Does anyone have a line on why honda distributors fail so often? I just replaced a distributor in my '91 accord in June of '09 because of a bad coil. I figured go with the complete distributor in case there were other latent failures waiting to occur. Just this past weekend, the new distributor (4 months old) failed for the igniter. Has this happened to anyone else and should I be looking deeper into the ignition system? The car has new plugs and wires. Thanks.

 

If you still have your old igniter, then swap it out.

I don't know of any specific issue where the another fault would cause the igniter to fail. The igniter is just an on/off switch to charge/discharge the coil.

 

thats pretty wierd.

 

first off........why would you replace the complete distr just because of a bad coil ????? Honda sells coils separately .. you could have just replaced it.....

Also Honda distr DO NOT come complete with coil and igniter so i have to assume that you bought a non-Honda reman distr ?? correct me if i am wrong ..
And if igniter went bad this time around why not just replace the igniter ?? is shop going to warranty the distr ??
bad plugs and wires could shorten the life of the coil ,maybe that is why it went bad the first time ??? also any oil in Plug wires ?? make sure that wires going to igniter plug in tight .

But to reply to your question , i have installed many Hondas igniters and coils and never had to warranty one as of yet ..But i have had to warranty a few non-factory ones ..

last....since you bought it 4 months ago i sure hope that the shop will warranty the part..