Big Problem

[ds]

My wife's 99 accord started smoking yesterday. We towed it to the dealership and were told that antifreeze was mixing with the oil. It could be because of two reasons, either a hole/crack in the engine block or something I think with the cylinder head. (I don't know much about cars..sorry.) Anyhow, if it is the cylinder head it can be repaired for around $1000, but if it is the other situation we are looking at either a new (used) engine or repairing the block which both comes out to be around $3500.

The car has just under 100K miles on it and we bought it because it was a Honda. It is supposed to last. In fact, on one of their sales pamphlets it states something like "Buy an accord and leave all your worries behind." I havve an '04 Civic and love it, but I was completely blindsided by this one. Has this happened to anyone here?

-DS

Happy St. Pat's

 

[ds]

My Muskies just lost to OSU! Although completely unrelated, it doesn't help my mood.

 

[DINO_NO]

Before you spend 1000 on repairs, go here.. and browse other products too.
http://www.barsproducts.com/product.cfm?id=14

 

[ds]

Thanks. There is already a hole in one of the tubes and it sprayed all over the engine.

 

[Sparkman]

You may want to think very carefully about paying so much to have such major repairs done on a car that age. Subtract the cost of the repair from the value of the car after the repair, that is the value of the car right now. I don't know the details of your car but a little research has shown the value to be not far from $3500.

Paying a dealer to put an engine in my car is something I would never do unless desperate.

 

[Cutehumor]

overheating? coolant level dropping? UOA?

 

[m2200b]

It doesn't cost $1000 to pull the head to decide if its the head or the block. You don't say if its a 4 or 6 but I'd look to see both head prices and JDM engines as other possible repairs to their 3500 plan.

$1000 isn't bad for a head if it includes all their labor.
What they're leaving out on the head quote is whether your head is repairable. If you need another head add that and that when a JDM notor and head are probably not much different.

I would pull the head for the diagnosis.

 

[ds]

It is a 4 cylinder. They are not going to repair the cylinder head immediately. They are going to pull it - 3 hours of service work - and that would let us which problem caused all this.

 

[ds]

The problem is that we still owe money on it.

(Wife grew up in Canada)

 

[rabhonda]

just buy a used f22 in a yard for $800 and pay another $800 in labor to have it replaced.

 

[Quest]

OK, not to cause you further grief: A Honda can only be a Honda if the owner takes good care of it (same with Toyotas, Datsuns, Nissans, domestic 3, etc.). If the owner neglects the vehicle or done something silly about it, it will come back to haunt you even if it's a Honda.

I don't know your vehicle's service/maintenace records and history (and your mechanical competence) so I cannot draw any conclusions. However, one thing I can tell you though that if your vehicle has been serving you for close to 100K before it fails on you (lemme see, almost 8 yrs), something is amiss here and most likely not due to error in assembly/workmanship or parts/components failure. Afterall: you have worn through many sets of brake pads and shoes before this happen to you, so it may have something to do with previous mech service error or some other human or inferior service parts error.


I have serviced/owned/operated vehicles with original engine and what-not (with the exception of timing belts + pulleys, water pumps and thermostats, etc. that have outlasted the vehicle body so far (the oldest one was an 88 Mazda 323 1.6i with over 268,000kms on it's original engine before some iddiot rear-ended it), and no engine blowouts, failures, smoking/steaming, etc.

Remember this though: a Honda can only be a Honda if the owner looks after it properly(same goes with all other vehicles in general, regardless of brand in this case). If you do not have any interest in mechanical aspects of your vehicle and how to keep your pocket book from being sting-ed, go find an honest mechanics that you can rely on.

I agree with m2200b's recommendation that a used engine block + RE and RE shouldn't cost more than 3500 tops.

Also: any competent mechanics or shops shall be able to diagnose your problem (warped cylinder head? torn head gasket? overheated? sling a rod?,etc.) within an hour. Pulling a cylinder head for 3 hrs of labour to "find out" what goes wrong in your engine is, IMHO simply wrong.

I would insist in finding another shop to do the job instead.

Q.

 

[mechtech2]

Quest - A 'competent' mechanic will need more than an hour to determine if a leak is from the head or a head gasket.
The symptoms can be identical, and you ultimately have to pull the head to look at it.
This is my business, and if you have a secret method, please inform the industry.

 

[Quest]

mechtech2-

compression test can be used successfully to determine overall engine combustion chamber sealing condition. Any significant drops in reading (or uneven) usually indicates compression ring wear, upper cylinder wall scuffing, valves sealing surface problems (pitted contact service or sometimes even a burnt valve will contribute to significant pressure loss).

wet/dry compression test will determine the compression ring/2nd ring condition and/or if the cylinder wall is in question (e.g. vertical grooves due to abrasion, severe scuffing, etc.)

a pressure test with compressed air hose connecting to the spark plug hole (while the engine has sufficiently warmed up) shall tell you where the air is leaking from:hissing sound from your throttle/intake side indicates 1 or possibly more intake valve sealing issues, whereas hissing sound coming from exhaust shall tell you similar stories but from the exhaust valves side. If you carefully crack open the radiator cap (don't scald yourself) you shall be able to detect some bubbling from the suspected cylinder or cylinder to water jacket leak issue, assuming that the cylinder head gasket is torn for some reason.

All these can be performed within 1 hr on a 4cyl Honda engine, about 2 hrs on a Vee6. If, at the end of all these and everything showed negative, then you have to delve deeper into the matter and think logically. In this case, casually pulling a cylinder head would not tell you the whole story still and you may have to deal with it sensibly(i.e. is spending additional 6+ hrs pulling the entire engine apart to investigate makes good sense to you or your customer? Would it be better still if you can keep those extra labour hours spent on investigation to Re & Re with a JDM engine or low mileage wrecker engine?, etc.)

 

[Quest]

Oh and 1 more thing: in used car dealership business, most torn head gasket leaks are masked by shady mech or salesman with bars leaks or some head-gasket-in-a-can thingy, which I've seen many used car salesmen used in the past (similar to motor honney to "mask" the smoke). If the car's engine has been overheated before with slight head gasket leak and been sealed off temporarily with those sealer, the buyer isn't going to notice anything until 3000miles down the road before recurrence. In that case, the only way to deal with it is to pull the head and check for block/head deck warpage. Because Honda is an all alu alloy block/head configuration, if the head is warped due to overheating, the block deck must be checked for warpage as well. If ultimately, plane-ing both surface costs too much then one shall seriously consider a used engine.

My 2c's worth.

 

[Quest]

Oh and a couple of more pointers mechtech2-

if the exhaust gas smells funny (burning glycol with gasoline does give off a rather "sweet" yet funny smell in the exhaust) and with lots of steam that does not go away after prolonged period of engine operation, also spark plugs that have previously accumulated some mileage suddenly becomes squeaky clean on the ceramic body (pearly white in colour, as opposed to light brown coating), you bet yourself that the headgasket is "torn" most likely due to overheating and head warps and no further questions needed other than to back-track some history from the owner and things like that.

Under all circumstances, oil shall never be able to come into contact with coolant(antifreeze, water, whatever you prefer to use in your cooling system) and vice-versa. Anytime you see oil mixing with coolant, or coolant getting into oil or so, you bet your headgasket is "torn".



Q.

(p.s. I was a provincially-certified mechanic many moons ago)

 

[Brogy]

I second the new motor idea if they want $1000 just to look at it.

 

[ds]

Quest-

We bought the car when it was 3 years old. It was a lease before that. I have taken pretty good care of my cars. I change the oil, transmission fluid, and steering fluid myself as well as spark plugs & all other filters. The dealer has done the timing belt and waterpump about 10K ago along with antifreeze. Brakes have been fine since we got the car. We have only put about 50K in the 4 years we have had it. I guess the previous owner wasn't too kind to the car. My wife doesn't drive it too hard so maybe it is just bad parts. I know a lot of people who drive Hondas and do a lot less than I do to take care of
their cars and theirs haven't had any problems like this.

I didn't do a UOA. I did an Auto-Rx treatment when I first got it and ran Mobil 1 since then. I change the oil twice a year. There was no sign of overheating when my wife pulled it off the road, but there was fluid in our garage that I noticed when I got home later that night.

-DS

 

[Quest]

DS-

Any signs of overheating before this happened? Any other abnormal behaviours observed before this happened?

Sorry if I sounded too harsh on you for I've seen people casually crying foul when they bought a car that was previously abused and were sold to unscrupilous second buyer with serious mechanical defects (so as to let the buyer absorbs the repair cost).

Q.

p.s. fluid on the garage floor that nite? what kinda fluid is it?

 

[Quest]

cont'

If it's green or red but not oily, that's coolant

If it's brown or reddish brown and only, that's either engine oil, transmission fluid or power steering fluid.

Also: a few more questions: what happened during that one faithful day? How long was that ago? Did you continue to drive after that "incident" happened? (if so, for how long?)

Was the cooling system being flushed and replaced with fresh ones by your dealership? (I know some questionable dealership actually reuse old coolant even though it has clocked over 100,000kms) Did they also replace the thermostat during the t-belt change?

so many questions, so little time...

q.

 

[ds]

Quest-

Don't worry about sounding harsh. Your argument is valid. You need to take car of a car to make it last, which is exactly what I was trying to do.

I am not sure what type of fluid is on the garage. It looks dark and doesn't smell sweet so I am assuming oil. It never leaked oil before, only the occasional drip right after an oil change. My wife told me (after the fact) that it was leaking the night before. No other abnormal behaviors. We were both really looking forward to her payments being over in the next year and not having to worry about anything going wrong with it.

-DS