jiggaman

well my o2 sensor light came on and acura service says i need a new cat. they are blaming it on my reflash due to increase of gas mixture. i am out of warranty anyways so i am more curious whether people here agree that the reflash could have caused this.

ThirdLane

Did you tell them you have the reflash?

jiggaman

no they figured it out on their own

SERVICEADVISOR

you sure your out of warranty...cats are federal emissions warranty 8years or 80k miles

LukeaTron

How many miles are you at? I can understand how they would see the reflashed ECU and a (I assume) burnt up cat and then say it's because of the reflash. However, that's hardly conclusive enough to show causality. It's a valid excuse for them to stop digging into the problem but that's as far as much water as it will carry.

I wouldn't say people with reflash have anything to be worried about just yet. You were running a stock cat then?

jiggaman

82,000 miles, stock original cat....

jlukja

Personally I doubt that the reflash caused the failure of your cat. But, I'd be hard pressed to prove it. As far as I know the reflash lowers the vtec point (which should have no effect on the cat), and only modifies the fuel maps for closed loop operation (under acceleration, not just when maintaining speed).

jiggaman

yeah i am sceptical too, however between having Injen intake and them figuring out that i have a reflash i don't have much of a strong case to argue. unfortunately those are the risks one takes when modding their ride.

do you think that an aftermarket intake could decrease the life of a cat?

LukeaTron

It wouldn't matter anyway. They can reasonably say the ECU caused the cat to fail and therefore are free of the warranty claims.

LukeaTron

I think what most likely happened is your cat just plain old failed. It does happen. If you do a lot of WOT it may have accelerated the failure due to the increased temperatures. It'd be impossible to say that the reflash or the CAI played any part at all with a sample size of 1.

If you were to collect info on the lifespan of a lot of people's cats and the mods they have you could maybe draw some conclusions. Even still, it'd be hard to say conclusively as it would be difficult to put bounds on all the variables.

jiggaman

i agree, now i am on the hunt for lowest price cat/o2 sensor i can get.

CarbonGray Earl

I just haven't heard of enough cats failing from reflashed folks around here to believe what stealership has to say.

If they make you pay cat replacement, I say screw that and buy the 06 cat off of oemacuraparts.com or acuraoemparts.com.

chuson

It seems like if you need to replace your cat, get the 06 OEM cat w/ less cells.

Are you sure your OEM cat fail and not just your secondary O2 sensor? My CEL pop on and the O2 sensor fail because the A/F is rich, but then the HFC is still fine.

jlukja

I think an aftermarket intake would have even less to do with a cat failure than an ECU reflash. I agree with Earl, if you're going to go the OEM route, go with the 06 cat.

vthree

iTrader: (1)

sorry to hear jigga!. i sold my 06 cat already too. but somebody else up here had one lying around...

Tsx536

I would just replace the O2 sensor first and then see if you have problems after that. You can just do the O2 sensor since it's absolutely necessary and then replace the cat whenever you can come across a good deal on one. Good luck man!

jiggaman

update: i guess there was some class action suit which has extended owners warranties by 5% so now my mileage is in the coverage range again. service manager said he was going to take care of it for me.

wow

jlukja

^^ Wow is right. That's almost 180-degree turn around. Count your lucky stars and don't say anything that might lead them to change their mind. Still strange though since this should still have been covered by the emission warranty as SERVICEADVISOR stated above.

FYI, yes, the class action lawsuit was due to Honda/Acura odometers overcouting the mileage of cars by as much as 5%(i.e. the odometer may read 50K miles but your car actually traveled only 47.5K miles). The settlement basically added 5% mileage to all warranties.

CarbonGray Earl

very interesting....I heard of this 5% overcount thing too. Wonder if we could use it to argue trade in values as well.....

jlukja

I think Acura lease customers are taken care of. Not sure how it would affect trade-in for new purchase. Probably wouldn't make too much of a difference, we're talking 2500 miles on a 50K mile car.

CarbonGray Earl

^^Ya, I just figured that too. Even at the extended mileage I'm keeping my car to, it might get me floor mats or a "protection package" but nothing more.

godfather2

nice that they are gonna take care of it, otherwise i would've suggested that it would be a good time to go with an rt cat

SERVICEADVISOR

I always forget about the vaugn 06-050 campaign it makes the cat warranty 84,000 I just check the conversion chart I have replaced plenty of cats on cars that look suspect but as long as the code is there and nothing grossly obvious has been done to pcm/cat converter we handle it under warranty. we make money for replacing it under warranty duh.

tsx 2 nv

you should have said "what's a reflash? does TRD make that?"

ThirdLane

It was my understanding that Hondata leaned out the fuel mixture on the reflash since the stock TSX tend to run a bit rich

jiggaman

yeah i am pretty sure they were just trying to screw me over, fortunately the service manager took a different approach.

Tsx536

Yeah, they leaned it out in certain areas. Making the mixture leaner is what makes more power.

daddydliv

I've had a reflash and CAI for about 110,000 miles and no problems yet. I say "yet" with much confidence based on my other recent experiences with this piece of crap car.

LukeaTron

This is only kind of true. Leaning out the mixture will make the flame front move faster. If you optimize the mixture so that you reach peak pressure when the cylinder is half way down you will extract the most torque because the crank is at 90 degrees. In this position, the piston pushing down will most efficiently convert that energy to rotational moment on the crank.

Technically speaking, the more gas you can burn, the more power you will make. To increase the amount of gas you can burn you need to increase the amount of oxygen available as well. Your only options are cramming more air into the cylinder under pressure (turbo or supercharger) or making more space for it (increased displacement).