Honda Odyssey question

September 28, 2005 9:43 PM

1995 Honda Odyssey van question

My van started behaving wierd a couple weeks ago. After the car has run a while (about 45 minutes) the speedometer would start jumping wildly between 10 mph and 80 mph, no matter how fast I drive. Also, the gear indicator light starts flashing the gear it's in (drive). After a while of this, the speedometer just quits completely and the "check engine" light comes on. During these episodes the odometer quits working as does cruise control. During all this, the car runs fine. Accelerating from a stop, it moves through the gears fine, but a couple of times the engine has sounded like it is searching for the right gear for a couple seconds, then finds it and all is well. As I said, these symptoms would appear only after the car had been driven an hour or so. As of today this happens from the moment the car is started. I know I need to get it into the shop, but haven't had the opportunity yet. The car is running fine. My totally uneducated theory is that it's a computer module going out. Any Honda mechanics out there know what the problem could be?

posted by wsg to travel & transportation (4 answers total)

Could be a bad connection somewhere. Something similar happened to my Honda (motorcycle, but still...) Temp gauge jumped around, lights flickered, eventually speedo and tach cut out. I spent a lot of time dicking around with the cooling system, but it turned out to be a loose connector.

Have you done anything electrical recently? Changed the stereo or something? Even if not, you might want to wiggle wires and connectors before handing it over to the mechanic. Electrical problems are a great billing opportunity. For them, not you.
posted by spacewrench at 11:07 PM on September 28, 2005

Concur with spacewrench. The other possibility is the cluster is dying. Neither of these should affect the running of the car, except for, as you've noticed, cruise control. Hopefully he's right and it's just a loose wire.
posted by knave at 2:04 AM on September 29, 2005

I had a similar problem two months ago with my car. My odometer was fine, but the speedometer would bounce around, then drop to nothing. If I tried to accelerate fast, it would not shift right. Then the check engine light came on. It would only happen after the car warmed up. I drove it like that for two months, before I could get it into the shop. It turned out to be a speed sensor. Now that it's been replaced, the car runs fine. Parts and labor was a little over $200.
posted by fhqwhgads at 7:11 AM on September 29, 2005

That sounds like it, fhqwhgads. BTW, nice strongbad reference.
posted by wsg at 7:49 AM on September 29, 2005