1998 Honda City: Lack in acceleration, CEL & rough idling

One of the other symptoms of a faulty O2 sensor is bad fuel economy, but currently the speedometer cable is broken, so can't calculate the fuel economy.

BHPian snehanshuchk recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I own a 1998 Honda City and I have been facing these issues for a few weeks:

Sudden lack of acceleration: When this happens, the car stops accelerating even when I have floored the accelerator pedal. The car refuses to behave as it should but this lasts for just 2-3 seconds. The Check Engine lights comes on but vanishes after I turn the car back on (mostly appears when I rev up the engine while driving).

Rough idle: The car normally idles fine but sometimes the car drops to the 200-300rpm range and it feels like the car will stall; again this too lasts for around 3-4 seconds and goes back to normal. I did some research on the internet before coming to this forum and it sounds like a faulty O2 sensor which is located between the exhaust manifold and catalytic converter. Just wanted to make sure that was the issue.

Location of the sensor:

One of the other symptoms of a faulty O2 sensor is bad fuel economy, but currently the speedometer cable is broken, so can't calculate the fuel economy.

This car technically has an OBD2 port but the ports look like this:

I could be wrong but these are the only ports I could find.

Here's what BHPian vishy76 had to say on the matter:

Your car is a 1998, which means it should have the OBD-II protocol for diagnostics if I am not wrong. Just have it scanned using a good scanner and you should find the error codes in the fault code history. Begin diagnosis on the basis of those error codes.

Hit and trial methods especially wrt O2 sensors are quite expensive and might or might not yield results. It's better to take advantage of the fact that you have a CEL showing up sometimes and diagnose using the error code.

Here's what BHPian Tgo had to say on the matter:

Diagnosing through an OBD scan is the best way to know about the issue. For the age of your car, the O2 sensor and the MAF of MAP sensor would be the suspects based on the symptoms you mention.

On a separate note, would love to hear about the car and see some more pictures of it after running for so long.

Here's what BHPian SS-Traveller had to say on the matter:

That is indeed the OBD port. You do not find the standard 16-pin OBD2 port here. You will need a pin conversion adapter to plug into a standard OBD2 scanner AFAIK, but I have no idea where you'll find one in Kolkata. Before setting out to replace sensors etc., it would be a good idea, as others have suggested too, to get the Diagnostic Trouble Codes by connecting to the ECM. I believe you already have an OBD2 scanner, you'll just need the adapter.

Here's what BHPian sandeepmohan had to say on the matter:

A scan is the only way to diagnose the issue. Head to the closest Honda dealer and ask them if they can help you with a scan. Tell them you're trying to identify a fault code. They may charge a small fee for the scan (or they might just do it for free). Besides; if there is someone genuine and experienced there, the problem is easily identified.

It sounds like you're missing a spark so could be a weak distributor, spark plugs or even frayed high tension spark plug wires. You should check if there is an arcing on the wires when you rev up the engine. If you have a spark plug removal tool, pull them all out and check if they look clean. If anyone of them is dirty (is wet), its one way to point to a weak distributor or spark plug.

Good luck.

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