Hey fellas, i have a 98 accord lx, 4-cyl automatic with about 134K on it. It's bone stock, just a daily driver. I take good care of it, never beat on it or anything like that. Lately the car developed an issue where she just randomly stalls. There is no warning signs, no sputtering or anything like that. It can happend whenever, there are times when she runs fine for a few weeks or nights like tonight when she died on me 4 times in a matter of 10 minutes.
I'm no mechanic, but I know a lil about cars and I am completely stumped. The only pattern I noticed is that it happends at low RPMs, never when I accelerate. It typically happends when i'm going down hill and my foots off the gas or when im slowing down before a red light or something. I ran the codes on it and nothing popped out besides a busted catalytic converted which i replaced and she still stalls.
Any ideas?

 

Can you make it happen by wiggling the key? It's not very rare for the electrical part of the ignition switch to get flaky.

There's a recall about that. Call any dealer with your VIN so they can look up whether it applies to your car & whether it's already been done. You might get it fixed for free...

 

Try the key wiggle test Jim suggested and get back to us. Sounds like the classic ignition switch failure to me.

 

i did the key jiggle thing and nothing happend. I tried for a good 10 mintues in every possible direction lol and she didn't stall. But as soon as i stated driving she stalled on me during a pretty sharp turn, almost crapped my pants. Any other suggestions?

 

Do you have anything out of the ordinary on your keychain?

Where I work, I have this little "key fob" that emits a radio signal and unlocks the building door for me. I used to keep it on my keychain. All of a sudden my car started dying randomly. Another guy working with me drove a volvo and his car was doing the same thing. His Volvo was under warranty so he kept taking it to the shop, who couldn't find the problem for quite some time. Eventually they figured out it was the "key fob" on his keychain that was causing the stalling. The faint radio signal was interfering with the "chip" in his key. I took my "key fob" off my keycahin, and my car never stalled again.

Kind of a long shot... but wanted to tell the story I guess.

 

umm no not really, i got a bunch of keys and a flash drive but could that really be the problem?

 

I highly doubt it.

I'm stumped. Still sounds like an ignition problem though. have you tried calling a dealer and giving them your VIN to see if your car was included in the ignition switch recall?

 

thats the first thing im going to do tomorrow. I did some research online and found that alot of people are still having the same problem even after they went in for the ignition switch recall. So i found a very thorough tutorial from another honda forum ( i don't know your rules here so i won't post the link in case thats considered spamming) , in the worst case i'll try to replace it myself since the part is pretty cheap.

i'll post updates though, thanks alot for the info, i would've never figured that out.
- fourbanger.

 

Alright, so i finally replaced my ignition switch. It turns out that who ever wired my car alarm ( it was done by the previous owner) , wired it to the ignition switch. And it was done so poorly that it actually caused my ignition switch to fail. Oh and to top it all off, my air control valve died so my accord stalled as soon as I let go off the gas. Total damage:
iginition switch $60
air control valve : $350 ( dont trust aftermarket with something like that so i got it from the dealer)
labor: $200

I love my accord to death, but the electrical in it is just horrible.

Thanks everyone for the advice, i appreciate it.

 

Ouch, the air control valve often can be cleaned out, rather than replaced.