ChrisF

This happened a month ago on the highway. I wasn’t driving hard or fast. It happened out of no where (while on a first date might I add). The engine all of a sudden sounded like a 2-stroke lawnmower and the engine light was flashing. I put the car in neutral and coasted to the nearest highway exit, lifted the hood to see a hole in the engine. After waiting three hours for a flat bed truck, the car now has been sitting at the dealership for an entire month while I fight over the warrantee. Honda has denied me warrantee due to the lowering of the car.


Honda said they checked all warrantee claims with the TSX for all of Canada, US, Europe, and Japan and no one else has had a problem. The technicians have disassembled the entire head and inspected everything to find no other damage besides the stripped spark plug treads. Has anyone else had or heard of similar issues?

Notes:
OEM spark plugs
No one has taken the plugs out since factory installation
38K km
Car has been properly maintained
Other than the Injen cold air intake no engine modifications have been done.

joerockt

Wow thats crazy. Sounds like either the threads on the plug or the threading was defective. Or maybe it was installed cross-threaded...

Thats bullshit they wont honor the warranty because you car is lowered. What the hell does that have to do with it??

jiggaman

denied because car is lowered..OMG

ChrisF

Yeah I brought in a forensic engineer, to take a look; he found no evidence of cross threading. And the other sparkplugs are fine. So the only thing I can suggest is that it was a sparkplug failure. Unfortunately I can’t prove it as the plug that blew out has either disintegrated or is somewhere at the side of the highway. The dealership quoted me 15 hours of labour @ $95/hr + tax to replace the head.

Viking

keep us updated.

jmathew34

have you spoken with a lawyer yet?

TSX2345

Whoa! What year?

Tsx536

Dang...sorry to see that. That's the first time I've heard of this. Are those the OEM spark plugs? Have you ever changed the spark plugs?

And this ain't right. They shouldn't be able to deny your engine warranty because of aftermarket suspension.

TSXDude

I see that you also have some sort of grounding wires installed, not that it matters.

Feel sorry for you. I've installed spark plugs on my previous car numerous time before, but i never would've imagine something like this could happen. You got me scared now.

I'm curious to whether your forensic engineer has established a possible cause of the spark plug failure. (I also work as a forensic engineer).

bz268

I see there is a red wire running next to the spark plugs. The red wire probably touching or very close to the spark plug wires. This will cause serious problem.

NJTSXMan

OMFG.. that's crazy. Goodluck with the warranty. I don't see how a grounding kit could cause that. The red wire is not at a crazy location.

bz268

I forget the actual name of the system. Honda uses some sort grounding to engage the fuel injector. The system always supply electricity (+) to the wire. If the wire is positive, the valve will close. If it is grounded, the valve will open.

That red wire is probably putting too close to the wire. In the worst case, just like this, the valve will be open pumping gasoline to the cylinder with no control at all. When the spark plug fires.... boooommmbbb!!!

jerzpwr

damn stealerships!

ChrisF

Their argument is that the new suspension changes the driving dynamics of the car. Also since almost all of the work was made at an aftermarket speed shop, and not at the dealership; In Acura’s opinion, it was then never professionally installed. The only part I had Acura install was the rear camber kit which the Acura tech improperly installed three times (never tightened the nut when the right camber degree was made) and almost led to one of the wheels to come loose on the highway - but that’s another story for another day.

2004


Not yet, the threads on the head are all stripped, except for the last two where the plugs probably can’t reach far enough. All the other plugs are torqued to factory spec. In everyone’s opinion it seems to be a mechanical anomaly. We are looking into the spark plug itself it see if there has been any other history of blowouts in any other car.

The plugs are:
NGK
IZFR6K-11
H425

Yeah, but don’t forget that the engine is always grounded to the body, and the body to the battery. I don’t see how adding a second parallel wire near the starter would change anything. The wire you see on the Comptech shock tower brace is connected to the car’s body near the passenger strut, and the negative battery terminal.

fuckleberry

Sorry about what happened
Too bad absolutely crazy BIZARRE thing like this has to happen to a modified car and not some house wife's TSX hmmm
How about telling us your complete mod list

Honda Sales 23

Damn...Keep on Acura (not the dealership) and they will cover it.

frescagod

how did your date end up? was there a happy ending there?

shitbox

holy crap.. that's insane, as i said the dealership is trying to hustle like theres no tomorrow. The problem shouldn't be related to the suspension at all.. they're just trying to give you a bunge of bullshit..
which dealership did you go to?

Chris_F

from one chris_F to another chrisF.... that is ridiculous that they are trying to blame your suspension modifications on a spark plug blow out. To me it seems logical that the car was at fault and not you, this should be covered under warranty no questions asked.

aaronng

No, it's not too close. And if you overfill the cylinders with petrol, you get a rich condition where not all the petrol is burnt and it comes out as black smoke. You get less power if the A/F ratio is extremely rich.

aaronng

Go straight to Acura. And don't give that dealership your future patronage.

curls

If you want to know about warranties in Canada, I have a good story (happy ending). Basic jist of it (2004 TSX, bought used at that!):

- burning lots of oil.
- dealership rebuilt the head and put in new piston rings
- still burning oil.
- dealership replaced the entire short block (new 2006 block).

My mods at the time were an Injen CAI, a short shifter, and a comptech rear sway bar. Only one service advisor game me trouble - the rest were more than happy to warranty a car even with those mods, because there was no way a CAI or anything else could have caused the oil consumption problem.

They are feeding you HUGE amounts of bullshit. BTW, I'm in Canada, too, so they can't say "it's an American Acura thing, not Canadian".

Call Acura Customer Relations at 1-888-922-8729, give them your story, and see what they can do.

Although before that I'd try another dealership in the area to see what they can do -- call them and ask if they can handle your car as you don't like the "whatever" at the dealership you're at now.

Also, it's Acura Canada that pays the dealership for the repair, so them denying you warranty w/o consulting Acura Canada, for something this big, calls for you to talk to the Service Manager (I ended up talking to the Operations Manager and getting things moving that way).

DON'T LET UP IN YOUR FIGHT TO GET THIS WARRANTIED!!

bz268

Try this... Wait till it gets dark. Put a ground wire near the spark plug/injector wire. DON'T TOUCH THE SPARK PLUG WIRE. IT CAN KILL YOU. IF IT DOESN'T, IT WILL BURN YOU. You should see spark jumping all over the place to the ground wire.

aaronng

Your spark plug socket is meant to be in the head and connected to your spark plug.

If you put the ground wire near the insulated section of the spark plug wire, nothing happens.

JTso

iTrader: (2)

There are no spark plug wires on the TSX, only the signal, power and ground wires to the ignition coil pack on top of the each spark plug. You will never come close to the high voltage portion of the spark plug connection as it's down deep in the cylinder head. On top of that, there is a plastic cover over the coil packs.

aaronng

^^ yup, I meant the signal, power and ground wires.

bz268

Then the red wire (or whatever else wire) is touching or putting to close to something else.

aaronng

Before the spark plug blew out, the only thing the red wire was close to or touching is the Comptech (i think) strut bar and the power steering fluid line!

JTso

iTrader: (2)

The only thing I can think of is the spark plug was not tight enough and somehow work itself loose. Eventually, one combustion cycle blew it out. I've had loose spark plug before but caught it before any problems. The loose plug made an exhaust leaking sound while the engine was running but the car was able to start and run just fine. The plug was forced up slightly and caused the plug wire boot to come off the valve cover. This was on a Civic.

aaronng

He said the spark plug threads had stripped. So I don't think it was loose.

ChrisF

This incident has gone all the way to VP of Acura division and VP Honda Canada. A week ago they sent an engineer from head office come to look at it. I wasn’t at the dealership at the time, but he said since the nuts on the plastic cover were tight and could not be removed simply by using your hand, it was evidence that the cover had been removed and the area tampered with. I cannot tell you how frustrated and angry I was to hear this BS news. As a result of the engineer’s findings Honda has only agreed to pay for the new engine head only, while I pay for the labour. The dealership service manager cannot do anything to help as there is nothing that he can do since the decision came from head office. What the service manager has agreed to do to help restore good faith by paying for the oil change, fix the dent in the hood, knock off an hour of labour, and pay the cost of getting the new head spring load and compression tested.


Better than nothing I suppose.

Thank you everyone, I appreciate everyone’s feed back and support

TSXDude

Whether it has been tempered or not, I wouldn't say using your hand to feel it was 'tight' or not is a good indication. Not really good engineering practice in part of the engineer...

But ya, better than nothing, especially after all you've been through.

Greg-ster

So the engineer is saying that the plastic cover is only "finger tight" from the factory?

So I guess that the rest of Honda's cars are "finger tightened" all over - that might explain the rattles....

I would have blown up if he said that; at least your dealer is trying to help you out

aaronng

What does the plastic cover have anything to do with the spark plug and its threads? The car is not new, the plastic cover, spark plugs and rocker cover would have come off every 2 years for a valve clearance check during servicing. I'd say a mechanic had messed up and damage the spark plug threads when putting it back during one of those services.

fuckleberry

Not trying to suggest it's your fault or factory fault or anything...Nothing, actually I don't think anyone here can because there is lack of both evidence and information.

It's just that I personally can not help but wondering about the ODDS of this freak of an event happening to a modified CL9 such as yours when Honda has been selling the car in 3 continents for 3 years and this is the only known case
Can you imagine what the odds are ?!


BTW, you still haven't told us yout complete mod list

Dr. Evil

Man, that is total BS and would never hold up in court. I took off my plastic cover and had to use a socket set on it. I wonder if your injector on that cylinder failed wide open, flooded the cylinder with gas, and promptly blew the plug. If so you should also see damage to the piston.

Good luck.

JTso

iTrader: (2)

The Honda "engineer" is an idiot. I remember the nuts on the plug cover being very tight when I swapped out for the JDM cover. Certain things are overly tighten on the car, such as the factory oil filter. You should ask the engineer to try the same method on another new TSX. I would take them to court and fight to the end. This is another reason why I hate dealer service.

moda_way

Quick advice... get a lawyer, get the info about what they've done and I know you have a case. Besides, the fact that they've torn your car apart and can't remedy the situation has already mucked up the water enough that they are going to have to return it back to you in a fixed condition. You can't just take apart a car, leave it that way and expect the owner to just pay.

ChrisF

I know, when it happened I thought that there was a problem with the valves. I thought that the exhaust valves didn’t open when the piston came up to push the exhaust out. That’s the only thing that would explain why the plug blew out and the hose for the intake blew open since the pressure could have been too high when the intake valves opened.

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That’s why I requested myself to be in the shop when the technician removed the head. But everything checked out fine. All valves were fine, and piston was in perfect shape.


Mod list:

Ground control coilovers
Koni yellow shocks
Comptech front strut
Comptech rear sway bar
Ingalls rear chamber kit
Comptech short shifter
Injen CAI
Comptech header
GReddy EvoII catback
OEM full skirt
OEM spoiler
Street glow white underlights
Streetglow underdashboard lights
Silver momo handbrake
19” rims
Toyo 235/35/19 proxy 4 tires
Debadged
Privacy tint
Invisible stone guard bra
Infinity kappa full speaker replacement
MTX amp
MTX sub
Capacitor
Viper alarm
Additional ground wires (none attached near the plugs)

drunkenbuda

Shit, sometimes that happen to me too. I over tighten the plastic ring and the damn plastic bent! it pops out sometimes, I think i'm gonna get me a new one and check that stuff everyday.