I have a 1996 Honda Accord with 268k miles. About 2 1/2 months ago I noticed the odometer and speedometer quit working. I also had issues with the car sputtering and having a hard time to start driving when I was stopped at stop lights etc. A few days later I had the VSS replaced. The car seemed to work fine for about 24 hours, but the next day it also had problems sputtering and sometimes the speedometer would zoom up to really high speeds and drop back down to zero and then work fine. The odometer worked also when the speedometer would work. Then one day I hopped in and tried driving down the street. It almost seemed like it was going to stall and the speedometer was flickering up and down. By the time I got home again, about 15-20 min later, the car was working fine. From that time until now, I've let the car warm up. I started at 20 minutes and that worked fine for about a month. Then I had to do it 30 min and the car still ran fine. No sputtering, but then a few weeks ago the jumping speedometer needle began doing so while I had been driving for quite a while and now the car sputters a lot, always accompanied by a jumping speedometer needle. Funny thing is, it seems like it only used to happen when the engine was cool/cold. Now, most of the time but there are still good days when after 45 min of warming up, or running, it acts better. What in the world is inside the 96 Honda (auto) that needs to warm up to get gas to the engine or the right mixture of gas to the engine? Whatever it is, it seems like whatever it is, is not getting warmed up any longer.
I am no Honda expert, but a similar problem happened to my ex sister in-laws Ford Taurus. The speed odometer would jump around and it had trouble shifting (automatic transmission). After driving it I changed out the speed odometer sensor on the transmission and it's been fine ever since. I changed out the sensor because if the cars computer cannot tell how fast the car is traveling then fail safes in place go into effect and the computer will do it's best to keep the cars rpm's down based on the speed indicator and not let it shift or shift properly either. If it's getting false speeds then it will shut down the motor when the speed gets to high and allow it to run as the speeds fall (jumping speed odometer needle). It effects the transmission shift points also. It will either shift erratically or not shift out of say 2nd gear, so that the cars engine can't get damaged based on what signal the speed sensor is sending the computer.
Is the check engine light on? Are there any codes stored in the ECM?
Testimonial: "no check engine light"
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