Honda Car Forum

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. I couldn't have
mistakenly put diesel fuel in it because the nozzle for diesel is bigger
and it does't fit in the filler tube. The handle for diesel has a spring
and also has a green handle.They saved a sample of the supposedly
contaminated gas for me to see as I requested. It doesn't have the
characteristics of diesel in the gas. I know because I'm a diesel mechanic
and I know how gritty and oily it can be.You would think that the car
wouldn't even run .Whats the next step I should take? I still have the
sample of conta. gas they gave me. Do I need to have this analyzed
somewhere? They're charging me $345.00 because the warranty does'nt cover
it.A week ago the eng. started with an internal faint knocking noise like
a rod bearing aside from this no start problem. It's still in the shop
being diagnosed . They took a comp. test finding a low 90 psi in # 2 cyl.
so now they took the eng out to open up the eng to find a problem which is
in progress. No diagnosis yet. At least they're not saying that the
contaminated gas is a result of the low compression. So it it seems that
it has 3 seperate problems.
1) contaminated gas
2) 1 cyl. with 90 psi
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.

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

rudyc wrote:
>
> 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. I couldn't have
> mistakenly put diesel fuel in it because the nozzle for diesel is bigger
> and it does't fit in the filler tube. The handle for diesel has a spring
> and also has a green handle.They saved a sample of the supposedly
> contaminated gas for me to see as I requested. It doesn't have the
> characteristics of diesel in the gas. I know because I'm a diesel mechanic
> and I know how gritty and oily it can be.You would think that the car
> wouldn't even run .Whats the next step I should take? I still have the
> sample of conta. gas they gave me. Do I need to have this analyzed
> somewhere? They're charging me $345.00 because the warranty does'nt cover
> it.A week ago the eng. started with an internal faint knocking noise like
> a rod bearing aside from this no start problem. It's still in the shop
> being diagnosed . They took a comp. test finding a low 90 psi in # 2 cyl.
> so now they took the eng out to open up the eng to find a problem which is
> in progress. No diagnosis yet. At least they're not saying that the
> contaminated gas is a result of the low compression. So it it seems that
> it has 3 seperate problems.
> 1) contaminated gas
> 2) 1 cyl. with 90 psi
> 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.
>
> 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


-----------------------------------------

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'

rudyc wrote:
> 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
> and it does't fit in the filler tube. The handle for diesel has a spring
> and also has a green handle.They saved a sample of the supposedly
> contaminated gas for me to see as I requested. It doesn't have the
> characteristics of diesel in the gas. I know because I'm a diesel mechanic
> and I know how gritty and oily it can be.You would think that the car
> wouldn't even run .Whats the next step I should take? I still have the
> sample of conta. gas they gave me. Do I need to have this analyzed
> somewhere? They're charging me $345.00 because the warranty does'nt cover
> it.A week ago the eng. started with an internal faint knocking noise like
> a rod bearing aside from this no start problem. It's still in the shop
> being diagnosed . They took a comp. test finding a low 90 psi in # 2 cyl.
> so now they took the eng out to open up the eng to find a problem which is
> in progress. No diagnosis yet. At least they're not saying that the
> contaminated gas is a result of the low compression. So it it seems that
> 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.