We purchased 2010 Honda Civic LX October 2009.
The car is beginning to have regular startup problems and this is when the weather is not very cold.
The car will not start on the first try.
The first time this happened was Oct 24, bout a week and a half after we purchased it.
Since then, this has happened five more times.
We’re about as warrantied up the wazoo as we can be but know that the service shop will not be able to reproduce this.
Any suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks
If the dealership is not able to help, then you need to contact the customer service people at Honda of America. Contact info is in your Owner’s Manual, along with a whole heap of other very useful information.
How do you “know” the service department will not be able to reproduce the problem?
This is what warranties are for. Take the car to your Honda dealer.
Be patient.
The car always starts, but sometimes takes more than the 1st attempt?
To figure this out you are going to need to get much more specific. Such as; the starting motor turns the motor over, but after 15 seconds of cranking the motor won’t start. Statements like this can help determine if you have a battery problem, a fuel delivery problem, or the cars security system problem.
Take it to the dealer and describe the problem. Keep full documentation of the visit.
If they come up with nothing (certainly possible), start keeping detailed notes - record hard start times with dates, mileage, maybe even weather - describe what the car does as suggested by UncleTurbo.
Then take it back to Honda as many times as necessary. If you keep track of it all you can make sure that it remains their problem.
Once we are able to start up the 2010 model, it does not have a problem for the rest of the day.
We have had a history with the dealership going back to our '95 Civic which also had start up problems and finally died at 145,000 miles. They were never able to reproduce the problem but they replaced distributor cap and rotor, replaced spark plugs and wires, adjusted valves in engine and replaced valve cover gasket.
Prior to doing all that, they had replaced timing belt, water pump and coolant, replaced cam, crank shaft oil seals and all drive belts and tested cooling pan, thermostat operation and noted the engine was clean.
They also replaced ignitor and coil.
So, this is why we feel the dealership will not be able to ‘reproduce’ what is happening to the 2010 since they were never able to reproduce the issues that killed the '95.
But we will take it in this month as part of our warranty package but were hoping for some other suggestions before receiving our usual ‘Don’t know what’s wrong with the car’ checkup.
Thanks for your help.
What did it end up being? I am having the exact same problem, but it is 12 years later.