Originally Posted by WhizkidTN
Actually, incorrect. As of today we get this from none other than Honda:
Take a good look at that picture!
This is just me, but that one specific picture sure looks more like oil starvation to that journal, NOT a widespread failure due to fuel in the oil. How do I personally make that determination? Well, the discoloration due to extreme heat, and the fact that the cam directly next to the extreme heat is RUSTY.... if there was oil present on the surface and displacing water, no rust would be formed. Also, it's obvious the cam didn't snap until it welded itself to the journal, which generally requires... you guessed it, extreme heat and lack of lubrication. You'll also note that there is no other oil in that photo of the cylinder head... none in the low spots around head bolts, just a bare misting of wetness at best anywhere on that head, which also leads me to buy starvation due to lack of oil rather than fuel in the oil, for that specific photo which is all we can assess from that article. Either way, it's elementary at best: I'm not going to buy a tiny, highly stressed TGDI engine; and Honda (or any manufacturer) is going to blame the cheapest, easiest fix in lieu of an extremely costly recall... which brings us to the quote below:
Originally Posted by Ward's Auto via Honda
The 1.5L, part of the automaker's highly efficient "Earth Dreams" family, is slow to reach optimum operating temperature that would normally cause fuel to readily evaporate and be routed back to the combustion chamber via the crankcase ventilation system.
And there it is, like so many other times people want to blame oil as the culprit... the root cause is actually poor engineering and systems design. We all know that "highly efficient" engines are ones that reach operating temperature quickly so as to get the oil warm to reduce friction and hot to improve combustion through better fuel vaporization!
Originally Posted by Ward's Auto
The repairs involve transmission and engine software changes that allow the engine to warm up quicker, reducing the possibility of unevaporated fuel collecting in the engine oil early in the drive cycle. Ignition timing, CVT control and air-conditioning operations are modified to help the engine warm up and retain heat.
The oil that Honda uses is the exact same as millions of other engines successfully use to travel hundreds of thousands of miles. Just like any engineer knows- when you push past the limit, you generally get burned in very short order. Murphy's law is a MF of the greatest magnitude!
My favorite interpretation of this: "If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will go wrong is the one that will cause the most damage."