I recently had a problem where all of a sudden my car would not start. Everything sounded okay as it tried to start, but it would not run. Battery seemed fine, starter sounded fine, so it seemed to me to be a fuel problem. I had it towed to a garage where they diagnosed it as a bad fuel pump and replaced it. I picked up the car and the very next day the same problem occurred. I had to have it towed again, but the next day the garage could not get the problem to occur again. Everytime they tried to start it, it worked. I picked it up again and that same day it started, started, didn’t start, and then after a few tries started again. I had no problems for about a week, then had a day it was hard to start but after a few tries it finally started. It has always sounded exactly the same, like the battery and starter are fine, but just not getting fuel. It continued to work for a few weeks with no problems. Today I took the kids to pick up the Christmas tree and it would not start back up. I am left not knowing what to do. I had checked some recalls and their was a recall for something related to the fuel system with this model and year, but for different manufacturing dates, so it does not fall under that recall. I really need some advice on how to proceed. I can not have a car that I don’t trust to start. HELP!!
The next time it starts, take it to a shop and ask that they replace the fuel pump relay. A faulty relay can cause this type of problem.
Tester
Hondas have a double relay called a PGM-FI Relay which fails in this intermittent fashion. It does control power to the fuel pump. It’s a better guess than the fuel pump, as being the culprit.
If the PGM-FI Relay change doesn’t fix it, the next suspect is the distributor. It’s best to change the whole distributor with a remanufactured one, rather than the components inside it, one at a time.