John_Cena

Hey everyone,
Two questions:
1. I have a 2018 RDX Advance with about 101,000 miles on it. Vehicle had an excellent maintenance history when bought it. When my rpm is around 1,200 to 1,700 ish I feel some vibration under my foot on gas pedal. looks like the engine vibrates when it switch to 3 cylinder, and then when I press on gas it stops the vibration. I'm not really annoyed with this but was wondering if this is normal or sign of fault or issue with car, if yes what is it and how to fix it?
2. Should I have the engine tuned at some point at this mileage? I feel when the engine is cold, at low speed with low RPM it tends to shift down from 3rd gear to 2nd and the back to 3rd, this happens when it's really cold outside.(not sure if these two are related)

Thanks a lot!

Alex Medeiros

As far as #1, that's common on these cars and normal so don't worry. You can make the car run on all 6 cylinders all the time and drive smoother by getting a VCM tuner/muzzler, but this will trick your car into thinking it's running at a different temperature so if it actually is overheating then you'll never know and possibly cause catastrophic damage.

Now as far as #2, this is generally happening because your car is trying to warm up faster. It will run at a little higher RPMs and shift back and forth to help warm up faster. I notice this happens to me here in Massachusetts when it's below 40 degrees fahrenheit. A tue up is not really neccesary on these cars unless something is wrong, but I'm pretty sure the manual says at 115,000 miles you should have the valves adjusted and such.

John_Cena

Thanks so much!

dtownfb

How long ago did you buy the vehicle? I have a 2017 that I bought used with 40k miles. I had some "quirky" things go on with the transmission in the early months. One thing that helped was discoonnecting the battery so the car would learn my driving patterns.

The onther issue I had was steady cruising at 72 mph. You could see the tachometer fluctuating within several hundred rpms. If I sped up or slowed down, it went away. It went away after the next transmission fluid change.......go figure.

You're due for the timing belt change soon, if it already hasn't been done. The maintenance light will come on. I would have them do a transmission fluid change just to be safe. It's a drain and fill so you can do it yourself.

Kelsen

The S-VCM and VCM Tuner 2 solutions both use a micro processor that intercepts the real value of the ECT1 sensor, evaluates it and then "sends" a corrected resistance to the ECU. When the actual temp is < 160, the actual value is sent. When the actual temp is 165 - 210, the ECU is told that the sensor is reporting 162.5 degrees (just below the VCM activation threshold). When the car starts to get hotter than normal (say, 230 degrees) the device reverts back to actual temperature so all normal warnings stay in place.

If I recall, the original "Muzzler" didn't have this safety feature -- but then, you can't buy it anymore, either.


RFT!!!
Dave Kelsen
--
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.

Alex Medeiros

That would make a lot more sense. Thanks for the heads up!