Ever feel like your car is against you?

The last time my 88HF ran was in 2002....Im pretty sure...
I finaly got it to running today, after replacing fuel tank,pump,fuel filter,plugs,battery, main relay and a couple of fuses....(Since the day I picked it up in January).... Im sure its going to need something else, but thats all fine and dandy as it getting a d16a6 swap.

My 89si has never left me stranded, but I bought it wrecked,(previous owner hit a guard rail) drove it like that awhile, replaced the front end. Then somebody backed into it,(exact same spot!) and then I slid on a sheet of ice and it went into a giard rail again.....also the exact some spot! :x But like I said its NEVER left me stranded. Its taken quiet a few beatings to the point it just not fixable, and it still gets around. (the last hit some how corrected the front alinement, anit that something?)

Im starting to think that some cars just LIKE to be worked on, my 89 si, all it ever got was a tune up, oil changes,a clutch, and an axle. In the last 3 yrs Ive owned it. Thats all it ever needed, it was fine....and its seen the drag strip twice. The 88HF, heh, Ive been working on it almost nonstop.

I have a 95 2WD 3.0 auto Ranger. I've owned it since around April of last year. The CEL has been on pretty much since. I had Autozone pull the code, which they said was an "auxiliary emissions sensor" and to do a tune up. I did that, but the light stayed on... I just figured it was something with the truck's personality. It has 151,000 miles.

Last weekend I was driving back (~230miles) from helping swap an engine in Tom's car. About 40 miles into my trip, the CEL started flashing. I pulled into the first rest stop and checked to make sure everything was plugged in, listened to the engine from the outside, and figured I'd try to get home with it. As I drove, I noticed the power was definitely down, and that I was getting terrible gas mileage.

When I got back home I took the truck to Autozone again, and found that it was throwing 3 codes. P0174 (bank 2 lean), P0400 (insufficient EGR flow), and that it is missing in cylinders 2&5. So, to try to attempt to correct the misfire, hoping that would cause enough flow for the EGR, and then the PCM would correct its AF ratio, I switched out the plugs and wires.

After swapping out the plugs and wires (This time with Motorcraft Platinums... not the Bosch POS's which hate Fords, and Duralast/Autozone brand wires), I took it back, just to see if I made any progress... it was then missing in cylinders 2, 5, & 6, along with the same 2 codes. I had attempted to reset the PCM by removing the fuse for a long 2 minutes, before getting the codes read. When I got home, I double checked the plug wires, and realized that I switched a couple of them. I fixed that, and then restarted the truck. It then seemed to idle smoother, but was popping in the muffler, which is a new thing. That was Thursday. I then let the truck sit for the past couple days, since the windchill here is a bit lower than I'd like to really be standing outside staring at my truck scratching my head.

Sunday, I went to take the truck out, and it would turn over, but not start. I sounded like it wanted to a few times, but just never caught. It seemed as I turned it over, the cylinders would fire, but very spontaneously.

I called Ollie and he suggested the DPFE sensor is shot. DPFE is the EGR Valve Solenoid. There is no reason that the truck shouldn't at least run, even if this is bad.

Today, I went and got a new ignition coil pack, since I figured that could be the cause of the misfires. Nope, nothing. Some random guy walked up and started trying to help me out. At least I now had someone to turn the truck over while I checked for spark. Again, nothing. I talked to the guy at Advance, who, going by his parts list, thought maybe it was the ignition control module, so I spent a couple hours tracing the wire harnesses for this little grey box only to find out that its something only the trucks with a distributor have. I finally found some stuff online that points to the crank position sensor. I now have one of those on order, so hopefully I can get the truck running tomorrow.

This comes after I put new tires and shocks all the way around the truck.

You aren't kidding, although I will say, most of this is preventable **** that had I done all the work / done it right the first time, I wouldn't be dealing with.

My tranny went bad due to the wrong MTF used in it, not my fault some shop that didn't know their **** fucked mine up and the syncros were **** by the time I figured it out.

Buy a used Si tranny from some dude who I talked to for two hours just shooting the ****, seemed like a nice guy. Well it grinds fifth gear every single time. No, syncromesh won't solve the problem.

Axle dust boot went out on that install, so I had to get another one and put that in.

Rust is coming at me like its 2020 and I parked my car in a salt lake.

My seat swap went great at first, but the ghetto hole I did to make the lumbar fit my pan ain't too great so I gotta strip out the chair and redrill / weld in a new bolt.

The engine is experiencing the worst blowby I've ever seen in a car, and I have religiously changed the oil every 3k without ragging on it. Not entirely negative since I have most of what I need to B-swap, but god knows what problems I'll run into then.

So yeah, I feel you.

PS Forgot to mention the deer damage and fender, door, et al I have sitting in my house waiting for spring so I can do a proper install and paintjob all at once.

Since i bought my car almost a year ago, it had 369k on it, alignment out of whack (more on this). It began by just dying on my driveway... i changed all plugs, wires, fuel filter, rotor, cap... and it started, and ran.

Since then i've changed the alternator (it died), battery (it died), both axles (i've been chasing a grinding noise that my car makes when i slowdown or brake, seems to be my differential as the axles are now ruled out.....), the radiator (it died), all bushings (they wore out, mainly the rear trailing arms), the shocks and springs (a shock died, i figured i wanted an upgrade)...

After the upgrade i did an alignment, and found my rear right wheel was not able to be aligned, and the shop told me i needed a camber kit, due to lowering (i was illiterate at the time and did not realize it was a toe kit i needed). I bought the camber kit, went for an alignment and found it was the toe that was out of whack. So i bought a adjustable toe kit, went back and got an alignment done, great, i had a straight car that wasn't eating my rear tires up...

i bought an SIR front for it as it had a rough front end when i bought it, i ended up sliding on a rainy/windy day with bad rear tires and smashed my front bumper... and messed up my alignment a few days after it was good. Not too far later a guy turned out infront of me and i ended up slamming into him, totaling my front end (his fault, settled for cash)... i strapped the hood down n drove it, my distributor died... i changed it, drove to montreal (5 hours 1 way, 24 hour round trip...) and changed my smashed SIR front end to a good SIR front end there (thanks Charley, you're the man), and drove back...

the next day my distributor died again... changed it again, this time with new plugs, wires and a cap... drove it about 3k more and it died again... figured out it was a loose wire shorting it out.

Now next week the car goes into a bodyshop for a clean fix on the front end, with the frame being straightened and a new OEM Rad support being welded on. I hope i will finally have a straight car at 392k...

Man... i TOTALLY know how you feel...

Man I feel a lot better... I've had some bad experiences with my two cars, starting from about 5 minutes after I bought the first one, but I have never thought about not having one...

In May 2005 I was looking for a car, I wasn't decided on a CRX right away, I looked at a first gen teg and a couple of other things too. I wanted a CRX since 1995, and my choice was biased towards that. A couple days into the search I went to look at the ONLY CRX Si for sale locally, and I ended up buying it, it was a lot of fun to drive and I scared the crap out of the seller ripping around on the test drive.
I paid him and had to go back the next morning with plates and stuff, and my roommate drove me so I could drive the car back... guess what, didn't start. After playing around with it, we got it going and I drove the 15 minutes home. I had intermittent start issues for a while, which I found to be the main relay after a while. I was stuck a couple places before that happened. I also replaced the alternator and a few other little things. About a month later I blew a coolant line, wasn't watching the temp, and the headgasket blew, all while I was teaching at a summer camp. I had to wait 6 weeks to do anything to it, while I was in New Haven the CRX eventually got towed to sit at my dad's house. I rebuilt the motor, and in the process had to replace the radiator (missing half the fins) and a few other things.
It ran great for a while, then the rebuilt motor decided to die mid-autocross. After that you probably all remember the six weeks of me posting 20 times a day about trying to get the damn mini-me going, and when I finally did get it squared away, it still ran like crap for a few months due to a bad ignition system (screwdriver head in the dizzy!). Also, all during this time I was trying to run my OEM stereo with EQ, and it only seemed to play on all speakers without crackle when I was alone in the car!
Once I got the engine fixed, Matt got it all tuned right (now in the new shell) and I've had a pretty solid couple of problem free months. Then a couple of weeks ago, my pavement scorching 100 ft lbs rips the mount right out the side of the motor... so Scott and I switched the block, and after fixing two brand new coolant leaks, I have a charging issue!

Seriously though, a lot of my friends have older cars, and it's just something you have to deal with, stuff breaks. Keeping it more stock will avoid that, how many guys here driving stock DXs are having a lot of problems? My friend who has my old CRX has the stock ~70k mile A6 out of my car with I/H/E, and the suspension I put on the car, and an EX brake setup. He has almost no problems, and he beats the crap out of it. Still, I have to say I've had fewer problems than a lot of people I know with older cars, these things hold up pretty well, considering the abuse they get.

^^^

You said how many guys with stock Dxs have issues? I did. My STD was an automatic D15B2. It only had 200K kms when the first rad hose blew. Then every like....10XXXkms it blew another one lol. Then at like 250XXXkms the head gasket decided it didn't want to exist anymore so I did an auto to manual and a SOHC ZC swap. When I got it all running good it was the most reliable car ever. But then I got an 'oh so good' deal on a complete B16 swap (ended up only paying 1300$ to have it running). But then the 'oh do good' part came into play in ohio and someone cheap fix broke on me. From that point on I stopped buying engine from friends, they are the ones that will stab you in the front. Ever since then the car has been nothing but headaches.

Well good news, my brother does have his harness and with his help I'm sure I can get my car up to bar. I don't know WTF happened but when there was the fire I lost 100% brake pressure, the gay. Now I have to figure out why, the level was almost at the MAX part of the reservoir and the pedal was touching the ground and does not wanna come back. I still haven't looked at it as I contracted the norwalk virus and I'm currently bed ridden...oh how life loves to **** in my hands.