i have a buddy who just had his engine rebuilt by a shop that has had his car there many times. originally he was having an oil consumption problem and the folks at the shop told him they would fix his car for sure. well, the first time they supposedly fixed it they did a valve job and did a compression test to check the rings. he was told his rings were good. so he got the car back and still had the problem. the mechanics at the time were stumped and my friend was left frustrated since they took a lot of money from him and told him the car would definitely be taken care of. well, i told him if they squared away the head as a culprit for the oil consumption problem his oil control rings have probably worn out. so he takes the car back to the same folks who were suppose to take care of the car. after they ripped it open they said he probably blew the oil rings out after the fact that they fixed the head problem. so after all this i convinced my friend to tell them to do a complete rebuild of the motor since they have it open. i told my friend to ask them for forged pistons and rods. they said they installed forged rods and pistons but still havent told him what brand they are or what the compression the pistons are rated at. not only this but they said that in the process of him driving his car back to the shop to have the engine worked on the second time he ruined his ECU. i was like what the f***?!! this is a 2000 gsr we're talking about. and my friend does not ever tamper with the car cause he doesnt know how to fix cars so he lets other people do it. so they charged him $350 for a new ECU.i told him that the shop fried his computer in the process of installing the engine or removing it and they are the ones to blame. they are the only ones who work on his car. i told him he got ripped off. but since its his dads friend who owns half the business he wont make a complaint. so he has the car back now and the engine builder put in a semi synthetic blend and told my friend to not drive the car hard for the first 1000 miles. but they did not tell him to do vacuum pulls or not to run the engine at a steady rpm for too long. they didnt give him any specifics on how to break the engine in. so i gave him my advice and i sent him the motomans break in procedure and he just wont take it. he thinks because his dads friend who has been a mechanic for 20 yrs the guy knows what hes doing. last but not least my friend has a CEL on and i have been telling him to bring his car by or i stop by so i can scan his computer. hes been a lil busy but i just want to help him out. we're pretty sure its his 2nd o2 sensor because it never got replaced even though his primary was by the guy who has been ripping him off. the guy tells my friend not to worry about the check engine light and to continue breaking the engine in softly. i dont agree with the way the guy is handling my friends car but i cant do much. i told my buddy it wouldn't hurt to replace the other o2 sensor even though its his secondary one. i also told him if i was him i would change the oil at at 100 miles or at least at 500 miles but i think he wants to wait until 1000 miles go by. i was wondering what you guys think about this situation?

 

you can lead them to water but you cant make them drink.

 

lol.... i know bro. my friend has put a lot of faith into this guy even though he hasnt done the greatest job throughout the whole matter.

i am wondering what everybody thinks of the mechanics advice for breaking in the motor.

 

You need to find a new friend. Friends like that make me wanna punch babies

 

hahaha... hes cool. its just that he doesnt see the situation like i do. im sure he is also glad to just have the car back. if this doesnt work out i think he might consider just selling the car even though its in great condition all around. one thing i can say and i think most people will agree with me on is its hard to find a reliable mechanic these days. at least one that knows what hes doing and is honest.

 

Educate your friend, that mechanic is using the same break in practices that were "cutting edge, or the industry standard" 20 years ago when he first became a mechanic.
Educated your friend and his mechanic on the advancements of metalurgy, machinery, and oil, and how much they have changed since then. Teach them that break in procedures have evolved with the times as well my friend

 

This is why I have always professed that a compression test will tell you *nothing* about your oil control rings. You could take the oil control rings off the pistons and have good compression readings. Oil control rings have 1 job - controling oil. They do not seal compression so neither a compression test or leakdown test will tell you anything about them. So I think his diagnosis was incomplete and he should never have let the customer pin him into promising it would fix anything. Oil consumption problems can be difficult to diagnose, especially in cars with catalytic convertors. I don't think the shop handled it very well according to your story. You need to supply more info about the ECU because you never really said why it needed to be replaced.

It is my opinion that engines should be broken in hard, with several specific driving styles to help break in the rings. You should never break-in an engine with the check engine light on, period. Even if you check and record the code, if there happens to be another error, you will never know, because the check engine light is already on. The system is there to help you. If you disable it you are ignoring a very useful tool.

 

thank you for responding Scott. The mechanic never told my friend why they had to replace his ECU. They just told him that he, "my friend," ruined it by driving the car in the condition it was in. they said it was on its way out. which we all know is bull$hit because honda ECU's dont just stop working for no reason. i wonder if the guy even checked the main relay before telling my friend the ECU was no longer working. i told my buddy i have 17 year old ECU and it works fine. so the guys story telling my friend the ECU stopped working because he drove it to the shop. which doesnt make any sense because he would of never got to the shop if the ECU wasnt working. like i said before, my friend did not mess with anything. he never does the work on his own car except the occasional oil change. one thing i do know is if you try to test the alternator by taking the negative cable off of the battery while the car is one there is a chance you can damage the ecu... and this is a method used by many old skool guys. i wonder if he did this. or reversed some wires in the process of installing the engine

 

If the ECU had to be replaced there was either a check engine light on or there was a driveability problem. So your friend must have had a specific complaint.

There is nothing with a bad ECU you can 'make worse' by driving on it. If its bad, it needs to be replaced.

Removing a battery cable while the engine running is not an 'old school' test, it is an uneducated mechanic test. There is no reason that would ever need to be done as a test.

 

my buddy had been driving the car around with the check engine light on for quite some time. but there was no real driveability problem after he got the car back for the first time. my friend never made a complaint about the ECU. he just got a call out of the blue around the time they told him he was suppose to get his car back. thats when they told him he needed a new "power control module." before he took the car back for the second time it was missfiring and they told him cylinder three was the culprit. they didnt bother to tell him why the missfiring occurred. one thing they are terrible at is explaining to him what they found out to be wrong and how they addressed the problem. what surprised me was the fact that the mechanic at this shop new he had a check engine light on a never bothered to scan the ECU. i mean they had his car for a month the first time and about another month for the second time but it would of made sense to replace his secondary o2 sensor. all they told him was, "the other o2 sensor would of taken a lot of work to replace." so i figured it was not his primary o2. one thing i can say is i dont know what the hell these guys did to destroy his ECU. and im also wondering if the break in advice is coming from the mechanic or the machinist. Scott, what is your take on people using a synthetic blend as for break in oil. he was told they used a special oil for the break in process.

 

btw, i posted this thread up for my friend to read. hoping to further persuade him to use different approach for breaking in his engine. i also told him not to drive the car with the check engine light on. which is the opposite of what the mechanic told him.

 

if any other people would like to add their two cents to this thread i would greatly appreciate it

 

It's usually recommended that engines be broken in on conventional engine oil for about the first 1000 miles or so. It depends a lot on how the engine was built and the ring material and cylinder wall surface finish on how critical this is. I can't say that he is definitely going to have any ring seating problems using synthetic blend, but why risk it? I am a huge proponent of synthetic after the break-in period, though. What is this 'special oil' they used and if it has already gone through a break-in process why is it going through another one?

It sounds like what you are saying about the ECU is when he brought it back to them the second time it was misfiring and he knew this. If this is the case it is very well possible that the ECU was causing the misfire and it is not the shops fault. However, there are a million other things that cause a misfire so did they do *any* other work when it was in the shop the second time?

If this shop is reputable, they should have supplied a receipt that lists all the work done as well as a written explanation of why it was done.

 

i doubt the ECU was causing the car to misfire. do you honestly believe its plausible for a 9year old ECU to start misfiring then just stop working completely? whats funny is the car started misfiring a few weeks after he got it back the first time. so what ever they did i doubt we will ever be able to find out what caused the misifring. i been asking my friend if i could look over the receipt's or record of what was done in the first attempt to repair the car and the last time they worked on it. i must say, the shop seems very unprofessional. i also wonder if they did some sort of breaking in before they handed the car off to my friend. i thought most professional engine builders use conventional mineral oil or Dino oil for breaking in rebuilt engines. i am going to try and get in touch with the machinist who worked on my friends engine and find out if he agrees with what the mechanic said about the breaking in of the engine. the advice might be coming straight from the friend of my buddys dad. this whole thing seems like a classic case of a mechanic taking advantage of somebody who has no knowledge about cars.