> I had it towed in to a Honda dealer for a no start problem one morning.It's
> got 36543 miles on it with an extended warranty. They diagnosed it as bad
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> through this looooong laundry list. Any advice is appreciated.
> Rudy
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They've already taken the engine out? You need to tell them you're a
diesel mechanic. You probably had a dribbling injector which FLOODED the
engine overnight. (search this newsgroup for the many occurrences of
this add problem) The owner's manual explains how you could have started
it, but it's rare that anybody would put two and two together and figure
out it was flooded. That's why it only shows up after an overnight sit.
Dealer is a boob, also. :-)
'Curly'
> I had it towed in to a Honda dealer for a no start problem one morning.It's
> got 36543 miles on it with an extended warranty. They diagnosed it as bad
> gas contaminated with diesel fuel. They removed the tank ,flushed it ,
> refilled it with new gas and it started supposedly. I'm not convinced that
> was the problem. I filled the tank 2 days prior with at least 3/4 of a tank
> of gas.It ran normal untill one morning 2 days later.
classic leaky injector. a coupe of tanks with injector cleaner fixes that.
> I couldn't have
> mistakenly put diesel fuel in it because the nozzle for diesel is bigger
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> it has 3 seperate problems.
> 1) contaminated gas
it's possible a neighbor kid doesn't like you. but the fact is,
contaminated gas is usually pretty obvious just like you say. i'd
question that conclusion. does your sample /smell/ like diesel?
> 2) 1 cyl. with 90 psi
that's definitely an issue that should be covered under warranty. i
don't know how diesel contaminated fuel could possibly cause any
mechanical issue that would cause that kind of compression loss. trying
to run a gasoline motor on diesel simply results in no ignition.
running with a little diesel in the gas means a whole s.load of smoke
out of the exhaust. more diesel, the closer it gets to not running and
the more smoke. none of that will crack a ring or burn a valve or
pierce a piston crown, whatever's causing the compression loss.
> 3)a code for the V-tec system resulting in a bad solenoid which was
> causing a rough idle and a hesitation going on the freeway.
you have two sets of cam lobes. the "high rev" profile will cause rough
idle if stuck, but will be smooth & powerful on the freeway, the "low
rev" will be smooth at idle, but show progressive loss of power above
about 5krpm or whatever the crossover is. a stuck vtec solenoid can't
cause both problems as far as i know. also, i suspect that a vtec
solenoid is more likely to fail closed, so it would be stuck on the low
rev profile, not the high rev one, hence no idle problem.
> I hope I did'nt bore you with this long story .I think there might be a
> possibility of being scammed by this dealership but would like your
> opinion on taking the next step. Thans so much for reading all the way
> through this looooong laundry list. Any advice is appreciated.
> Rudy
i'd definitely question the dealership on this. time to call honda
usa's customer service hotline and explain your problem. tell them you
don't agree with the dealer's diagnosis and why: the contaminated gas
story doesn't fly because of your experience with this fuel and that the
compression issue can't be caused by contamination. you should be
getting a new [free] motor out of this.