Questions and Answers

Honda Civic Battery Problem? Q. Hello Vincent, I was driving my Honda Civic yesterday and the car started to lose electrical power. The car sputtered and the cassette player started to slow down, etc. I tried to keep driving but the car just slowly died so I pulled over to the side of the road. I immediately thought it was the alternator.

But after sitting ten minutes, I turned the key and the car started, although the starter turned slow. It ran for about five minutes and then slowly turned off like all the power drained out of the battery. The car does not stall, it just slowly dies and then you can restart it after about ten minutes for five minutes of running (at idle) time.

It has all of the symptoms of a dead battery after the car shuts off, but then comes back to life after about ten minutes. Please let me know if you have any suggestions on this confusing problem.

1988 Honda Civic
1.5 liter
Automatic transmission
125,000
Fuel Injection

Thank you for your help,
Nick

A. I guess the first thing I would want to do is thoroughly test the charging system, particularly the battery. What is happening sure sounds like it could be a bad battery to me.