I have a 2004 6-cylinder 4 door accord.

So yesterday, while driving (pretty slowly, like 10 mph) the car just turned off. When I stopped and hit the ignition key, it turned back on without issue and drove just fine yesterday.

Today, shortly after I made a turn, it seemed like the transmission slipped. I figured this unlikely, as I got a factory rebuilt transmission just 15K miles ago. However, after the slip for the next min or two, I would notice that the green circle next to the "D" (for drive) on the instrument cluster would sometimes flicker on/off. Very odd behavior.

Then, at an intersection while stopped, I turned on my left turn signal, and this caused my car to die. I hit my ignition seconds later, and it fired right back up. Not wanting to tempt fate, I made it to my destination without using my turn signals again, but of course once I was in my parking spot I hit my left signal and then my right signal and the car was just fine... so I shut it off normally.

I did check the contacts on my battery terminal and they are very secure. Also, there are no problems whatsoever cranking, so it seems the battery is charging just fine so I'm thinking not the alternator.

1. This seems to me like an electrical short somewhere in the car that is causing it to die at random times? Would you agree?

2. If this is an electrical short, how does one go about finding and troubleshooting it?

 

A real short in the actual wiring should cause a fuse to blow.

Can you get the car to stall out by shaking the key while the engine is running?

 

So I checked a few things:

1. No fuses burnt out
2. No taillights or turn signals burnt out
3. Car does not stall out when I jiggle the keys in the ignition with the engine running

In fact, I drove about 6 miles today completely problem free. I know it's not a lot, but all of the car's systems worked just fine. So I'm really at a loss of what could have caused the issue...

It does rain a lot (I'm in south FL), so maybe some water got into some electronics and caused some temporary problems and now they've dried out? Or perhaps some water got into the fuel tank and that caused the engine to temporarily stall out? Until I can reliably reproduce the issue, those are my best theories...

 

The other thing you can do is to have the car scanned for codes. Most autoparts stores do this as a free service.

 

I've done that too... nothing...

 

For giggles, start the car and let it idle. Turn on the turn signal and see what happens

Carefully check the battery connections. Be sure that both cables are clean and tight - you should be able to grab the cable ends at the battery and give them a "good" twist with you hand and get no movement.

 

Tried all those things above. Car runs just fine. In fact, I haven't had any issues since the initial incident that made me post this thread and I've driven a few hundred miles since. Very odd...