took my car to honda shop and got a dignostic. 2 things were noticed:
1) i have a week battery [no biggie; gonna replace it this weekend]

2) my purge valve is shut and wont open. the estimate to repair is about 295$ and there arent any guarantees that it will be repaired. if any else is discovered that is problematic there will be extra fees.

any one know how to fix this?

 

What was up with the car that you took it to a shop to begin with? CEL on? Which car?

 

CEL light was on. No symptoms just turned on. Did the DIY CEL check and got code 90. Evap emission control system. leak detected. so i took it to the shop and they got down to the details saying that the purge valve was shut and wouldnt open. There arent really any differences... i cant really feel and power difference... but then again i havent driven it hard since the light has been on. I did notice that my gas has been burning a little quicker.

Can anyone give any suggestions?

 

*bump

 

Is this what's "broken"? ( http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors...ZWDVW )

 

So i went to an acura/honda specialist shop and mechanic basically said he doesnt think that's the problem.

He claims to have called the dealer that i went to and the mechanic said that the people at the dealer had no idea what he was talking about when he read the diagnostic off the sheet that the dealer gave me.

The mechanic gave me a basic price based on what i told him and its about 20 lower than the dealers price. But he feels strong when he says that the purge valve isnt the problem.

However, he cant do anything [diagnose the problem himself] until the check engine light comes on again [the dealer reset it after their diagnostic].

The problem isnt that serious. The only thing that is different since the light was on is that i consume gas a little bit quicker than usual.

I know many of you probably dont have any advice you can give me but... is there anyway i can get that check engine light on again? [i.e. read the same codes it was giving me before]

 

How did the light dissapear in the first place? Did the mechanic reset it?

To make the story short, I purchased a brand new purge valve, swapped it out, and the light never came back on, until a few weeks later.

This evap CEL 90 shouldnt cause any performance decreases.

Are you trying to get it solved? If so, please post results; I have the same problem, but I sorta gave up on it. Chances are, it isnt the purge valve, as you mentioned.

 

is the purge valve really needed? my brother has a b17a into a 94 cx and he doesn't throw a code for the purge valve. it's not hooked up because we ran out of plugs to connect to the purge valve. he doesn't have any problems running without the purge valve and doesn't consume a lot of gas either. just my 2cents

 

the mechanic did reset the light and i think it was to make business off me and so i couldnt go anywhere else.

i think itslike illegal for mechanics to start their business unless the light is on. its weird, why would they reset the light if the problem's still there.

as the 'purge valve problem,' ive kind of give up on it. my financial expenses need to be taken care of therefore those are my concerns as of right now.

has anyone had any "serious" problems from the purge valve?

 

I've been driving my 2000 with a purge valve code for almost 2 years now. No decreased performance, no decreased mileage. Some evap codes can be caused by a loose or missing gas cap, so wait to see if it comes back.

This can be a difficult code to track down. The reason I haven't fixed mine yet is because I've flowcharted the problem back to the purge solenoid in front of the gas tank and lost motivation to drop the gas tank (you can't get to the valve from the access panel). I've replaced the valve on the fuel rail. All electrical checked out up to the ECU, and all mechanical/vacuum checked out from the firewall forward.

So yes, you can drive with this code with no performance hit. Yes, it would be better to fix it, but it is a severe pain for a shop to figure out. If you're taking it somewhere, I would almost suggest printing the flowchart for that code from the Helms and giving it to them, so they can diagnose the correct part before charging you to replace a bunch of stuff that's good.

EDIT: do you know what 5-digit code you're getting? a CEL 90 should correspond to a 5 digit that shows on the scan tool... your particular problem might be slightly different than mine. I'm throwing a P1457.