Honda: honda accord, misfire, Honda Accord

Question
A general ?. Went to start car & it sounded as if coughing/grinding so shut it down. Tried to start it and no way. Waited 20 minutes & it started & ran rough. Shut it down & waited 30 minutes & started it & runs fine. Do cars backfire or whatever today. When it did whatever it had a bad smell. No trouble lights came on. Was it just a missfire. Car is a 2001. Ahould I have it put on the scope and checked?

Thanks for any help

Answer
Cars today still backfire if the conditions are present to cause a back fire. If the car had a misfire that was bad enough to cause damage to the catalytic converter it would have had a flashing or steady check engine light. If the car has been trouble free since this event I suspect the car could have been slightly flooded. A scenario that can cause a Honda to flood would be if it were started and moved out of the garage to wash it let's say. If the engine is turned off before it runs more than a minute or so,then the car was restarted after it was washed and placed back in the garage. Now, on Monday the car is started to go to work and it runs rough and misfires. If this is similar to the conditions that proceeded the misfire just make sure you let the engine warm up several minutes before turning off the engine.