i have a 1999 honda accord 3.0 v6 and the check engine on. the code that i pull is insulficient flow to egr. i replaced the egr and still the same problem. i found a few people had the same problem and pulled the honda repair manual a few days ago but i'd rather not go down that road. my question is number one if i drive, will it cause any adverse damage to my motor or will it just affect my power and gas mileage. finally is there honda dealer the only way around this? keep in mind i have tried seafoam a few times already.

 

It may affect the car's drivability. Honda extended the warranty on this for 8 years/80,000 miles. Here is the TSB:

http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq...5.pdf

Even if you passed the warranty extension, contact American Honda, they sometimes will do it under goodwill.

 

I cleaned the EGR ports on my 97 and that seemed to have solved the problem. All the carbon build-up in there does negatively affect gas mileage. Its an easy job but if you don't want to do it any shop would for an hour's labor tops.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by lax1089 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I cleaned the EGR ports on my 97 and that seemed to have solved the problem. All the carbon build-up in there does negatively affect gas mileage. Its an easy job but if you don't want to do it any shop would for an hour's labor tops.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Cleaning the EGR ports on a 6th gen V6 Accord is different than on a 5th gen I4 Accord. Check out the TSB I posted above. Flat rate for the 6th gen V6 Accord is 1.5 hours.

 

yah i have that service manual but i don't want to risk any damage. i have 99k on the car so i'm well over the warranty but what or who is american honda?

 

American Honda is the American corporate branch of Honda. Here is the customer service number from the TSB, (800) 999-1009.

 

have you ever heard of them doing this work for free despite the fact the car is over the warranty?

 

American Honda grants "goodwill" repairs all the time. Unfortunately for us technicians this means more work at warranty flat-rate. But hey, work is work, right? By the way, part of this bulletin is to drill the egr port in the intake oversized and install a stainless steel sleeve to prevent further blockage.

 

I just had my 99 accord coupe repaired at the dealer (120k miles) for what looks like this very problem. They said they cleaned out the intake port (involved drilling) and replaced the EGR valve. My question is I seem to have recall that Honda fixed something related to this before under warranty. Should Honda be paying for this repair since it looks like their original repair didnt work? Dealer charged me about $400 ($100 in parts and $300 in labor and performed it in about 2 hours).

 

V6 accords may need egr valves and port cleanings more than once throughout their lifetime. The port in the intake plenum is pretty small and gets clogged with carbon very easily. It is not that the repair didn't work, it is more than likely the port became clogged or atleast blocked enough to set a DTC again. I have done many V6 accord egr and port cleanings the second time around, although usually by the time they need the second one the warranty is up and it becomes customer pay. Also, with the egr port cleaning/drilling and sleeve installation, the sleeves often vibrate loose and can drop down and block the egr port. I know a few techs that do not put them in anymore for fear of a come back, and it seems to work just fine.

So yeah, on V6s replacing the valve alone won't do it. You will need to pull the plenum and clean/drill the port. Sorry, only way it will work. You will have some performance problems, and probably a misfire here and there that will probably worsen over time if you leave it alone.

 

Is there anything I can do as a consumer to avoid having my port clog in the future? Use a higher/better grade of gasoline? Fuel injection cleaners? More frequeunt oil changes? Driving at higher rpms? Or do I just have to accept this is a problem with this model and plan on the $400 repair job every 60k miles?

 

I suppose using Seafoam occasionally would help a little, but I could not say for sure, and have never heard of it actually preventing the egr port form clogging.

It would not hurt to clean your throttle body and plenum every several thousand miles. It would help to clean some of the buildup out of the plenum, but I cannot say that it will prevent egr port obstruction all together.

I wouldn't go driving at high rpm all the time, but running through the gears at high rpm here and there helps clear up some excess carbon and oil vapor condensation.