I have a 98 Honda Accord coupe, 6 cylinder with 132k miles on it. It has been having intermittent start up problems that others have reported here and on other sites internet. Essentially, some times when you crank it, it just does not start. However, if you leave it alone for a while and try it again it will startup and run fine. There is no fixed time duration that needs to elapse.
A couple of days back, I tried to start up the car again and it failed to do so. Each time I tried (about 7 times in total) the car car cranked but then nothing happened. Later in the day I tried it again but it did not start. However, its alarm starting going off intermittently through the night.
The next day, when I to try to start it again, it did not even crank. I tried to jump start it but that did not work either. I borrowed a multimeter and checked the voltage across the battery and it was at 12 V.
When I checked the fuse box, the 100A fuse was blown. I figured that was the issue and started to replace it. However, when I did the alarm started going off again. So I stopped and tried to locate the short. I found that the voltage was maintained till the input to the fuse box.
And that is the condition the car is in. Cann some one help me know what could be going on? What are things I could do to diagnose this issue and fix it?
I have to wonder what caused the 100 amp fuse to blow out. Hopefully someone didn’t reverse the the jumper cables when it was jumpered. You may have to reprogram the key fob for the alarm system now. Hopefully you can pull the fuse to the horns and not cut power to anything else important if you need to do that and reconnect power to things.
If there still is a short in the system you could replace the main fuse with something like a brake light soldered on to the old fuse connections. Be sure nothing is turned on during this test. Then plug the old fuse body in and start pulling other fuses, one at a time, in the main panel until the light turns off or goes to a very low glow. The problem will be on the circuit that you pulled the last fuse from. Since you stated that the alarm system was having trouble it may be the source of trouble or it was possibly reacting to an intermittent power problem caused by something else.
As far as the starting problem goes it may be due a problem with the alarm system or something else like the fuel pump relay. I think that is a common problem with these models.