I have a 2001 Honda Odyssey with 140,000 miles. In the past year we’ve had major repairs to the car including rebuilding the transmission, fixing things on the steering column, replacing the catalytic converter, waterpump and timing belt, and a complete brake job. We thought we would be good to go for another 3 years on this van. But it continues to have this sporadic problem a few times a week: I will put the car into drive and press the accelerator, but the engine doesn’t seem to get any fuel and it feels like the car may die or stall. If I keep my foot on the accelerator, the car will kick in and go after a few seconds. A couple of times, I pushed down a little bit harder on the accelerator, but it sort of surged or jumped a bit and then got going just fine. My mechanic says this problem has to happen while he’s driving it and has it hooked up to a machine or something in order to diagnose it and he is going to charge me more diagnostic fees to hunt for the problem. He says it could be many things. Is there something simple I can check myself in order to fix this before paying more fees? Would a different type of gas, or additives or a simple change of spark plugs be the first thing to try? We’re tired of putting money into this van, but we feel we are invested in it now, and want to hang in there.
You might need something as simple as a throttle body cleaning.
You’ld be surprised how the engine responds and idles after the throttle body is cleaned.
Tester
How much does that usually cost?