97 Honda Civic NIGHTMARE I need insight, inform me!

[Madelyn Ho]

I wish that's what I'm calling my nice super suuped up ride but I am not I have a rusted hood beat up honda civc with more problems than I can handle.

 

I know nothing about cars, but don't have the money nor do I trust my mom to help me. she told me that i shouldn't change the oil unless the maintenance light comes on..(on in my case from green to red)...I'm pretty sure is every three months but ok its her car.

 

I have a list of problems and I all would like to know your standpoint on what is wrong or what to do.

 

1. Window sliding down, I have taken the whole door frame apart, it is on track, the motor on it just died, but before is would make a clanking noise when ever I tried to roll it up. (automatic windows).My guess the clanking was the motor dying but it still couldn't push the window up, so I had to do it manually.

 

2. Inside locks will not lock. If lock the car from the outside it locks both side, but if I unlock it only unlocks the door that's being unlocked. and when locked from the inside the drivers side won't lock. I have no idea what I am suppose to be looking for, I literally sat and compared door locking motions in the car.. I still couldn't get it.

 

3. Windshield spays everywhere but the window. I tried moving it to the right direction, but i keeps getting unlined.

 

4. Refiling the water tank every week. Once after driving my car had a tea kettle sound coming from the hood, I told my step dad and it was out of water. So worried I started checking every week or so and most of the time its so low that I have to refill it is that normal?

 

5.(automatic) Car will not speed up, stuck at 20 or 30 and won't accelerate, if it does there is a backfire kicking feeling in the car. Sometime the car shakes violently whenever its parked for a long time and starts to heat up as indicated on the meter (maybe bc of the water tank).

I can't drive it on the highway, but when ever a friend does just trying to get it up to 60, you can feel the stall in the pedal. My mom said she replaced the transmission a few years ago. It hasn't shut down on me yet while driving.

 

6. While turning there is a noise that to me sounds like a straining noise, I had it checked out once the guy said that something was cracked, he also gave me a paper but my mom took it from me and now its mia. He said something about my steering wheel coming out from under or something.

 

That's it for now, I don't really put the car in really stressful conditions, beside the texas heat, it only endures a total of 20 minutes drive everyday. I can't drive on the highway so the highest speed I ever drive is a max of 45. The car is originally my mom she's owned it for forever, and she lets me drive it since I moved in. its been under my car for a year. according to my mom everything is fine, but she admits that although she worked on cars for a living she doesn't keep up with her cars.

 

[Xeryon]

Wow, what a mess.

 

Try lifting up on the outside driver door handle when you try to flip the inside lock lever. There might not be anything wrong with your locks and you are just experiencing the quirky way Honda tries to keep people from locking themselves out of their car.

 

If you have to add water weekly the water is going somewhere. Either it is leaking out of a cracked hose or the radiator, it is boiling over in your overflow tank or you are burning it off in the engine. When you drive it is there an abnormal amount of white smoke coming out the exhaust compared to other cars? Once you get to a destination are you noticing a puddle under the car when you park?

 

The straining sound when turning might be your power steering pump. If the fluid gets low the hydraulic motor makes a groaning sound. Check the fluid level. If the fluid is good the pump might just be failing, if fluid is low add some and keep an eye on it. If the leak is really slow just ignore it until it starts to sound bad again. If it leaks quickly you might need to replace the reservoir or the hose that feeds to the pump.

 

These are easy things to check. Report back with what you find and we can continue from there.