Hi forum,

I have a 2001 Honda Civic DX 5MT and I am experiencing loss of power when my a/c is cycling. Now its not the normal bog down that you get when your clutch engages, i lose total power in my engine. It feels like a sensor is being tripped and the engine is shutting itself off, but typically the check engine light flickers and there is a code that is put into the system. Now I have experimented and it will not happen during city driving, it only happens about 20-30 min after highway driving only when the a/c is running constantly. It doesn't matter if its a hot day or a cool day since I am in Texas I thought it would be heat related, but it doesn't seem to be linked. I have asked the opinion of a few people and one said it could be that my engine is running on three cylinders instead of all four. Can this happen without my engine riding rough? I thought if a cylinder was out the engine would ride rough. Could there be another problem? If there is an ignition coil out, how do I test to see which one?

 

Have the CEL codes pulled with an OBDII scan tool. Some auto parts stores offer this as a free service. Call around to find stores that do.