1995 Honda Civic Distributor

OPENLAND

MEMBER
1995 HONDA CIVIC
4 CYL
2WD
AUTOMATIC
15,580 MILES

I recently had a valve adjustment on my Honda Civic LX. I had to take the car back to the shop after picking it up as it ran rough. The shop did another adjustment and then suggested I replace the spark plugs and the distributor cap. I agreed. Less than 50 miles later, the car shut down on me while I was driving on the highway. I had the car towed to the shop and they later tol me an ignition switch in the distributor was bad and therefore the entire distributor needed to be replaced. Since I needed my car, I paid the @$400. Do you think the replacement of the distributor cap could have caused this problem? Why wouldn't this problem have been seen or diagnosed when the distributor cap was being replaced?

Thank You,

RW

1 Reply

BRUCE HUNT

MECHANIC
3,754 POSTS

The cap is one thing that sit on top of the distributor. Inside is a sensor, coil and other electronic gadgetry. Just replacing the cap does not enable you to see what else is possibly going to go wrong. I think your mechanic did right. However, I fault the mechanic for letting you have the vehicle after the first adjustment and yet the vehicle was not running well. They should have detected that and done it right the first time.