Hi, I have been coming to this board for a long time, you guys are very helpful and I used to be able to find most of my answers just by searching the thread but I can't find the answer to my problem. Please read my story and tell me your thoughts, I am very worried right now.

I have 2003 CL Automatic with 107k miles. It is very very kept, never abused, everything used to work flawlessly. Recently I noticed that after 30-40mins of driving if I shut off the car (fuel up, get coffee), when I restart the car it doesn't start from the first turn as it usually does when cold. It takes a few turn overs to finally start and then runs a little rough for a minute, but once I give it throttle it starts running smoothly again. I never had CEL on. I thought maybe it was time to change the sparkplugs. So, I put in Iridium NGK, new air filter. Didn't make any difference, but still never CEL. Mind you, I never drive it hard, it is very rare that I will accelerate fast enough to get RPM above 4k/min.

Anyways I started to think that maybe a new timing belt and water pump would be in order. There is a guy where I do my oil changes who told me that he used to be a Honda mechanic and promised to do a superb job, so I agreed. This is where things started getting fishy.

I dropped my car off at 7am, the mechanic told me he would have it done by noon. Long story short, I was able to pick up the car only at 9pm. He told me that first time he did it the timing was off, so he had to redo it. He told me he took it for a test drive and everything was in order. When I started the car for the first time after timing belt job I heard a new clicking/ticking noise from the engine right away, it was also running louder than the quiet humming engine it used to be. The ticking/clicking corresponded with RPMs and faded out >2k RPMs. But anyway, i drove off without thinking much. 3 days later I was on a 30-40min drive and when I was coming to a stop I felt engine running rough. Soon Check engine light started flashing and it continued to run rough. I know these symptoms of misfire. I pulled over and gave it a little throttle, RMPs evened out and check engine stopped flashing. I started driving again, as I was in the middle of nowhere late at night. I barely made it home, when CEL came on solid along with TCS. I shut it up and didn't drive it since.

I pulled codes next day: P0300, P0301, P0303 and P1399.

I am mad a hell. I am thinking about couple of scenarios:

1. Mechanic put on timing belt on, bent the valves, put it on correct the second time and I am just dealing with consequence of occasional misfires due to slightly bend valves.

2. Valves were slightly bent, but with me driving the car I completely ruined the engine?

3. The mechanic is a complete deuche who doesn't know what he is doing and put the timing belt on wrong and I just need to re-allign the marks on crank, cam's my issue will be fixed?

4. What I am experiencing has nothing to do with timing belt and maybe I just need to clean my EGR ports, check coils, valve adjustment?

I called the mechanic and he said he will take a look at it, but now I wonder if I should risk dealing with that guy again.

please help. I know many of you changed your timing belts at this point. Anyone had this issue before?

Thank you for taking the time to read this! Thank you.

 

If the timing belt is changed and there's new noises whereas there was no noise before the belt was changed, that's a sign there's a problem that now exists from installation error. It could be a many number of things.

I would not assume anything but it seems that this guy needs a chance to fix his possible mistake and you should hold him accountable for what its worth if he damages/ruins anything on your car.

 

I'd be worried driving the car if the timing belt is at all off... Even potentially. But the motor may has residual damage even after the issue is fixed if it is a timing belt issue.

There is just not telling

 

Something along this line. I'd be hesitant to let him try to fix the problem though. You can make a mistake doing a tbelt but that's why you double check everything and don't say "well that's close enough"

 

That is the only thing I have never had the balls to do on any car.

 

So I took the car back to the mechanic and was very nice about the whole thing. I just told him, "hey, I have a check engine light on and here are the codes I pulled. Do you think this can be related to timing belt or a whole new issue"
His explanation was that if a timing belt is off even by 1 tooth the car wont start; its all or nothing. He recommended that I replace the coils/sparkplugs. I told him that I did that few months ago and didn't have an issue. So he just shrug his shoulders and suggested that maybe it was a temporary thing. He deleted the codes and told me to come back if the car misfires again.
You guys going to get a kick out of what happened next. I googled the issue and a youtube vid came up with clogged EGR valve. So I decided, what the heck, its a 30min thing and costs nothing. When i took off air intake manifold I was surprised to see how much gunk i had. It was clogging off the passageways and solidified. 3 bottles of carb cleaner and it was clean again.

I still have ticking/clicking noise when the car is running, correlates with RMPs but it runs smooth and no misfires. Put about 100miles since cleaning the air intake, no misfires yet.

side note, Just received a letter from Acura: recall on my airbag inflator. I'll ask them to see if they can find anything wrong with my car when they do recall.

 

I will correct one thing I found wrong with what the guy is saying. I have done lots of timing belts on Hondas and Acuras and they will run even if the timing is a tooth off or even 2 teeth. It will throw a check engine light for camshaft position sensor out of sync. But it will run. As for your misfire issue, it sounds like you found it with the clogged EGR ports; a common issue with that year car. Another thing to check if you're still having problems though would be your PGMFI main relay. Also a common problem with that car and similar symptoms where after driving for a while and warmed up, car will run rough or not start. Just some food for thought.