So it all started with a little difficulty with the engine starting. It would hesitate on cold or semi-warm startups and begin to sputter from the exhaust. Of course white smoke was coming out while it was doing that. Nothing that would choke you to death....just small puffs from the exhaust. Then as the car sat for about 20-30 seconds the white smoke would go away and the sputter would stop.

During the whole time the RPMs were completely at normal idle level and would not fluctuate at all even though the exhaust was sputtering.

On top of this when I was stopped at a stop light on Saturday I noticed the temp. gauge was slowly climbing. It got about halfway between normal temperature and the max before I made it on the highway and as soon as I did the temperature shot down like a rock straight back to normal and stayed there.

When I got to the dealer it slowly started climbing up again and the advisor SAW it. So I dropped the car off.

They ran more tests than NASA could have done on this car. No leaks...no cracks....no holes....coolant level is fine....thermostat is fine....water pump is good.....oil wasn't milky.....NO CEL....never stalled.....and above all else the car ran completely fine during driving without any power loss.

I already have my suspicions as to what it might be. Anybody else care to take a guess?

 

Sorry to hear bro.

ECU perhaps? Thermostat is fine, but other than that, is there another sensor measuring engine temperature that maybe malfunctioning?

 

ECU is good. Only other thing that I can think of that monitors temperature is the coolant temperature sensor..........which is ALSO good.

I don't think the problem is electrical.

 

antifreeze?

 

fan maybe? i know its kinda basic, but its not something that screams hey im over heating.

 

maybe head gasket? just guess

 

that would be a good guess too, but honda told him everything checked out...

 

Do you have any mods?

 

That's a possibility.

From Rico's original post it sounded like Honda only test the cooling system, therefore excluding the head gasket.

 

So what are your suspicions?

 

No he's right. I guess they re-checked and pin-pointed the problem. Head gasket is blown.

And to make matters worse they don't know how it happened and they are refusing to warranty the part because of the presence of the SRI. The technician never linked the intake to the bad gasket, but Honda is still refusing to warranty the part.

What's that you say? Call Honda Corporate Customer Service?

Already tried that to.

They're siding with the dealership and telling me to go f*ck myself. One rep on the phone told me that the intake voided the whole powertrain warranty just by being there. Which doesn't make any sense (1) because of the Magnusson Moss Warranty Act and (2) because that same dealership replaced a water pump for me UNDER WARRANTY just two months prior. Water pump is under powertrain warranty as well.

Another rep told me that basically Honda's position is that since they can't determine whether the intake contributed to the head gasket failure or not that they will not honor the warranty. Obviously it now falls on the dealership to DETERMINE whether the intake contributed. Which they either haven't done or it didn't contribute and Honda just doesn't want to pay up anyway.

So now i'm **** out of ideas and don't know where to go from here.

 

You tell them hey mr fancy tech service rep guy, you tell me How the **** an INTAKE blew a headgasket. Ask him how your sri is anydifferent then their intake or how it would have caused excess pressure in the cylinder head to blow the gasket! Thats what you do. You tell them you want a detailed thought out reasoning of how it contributed and if they can not do that you say heh fix it!

 

Mileage on your car?

Didn't you have a cooling problem with your car in the past? Time for you to lawyer up and begin the PITA process with Honda.

 

I already tried. They said they were just going off of what the Warranty people told them and that there's nothing they (the dealership) can do about it anymore. They won't give me the number to the specific person he spoke to. They just keep telling me to go through corporate....which i've already done.

Long story short. They're not going to fix the car.

 

52K miles....roughly. Doing that will most likely end up costing more in the long run than getting the car fixed.

 

Are you positive the SRI didn't throw off the a/f ratios? If it was running lean you could've started having pre-ignition or detonation which would've put extra stress on the head causing the head gasket to fail.

If you are running a stock ecu or have a maf calibration with flashpro and are using the wrong intake you can change your a/f ratios. The geometry of the intake tube and can change the air flow around the mass air flow sensor if you are using the maf as the primary sensor for fuel tuning.

 

If that were the case then they obviously would have been able to determine that by plugging into the ECU. Then they could have EASILY come to that conclusion and been able to tell me that. But since they didn't i'm assuming that the intake had nothing to do with it.

I have heard no loud knocking noises or anything that would suggest detonation in the engine.

 

So to make matters worse you also paid for an extended warrenty from this same dealership?

 

I don't think they would've even tried to look at the ecu. Once they saw the intake it's game over and an easy out for them......Why waste time and diagnose and trouble shoot when they see an aftermarket part and can just deny the claim.

 

Tuning lean or rich is one thing. Pre-ignition is pre-detenation, that's timing related nothing really with your a/f ratio. Now depending on your a/f ratio you can have a loped idle, 9/10 times a loped idle has nothing to do with timing. Also whatever a/f floats your boat, well floats your boat. Though tuners have their preferences, it's not gonna lend to the destruction of your headgasket, well N/A atleast. How hard did you drive it on a daily basis, honestly?

 

Yeah this is pretty much how it went down in the shop.

 

So then why did they replace my water pump which is also a powertrain item?

An intake causing a blown head gasket to me seems just about as accurate as saying water makes you dehydrated.

Maybe I missed something but can somebody tell me EXACTLY the ONLY things that can cause a head gasket to pop like this? Any seasoned mechanics out there care to explain how the warranty people think that this makes any sense?

 

That's not true. When you are lean you can get knock due to cylinder temps becoming too high because of the lack of unburned fuel which cools the cylinder from running rich. Yes it is primarily a timing issue but not always. N/a cars can get away with running leaner because there is less pressure within the cylinder but you still don't want to run too lean or EGT's will get high and then cylinder temps will get high and then.....what do ya know, detonation and knock and then kaboom! Well maybe not right away but if you were running lean for a few months then I could see head gasket failure.

And you can only fix knock with fuel tuning too a point then the timing needs to be addressed but it should start with timing to fix knock too begin with.

 

They had the car for 3 days. Why didn't they just say that on day one??

You know what I think.....I think they think i'm gonna pony up the dough because they'd rather get customer pay than lousy warranty pay. I think that they didn't even bother contacting the Honda warranty department and just made a decision on their own. I had the SERVICE MANAGER stumbling over his own words because he couldn't come up with an explanation as to why it was denied. He babbled and fumbled like a 5 year old and kept repeating himself saying "we're just going off what the warranty department told us"

Regardless of what happens....they shot themselves in the foot. Because even if I do decide to fix this problem I'll be taking the car somewhere else. So now they end up with nothing. And judging by how slow they've been for the last several weeks i'm sure this is one deal they would have liked to have. I think they got greedy and are trying to swindle me out of money. That's what I think.

But I could be wrong and maybe the warranty people themselves actually erroneously denied the claim on false grounds. Who knows!?!

 

[QUOTE=RICO_;42098282]

An intake causing a blown head gasket to me seems just about as accurate as saying water makes you dehydrated.

QUOTE]

With all do respect you need to read up on maf sensors and how they provide information to the ecu to determine proper fueling to the engine.

Watch some hondata tuning videos and you'll find out why it is important to have a specific size and shape of tubing around the maf sensor. If the size is not accounted for the ecu will not be able to determine the grams/second of air entering the engine and it could run lean or rich.

Air passes over the maf sensor differently if the size and shape of the intake tube is different from stock. If the size is changed you need to have the maf sensor rescaled and calibrated.
If you are using the map sensor for fuel tuning then the size and shape of the intake surrounding the maf sensor does not matter.