wpoet

Hi everyone, I have a 2006 Acura CSX. I bought it a few months ago, 160000 km. Recently, there's been a strange problem when starting the car. About half of the time, I will have to turn the key multiple times to get the car to start. Once, when I was parked on a horizontal slope while camping (i.e., leaning to the left), the car wouldn't start at all, so I had the car jumped and went out and bought a new battery, thinking that was the issue. It was fine for a day but the problem soon appeared again. Even stranger, I noticed that I can often start the car by turning the key all the way, turning it back half-way, then turning it back to the ignition position. My wife calls this the car's g-spot There seems to be no correlation between weather and starting.

Is this a fuel pump or relay problem? Or a problem with the starter or wiring? Also, around the same time, I started seeing an engine light indicator; the shop mechanic said the reading indicated a catalytic converter and knock sensor problem, which the mechanic estimated would cost 1650 CAD to fix. I declined to fix that problem. Could the engine light problem be related to the starting problems? I often notice a strong gas smell when trying to start the car as well.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

thoiboi

Starter sound slike it may be out?

wackjum

Sounds more like a problem with the ignition switch/cylinder.

wpoet

Thanks for the ideas, Thoiboi and Wackjum. How do I determine if the problem is the starter or ignition?

NSXNEXT

iTrader: (2)

instead of claiming this as my own I'll just put this link here.
Diagnose Ignition Switch Problems

Here is one test that is not in that link.

If your keyring has a bunch of stuff on it (other keys, etc.) remove the ignition key from your keyring and try starting it with just the ignition key in your hand.
Does that fix the issue?
The Acura chip keys have had an issue where if there is too much "stuff" on the keyring it has trouble starting sometimes.
Give it a shot.

wackjum

The link NSXNEXT posted is good. You can read there. But basically the quick summary is that if the car is not cranking at all, it is probably the ignition. There should be some visible change that the car is trying to crank like a dimming of the lights or the starter trying to work.

If it was the fuel pump relay, the car would crank but won't catch.

Also, the problem seems steering/ignition related like how if you wiggle the steering wheel or turn the key back and forth a few times the car works. That says ignition switch over something else.

wpoet

Thanks NSXNEXT and wackjum for your ideas.
I went through the "Diagnose Ignition Switch Problems" link. When I turned the key, all the lights on the dashboard lit up and the headlights were fine, but the car didn't crank. The keyring had nothing on it. Wiggling the steering wheel didn't help. A friend cleaned the battery terminals with a wire brush and applied lithium grease to the connections but that didn't help.
However, I had noticed that the ground strap next to the battery was green and corroded (I live in Canada where a lot of salt is used on the roads in the winter), so I bought a new braided 13" 4-gauge ground strap from Canadian Tire. It was a little long for the space (the old strap was about 3 inches long) but I got it in. Initially, the new strap didn't seem to help; there was the same problem of having to turn the key a few times to start the car. After a few short drives (< 3 miles) around the neighborhood, there was a new problem, where the dashboard lights suddenly dimmed and then all the electrical components shut off, as if the battery were low. After turning the key perhaps 5 to 10 times, the car finally started and I was able to drive home (again a short distance of < 3 miles). That evening the car started fine before another short trip. This morning, I called a mechanic and asked him if he could take a look at the car (my wife has a driving test next week and we want to make sure the car starts reliably); the mechanic said sure, as long as I could recreate the problem. So I got it in the car and tried starting it, to make sure I could recreate the problem before driving 20 miles to the mechanic. I started the car 10 times, and there was not a single glitch! Utterly bizarre. So I gave up on visiting the mechanic. The weather is a bit cooler this morning, around 70F instead of 86F; I wonder if that's a factor. Or maybe the problem was that the corroded ground strap prevented the battery from giving enough power to the starter, and I just needed to make enough trips for the alternator to recharge the battery with the new strap installed. Or maybe the problem is the starter or the ignition switch or something else in those circuits, but the part hasn't been sufficiently worn out to reliably reproduce the problem, and the problem will come back to haunt me.
Anyway, I'll post again if there are any more issues.

wpoet

The problem was the starter. The mechanic put in a new starter and all the problems went away.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

gatrhumpy

iTrader: (1)

Winner winner chicken dinner.

thoiboi

What do I win?

Where do I redeem said chicken dinner?