07 iCTDI starting problem

Hello all,

First time posting and I am very hopeful that someone here might be able to help as my car is driving me mad now. About 2 months ago my car started having difficulty starting. it is an 07 accord cTDI. This could happen at any time, cold or warm, but it seemed to be worse when warm. It might start first time or it may take 20+ goes. When the key is turned to the 2nd position (before starting), if the glow plug light comes on then the car will start. It will then run as normal. If that light does not come on then you will get a message on the dash saying "VSA check system". The car will crank over but will not fire.

Things we have changed to try and sort this out:
1. New battery (this was first thought)
2. New fuel filter
3. New key transponder in the car.
4. New fuel rail pressure relief valve
5. New fuel pump solenoid.

All this as well as taking all the electrical connectors we can find apart and cleaning them. We have even checked the fuel filter inside the tank.

The problem remains.

The car has been to a couple of garages and they do not agree as to what the problem is. Honda have tried to sell me a new ECU (£1200) and another garage say that is not the problem but that all of the injectors have gone bad (£800).

After more research on the internet we are starting to think that it is a problem with the main relay on the car. There seems to be a lot of people who have had problems with the soldering going bad on the circuit boards. The issue is that we cannot find it. All the diagrams are related to cars from the USA and it does not seem to be an exact mirror of the UK cars. Does anyone have an idea of where this main relay is? Does anyone have any other ideas as to what may be causing these issues?

Thank you in advance for your ideas

Glow plug relay first and if that doesn cure it, change all four plugs with genuine honda items.

Relay should be in the fuse box in the engine bay behind the battery.

Thanks for that. We have tried that one though. I should have said that my old man drives the same type of car so we have been able to swap parts and see if the problem 'follows' the part. To date nothing has moved the problem to his car.

What we have discovered though is that we can replicate the problem on his car by pulling out fuse number 8 from the box behind the battery which is labled FI ECU (ECM/PCM). I am really hoping that it is not the ECU so we are looking for this relay just in case the soldering is bad on it.

It's possibly a faulty ecu or wiring in that case, but I've never seen this issue before.

When you say "Honda have tried to sell me a new ECU (£1200) and another garage say that is not the problem but that all of the injectors have gone bad (£800)." ....did either connect up a Honda HDS, or just quote you from your description of the problem ?

I missed the bit about the injectors and agree the calibration needs to be checked

no. It was taken to the Honda garage for diagnostic checks and they scratched their heads and plugged in their computer and said "we are not sure about this one we think it is the ECU. We would need to do more checks to find out the specific problem" with the ***ociated costs.

When you say the calibration needs checking, what do you mean? We have our own little diagnostic computer and it says something about a programming error (sometimes, again, intermittent). Is it possible for the ECU to become 'unprogrammed' from the car? If it has become 'unprogrammed' how can it be so intermittent? Surely it would just not work at all? Can it be reprogrammed without a whole new box? I ***ume I cannot just get another box from a scrapper and plug that in?

sorry to be a pain but this has confused the heck out of me.

Mike if you're only in Derby, book it in with me for a diagnotic session and a second opinion. I can check the ecu flash also to see if there are any software issues. Although very rare, ecu's can go bad. A replacement won't be expensive though you can get them for around £100 plus some coding costs.

FIXED!!!!!!!!!!

Hello All,

I just thought I would keep you all informed as to what was going on. We have fixed the problem. It was a faulty ECU after all. The programming had apparently become corrupted. We are not certain as to how this happened but it was most probably caused when I thought I was being a good Samaritan and helping my mum with a jump start when her battery died. I wont be doing that again.

Anyway, we confirmed the issue but simply buying an old ECU from e-bay and plugging that in. The car obviously would not start because the immobiliser wouldn’t allow it but then it was just a matter of finding an ECU repair company that could deal with this particular Bosch model. Not all of them can. We used a company in Rugely, Staffs. They got it turned round and fixed in less than a day.

Anyway, the car is back to normal and starts every time. Thought this might be helpful to someone if they are having similar issues. The ECU might be a good place to start. Even if it is not that most places seem to be able to test them for about £30. At least you can then discount that before going into more complicated areas. Lesson Learnt.

Thanks for all your help

Great result Mike, thanks for reporting back.

Nice result mate. Glad its sorted.

Whats this place in staffs you used and what did they do exactly?

Sorry it has taken so long to reply. I can report though that the problem is still fixed. The place we used to fix it was http://ecutechnologies.co.uk/
Was dead easy and it was done within a day. We are close enough for us to drop it in ourselves and pick it up agin so we didnt have to wait for the post. All he did was reprogramme it back to the original software. Somehow it had become corrupted.