2007 Honda Civic hesitating under acceleration

..Brian..

2007 Honda Civic 1.4se Petrol
145000km on clock

So for a good while, (a year or two) my car has been occasionally hesitating under acceleration. The power cuts for a split second as its going up through the revs and then motors on. Once the engine management light came on and I took it to the mechanics but by the time I got there it had gone out and the mechanic couldn't get a reading. He mentioned the MAF sensor but a new one is €200 and couldn't make any guarantees. He said to drive on until the light came on again but that was about a year ago.

Today it's no worse or no better now buts it's annoying me. The Internet advises to try cleaning the sensor with MAF sensor cleaner but when I was in the motor factors the other day, they said you shouldn't clean them so I dunno now.

Anyone one clean a MAF sensor before? Any problems as a result or was it a success? Any other ideas?

gibbon75

Thet Civic has 8 spark plugs and sometimes the rear ones get forgotten about (usually happens with the Jazz as well...), so I would start checking the plugs.
They came fitted with long life Iridium plugs and those are good for 120k kms.
Use only the right NGK or Denso plugs.

colm_mcm

I'd be looking at the main plugs too.

johnayo

Might be worth changing the fuel filter as well, often gets overlooked.

colm_mcm

Where is the fuel filter in one of these, I've 200k on mine and never changed it. As the tank isn't in the usual place under the rear seat, maybe it's under the bonnet?

Ugh, quick google says it's under the ashtray/centre console area

..Brian..

Micksgarage has 7 different sparkplugs ranging from €6 to €29 each when I put I my reg. How do I know which ones I need? And would I realistically be looking at spending over €230 on a full set of NGK plugs?

Edit: fuel filter is only €35, into the basket so!

..Brian..

colm_mcm wrote: »

Where is the fuel filter in one of these, I've 200k on mine and never changed it. As the tank isn't in the usual place under the rear seat, maybe it's under the bonnet?

Ugh, quick google says it's under the ashtray/centre console area

Where did you see that? Google is telling me it's in the petrol tank. And the picture of it looks like it would go in the tank. I have a couple buses and regularly have to change the fuel and sediment filters on them but it doesn't look anything like it.

colm_mcm

The tank on a civic is under the front seats - not in the back like normal. You need to remove the armrest/ashtray etc to get at the pump/filter.

gibbon75

The fuel filter is part of the tank unit. Should be changed at 120k kms.
No.5 on this diagram:

https://www.lingshondaparts.com/honda_car_parts_selection_pfk.php?block_01=17SMG601&block_02=B__0300&block_03=16526&block_05=hcr

gibbon75

The correct sprak plug is NGK IFR6G-11K.
In theory you can use FR6G-11K as well, which isn't Iridium.

enumbers

unless you have other issues i'd be very surprised at plugs causing problem I have removed them from cars with near 200k and still could of went back in

gibbon75

enumbers wrote: »

unless you have other issues i'd be very surprised at plugs causing problem I have removed them from cars with near 200k and still could of went back in

Did you rack up all the 200k in all of those cars or how do you know that the plugs were never changed?
I'm working with Hondas for a decade now (and with a very sample base on a daily basis) and that 1.4 engine is near bullettproof,unless it had an amazingly rough life.

gibbon75

Also the other thing I would check is the O2 sensor.

enumbers

gibbon75 wrote: »

Did you rack up all the 200k in all of those cars or how do you know that the plugs were never changed?
I'm working with Hondas for a decade now (and with a very sample base on a daily basis) and that 1.4 engine is near bullettproof,unless it had an amazingly rough life.

These would be customer cars with history and or owners knowing they hadnt forked out for 8 plugs at any stage in there ownership . have you come across issues on plugs on this engine that were overdue changing only sharing my experiences on this engine that I have not had a single issue caused by plugs

gibbon75

enumbers wrote: »

These would be customer cars with history and or owners knowing they hadnt forked out for 8 plugs at any stage in there ownership . have you come across issues on plugs on this engine that were overdue changing only sharing my experiences on this engine that I have not had a single issue caused by plugs

We have seen a few (not many,a handful maybe) old plug issues with Jazz/Fits.
The OP mentioned that the check engine light "cleared" itself and that made me think that the car might be misfiring.

FortySeven

My 07 does this too, mines the 1.8 vtec. I've read it many times with my Delphi with no fault codes. I am starting to suspect a tps fault. Not sure if it is a potentiometer or not but it feels like a flat spot for a millisecond. If it is a contact potentiometer then it could have worn the contact resulting in a hesitation.

It's not bad enough for me to investigate it properly yet as it is a fleeting hesitation and doesn't really affect the drive.

Lanshane

If there's a possibility of it misfiring intermittently, then before spending much money changing anything, why not treat it with dipetane for a couple of weeks and see how it runs. Might well clear some unwanted carbon deposits that could be causing a misfire. Could be a cheap fix!

..Brian..

Forgot to update this thread but I changed all 8 spark plugs and the issue is resolved. The back four were a bit of a bitch to get to but once I worked out how to remove all the trim, it was fairly straight forward. The plugs themselves were indeed long life iridium so I was looking at up to €30 per plug and needed 8 of them, however I managed to find a Honda dealership in Swansea on eBay selling off 4 packs for £40 each so ended up only paying €90 including delivery for 8! :cool:

gibbon75

I'm glad it worked out at the end and also fair play coming back updating the thread for our benefit.Also good price on the plugs,as we sell the NGK ones for about 20 each all in with VAT and a bit of discount...
It is always worth to go through the basic things first when it comes to Honda petrol engines.
Two weeks ago a mechanic friend of mine came across a 2007 1.4 Civic which had a fault code for the crank sensor.The customer has already replaced the sensor with a used one later with a new one,checked for chain stretch etc. as the fault was keep coming back.
It turned out that someone changed the Iridium plugs for normal ones,which should be fine,but the person used the wrong spec plugs.

..Brian..

Funny you should mention that as I checked the to see if that car had stored any codes before i changed the plugs and indeed there was one. Can't remember the number but it was for a fault with Crank Shaft Position Sensor A. Seeing as there was 145k on the clock and I knew the plugs hadn't been changed, I decided to go with them anyway as they were overdue. I wiped the code when I changed the spark plugs and it hasn't come back since and the car is still driving fine.

Mgit

For others reading this also consider cleaning your egr valve too, I sought help in civic forums and as a helpful guy pointed out this 1.4 dsi 2008 - engine is the most common Honda jazz engine in UK google and to Google problem based on that.
When the engine panics and hesitates due to egr valve briefly sticking sometimes it can cause ecu to wrongly report misfire. This is the thread https://clubjazz.org/forum/index.php?topic=5345.0

Honda even have a service bulletin for this for the Jazz titled engine hesitation under light accelleration. I also changed the plugs at same time so I can't say for certain if the plugs or cleaning valve sorted problem, but valve was very sticky before cleaning. These engines and sensors etc are reliable so try the simple fixes first before replacing anything except the plugs.

2008 1.4 Very occasional engine jerk https://www.civinfo.com/forum/showthread.php?t=415094