# 1990 Honda Civic starting difficulty **URL:** \ **Category:** Maintenance/Repairs\ **Created:** [October 7, 2007, 10:39pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/1990-honda-civic-starting-difficulty/5620 "2007-10-07T22:39:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![taoyuanming](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2acd7d/32.png) [@taoyuanming](https://community.cartalk.com/u/taoyuanming)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2007, 10:39pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/1990-honda-civic-starting-difficulty/5620/1 "2007-10-07T22:39:59Z")
This is a Civic DX with a 1.5 liter engine. At first this problem seemed possibly associated with various hot engine temperatures, but now a cold engine temperature reveals the same problem. Should I start with the old fuel/fire troubleshooting? (I’m a knuckle dragger from the old carburetor-points-and- plugs days). ---
**Author:** ![SteveF](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/cartalk/user_avatar/community.cartalk.com/stevef/32/2_2.png) [@SteveF](https://community.cartalk.com/u/SteveF)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2007, 11:45pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/1990-honda-civic-starting-difficulty/5620/2 "2007-10-07T23:45:22Z")
Isn’t this one of those models with the troublesome main fuel relay? It’s usually a hot weather problem. Anyway, start your troubleshooting by checking to see if the fuel pump is getting juice when it’s supposed to. ---
**Author:** ![taoyuanming](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2acd7d/32.png) [@taoyuanming](https://community.cartalk.com/u/taoyuanming)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2007, 3:21pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/1990-honda-civic-starting-difficulty/5620/3 "2007-10-08T15:21:06Z")
Thanks very much! I did some more checking on the internet and the main fuel relay seems like a probable culprit – I’ll do the three-click test later today. (I didn’t even know what a main fuel relay was).