailed description and also a link for obd1 codes

 

Hi Tek310

Thanks for the advice. The codes came out to be

code15 = ignition output signal
and
code17 = vehicle speed sensor

I haven't noticed my speedometer fail - so I'm surprised by the code17. Code 15 seems more relevant to my experience. However, since this is an intermittent problem, the mechanic is unable to figure out what exactly in this system is the problem. I'm having the igniter replaced and hoping it will fix the problem.

Best,
Aathavan

 

Yeah the code should still be there and it looks like you got it.

I had an issue almost identical to this. When the car shut off do you know if the dash lights went out too? If you saw the check engine light I'm assuming it didn't. And then it doesn't turn on for a while but then it finally turns on and the check engine light is off now right?

That's how it was in my case. I would be driving and the car would shut off. The dash lights would still be on and the check engine light would be also. Immediate restart attempts fail and then several minutes later it would fire up again. Only for the issue to occur a few minutes later.

This issue turned out to be either with the Distributor on my car or the ICM inside of it. Replacing the cap and rotor did nothing, changing spark plug wires and shaft seals did nothing. My mechanic exhausted all of these when I told him I felt it was something with the ICM based on Tegger's website. It turned out Tegger was right and it was confined solely within the Distributor. More than $300.00 later and the problem was fixed by replacing the whole distributor (which contains the ICM) and the problem never occurred since. It's been roughly half a year.

I would say you should look into the Ignition Coil or the Distributor and the ICM within it. Since it's giving you the same exact code I had and nearly identical symptoms (if you confirm the dash lights it's more likely) then your hunt should start there I think. But let the more esteemed members here tell you. This is just what I think and I don't want you to spend a lot of money trying to diagnose this.

I'm not going to say it with certainty though because I believe I remember reading a thread a couple of weeks back where someone had an issue that sounded exactly like mine but it turned out to be something different. I think they fixed it at the ECU. But I'm confident yours has something ignition related either with the coil or the ICM in the Distributor or the whole Distributor itself based on the code.

 

refer to this thread with the same trouble code for testing.

https://www.hondaaccordforum.com/for...52/#post247222