My friend has a 93 Accord 10th anniversary edition (not sure what that means), but his car has been running fine all along. Yesterday as he was pulling out work, his car died and would not start. I came back for him, and found that there was no spark, but all I had was a screwdriver so nothing I could do for him.

He had his car towed, and the shop told him that his valve cover was leaking oil into the distributor, and that caused it to short out and he needs to replace it.

Is he getting ripped off? Or does that actually happen?

Thank you all in advance.

 

I've seen the distributor shaft seals let oil leak into the distributor, which can cause problems. Doesn't usually cause anything to short out though. If the only troubleshooting they did was to see the oil in there, i'd be wary.

 

Mybe an increadably large leak, but I doubt it. Much more likely is that your ignitor failed, not uncommon for older accords. I'd still replace the valve cover gasket anyways.

install a new ignitor ( found under the dist. cap - dead simple ) and try that

 

I don't think oil will conduct very well...maybe enough to cause a short ?


Modified by alotawatts at 2:37 PM 1/21/2005

 

I would find another mechanic fast!
I had a rotor screw come lose once and the rotor just quit turning... simple.

 

Well, today, we were able to have a better look at the car, and all parts seemed to be okay, but there was still no spark to be found. The guy quoted him $780 for the following:

Distributor
Ignitor
Wires
Plugs
Cap
Rotor
Valve Cover Gasket

I read up on this, and the 93 did have a reported problem with the distributor, and it was reprted by various customers to the NHTSA, but it was pending and finally dismissed... so this IS an issue (BEWARE). I'll post some links below where I found this info. Anyway, he took the car elsewhere, and was charged $390 for a distributor and valve cover gasket set and all is okay now. Car runs better then ever.

http://www.alldata.com/TSB/932401_en.html
http://earthrenewal.org/are_ho...r.htm

 

If there is oil inside the dist cap the dist shaft seal is shot, pretty simple.
Oil does not "short" out the spark, oil does not conduct ...so when the inside of the cap is full of oil it is the same as if you wrapped electrical tape around the rotor and cap contacts.
This isn't rocket science to replace the dist. and clean out the cap with brake cleaner.

 

check the coil to see if its in spec

 

Yeah, I tried telling my friend that I can replace the dist for him, but he wanted the whole warranty-let-me-sell-you-something-else that comes a long with it... so, $390 later, and he is happy.