Hopefully one of the Honda gurus here can help a VW guy out.....

My girl has a 98 Accord V6 with an auto trans. The past few days, it has been hard to start. When you turn the key, the starter solenoid pops, but the engine doesnt crank. Her dad thought it was the battery, he replaced it, still has the same problem. I did notice when it finally did start, the D4 light on the dash gear indicator lit up as well as the P. After starting and shutting down a few times, I found that running the shifter up and down through the gears would allow it to start every time. Does anybody know what could be causing this? I guess my next step is to pull the center console and check linkages and clean everything up, as im sure its nasty under there, and something may be sticking. If anyone has a solid answer for me or has had this same problem, I would really appreciate some feedback. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

I can think of 2 things for you to check out. ECU uses the D4 light as a 'check-tranny' light, similar to the check-engine light. (Dunno if VW does this??) AutoXoned can plug in an OBD-II reader & read the error code, if there is one stored.

There's a starter interlock involved with the shift lever. Clean it all up down there, there should be a switch assembly which tells the system which gear it's in. If that's flaky, the system 'thinks' it's in D4, & it interrupts the starter circuit.

 

Thanks Jim I'll try that.

 

Has her auto tranny experienced any troubling symptoms lately that would lead you to believe that it's about to die? Slippage, hard shifts, mistimed upshifts/downshifts, funny noises, etc?


Have you driven it at all since it started happening? I don't see anything in my AV6 service manual that corresponds to your symptoms.

 

One more thing...if you can't make it to autozone, follow the method listed here: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/jweller1/check_eng.html and see how many times the D4 light blinks when the key is in the II position. That'll tell us the code, which I can look up in my service manual.

 

I'm not so sure this could be tranny related since the car is having problems starting in the first place. Connect your ODB2, or whoever hooks it up for you. Get the code, you'll be golden from there. I will agree to the fact that D4 is a tranny light though.

 

hey jimblake can i see a picture of your 98 accord

 

You'd be surprised...the service manual has a lot of scenarios in which the car doesn't start b/c of a defective tranny.

 

It's that silver/gold 'heather mist' color, so it looks just like a million other stock '98 4-doors out there.