So I have not posted here in quite some time. However, now is the time. Its not gonna be a good one.

My 2019 RDX Tech's head gasket blew. I am at 72000 Miles. The power train warranty is 6 years and 70K. I just missed the warranty period.
The dealer did the diagnostic and showed me the pics of inside the cylinders all milky white with coolant and the coolant reservoir was empty.
The car exhibited some power loss and misfires in the upper RPM band at first and then all throughout and that's what prompted me to take it in. After much research on this, I am finding that this is a design flaw by Honda. The 1.5t engines have it worse but I think its only because they have been around longer. We will see the 2.0t's start coming into dealers soon I'm sure.
The cylinder walls have this slit in them to let coolant pass from one side of the engine to the other. However, a slim head gasket sits on top of that slit and thats where all of these engines are failing. Too much pressure and a slim little gasket is trying to hold it together. Damn thing gave up at 60K miles I think. I would think a class action lawsuit is coming. All of you with 2019's beware. Maybe even 2020's. I see an updated part number for the gasket. Don't know when they started to use the new revised part but it damn well wasn't in mine. You most likely will have this issue if you live in a cold climate or get actual winters.

I called corporate to see if they would cover this or at least help me out with it.
They are covering a portion of the repair bill. I believe they should cover the entire thing. This is their fault with some bad engineering decisions they made. I am pretty pissed. I have only owned Honda products from the day I got my license. I have purchased 8 vehicles in that time. I have been VERY loyal to this company. But in my time of need, they screwed me. I'm done with Honda. My RDX has given me nothing but headaches since we got it.

1. Trash Infotainment. Still doesnt work reliably.
2. Transmission goes into limp mode at least once a month when the engine restarts (auto start/stop)requiring me to pull over and restart the car.
3. Rear window shattered all by itself parked in my driveway.
4. The fuel door buzzes at me every time I lock and unlock.
5. The infotainment flashes "Mode Change Unavailable" at me on Hot days. WTF. They tried to fix this and still does it. New wire harnesses and stuff. Total BS. Nothing was fixed.
6. Now Head Gasket is blown.

This piece of shit has been nothing but headaches and heartaches for me and my wife.
I want to love this car because if it didn't have any of these issues, it really is the perfect car for our family. But this trash is leaving us after the repair is complete. Getting rid of it before the next tantrum it pulls F this car. And I will never return to Honda/Acura again. Especially if this is how a loyal customer for 3 decades is treated.

The total for the repair is about $8K and Acura is splitting the bill with me and so i will be responsible for 3K. I know technically I am out of the warranty period but WTF Acura. I hope they get sued out the wazoo for this. I will jump on that class action lawsuit when it starts.Idiot engineers.

Lexus, here I come.

 

This design is what is killing all the small turbo engines that Honda uses in Honda/Acura products. They are doomed.

 

Do you have proof THAT is why your engine popped a Head Gasket? Should be obvious looking at the block/head. Like from the actual motor in your RDX, be curious to see those pics.

Seems like you got a lemon from the jump if you had that list of issues , was it modded/tuned at all?

By your summary, you would think this would be more evident in all the CTR's that are modded with larger turbos, more boost, etc, but I've not seen that at all.

 

No Mods to speak of. This is a soccer mom car basically.

I honestly think it was all the short trips in the winter months with minimal warmup.

The design is what killed this engine.

 

Have they not torn down your motor yet? I'd ask for pictures for sure. Those will tell the story and see if your hypothesis is correct.

I don't see that as being an issue necessarily, with what you are guessing is your issue. There should be enough gasket material there that is sandwiched between the head/block(assuming the head is Tq'd properly).
Pressure should not be an issue unless there was another failure or crack that introduced compression into the cooling system, to THEN make that an issue. But it's all a guessing came until you see your block deck and where the issue stemmed from.

 

So there is a new part number for that Gasket itself which means they updated it at some point after my car was built. The new part is 12251-RPY-G02 and the old is 12251-RPY-G01. So yeah, they made a change which may prevent mine from happening again. But this car is too much of a pain for me at this point. I'm done with it.
I have videos that the tech took of inside the cylinders showing it all wet with coolant. He even shows in one of the cylinders where the failure happened. He does a pressure test as well on the video to show the gasket failed. Acura corporate also agreed with the diagnostic and agreed to pay for part of the repair so, yeah. It is definitely a head gasket failure. I know you don't want to believe this will be an issue in your car but I say keep this in mind. The problem is I don't know how to share it but i assure you, the head gasket is toast.

 

Changes in parts happen all the time, with every manufacturer, I'm not familiar with those PNs but will look up to see what the change was for.
Wish we could see those pictures.

Not anything to do with me not wanting to believe something, I've been playing with and building cars for a long time, always good to see the actual issue to deduce the cause.

 

Coolant was changed before? I wonder if fresh coolant can help…


we had 3-4 cases reported here so far, but very possible there will be more as people start hitting higher miles

 

a coolant change would literally not affect anything related to this post, even in the slightest case, it would have overheated at least to signify something even remotely related to coolant.

 

I don’t know what exactly happened to your head gasket, but if coolant becomes old and corrosive it might start corrosion that gets into head gasket leading to its failure. Obviously this should not happen on 6 year old car with less than 100k miles, and it’s a production or design issue.

 

So quick update. Acura corporate reached out and is helping me with the bill. My portion is now $3,000. Still unacceptable but what can I do. I will just wait for the class action lawsuit when the rest of these engines start having the head gasket fail.
The one thing that really pissed me off is that they didn't even add new spark plugs to the work order. How is this a valid repair. This dealer is incompetent. I will never return. But anyways, i worked out a deal with the service advisor that I could source my own spark plugs as they charge way too much for those. I got them way cheaper at rockauto and they will install them for free as part of the repair. I hope they are using any updated parts but it doesn't matter. The car is gone after the repair. Don't need this ticking time bomb in my driveway. Looking at Lexus now. Jumping to RX350h.

Goodbye Honda/Acura. It was great while it lasted. Honda is trash quality now. Class action lawsuits are in their future. Good Luck Honda. Hope you survive this one.

 

Seems that Ford also decided to put those grooves between cylinders for coolant flow. When the problem became evident, they redesigned the block to avoid that half-width head gasket weakness.

 

I hope Honda/Acura follows suit but alas, it is too late for me. They soured this relationship for good.

 

The big failure numbers are not there yet. We might see more of them as these cars hit higher milesz

 

Are there similar issues with the 2.0T in the Accord???

 

Yes, seems similarly isolated cases like here. Hard to tell what percentage, but its not very high

 

[201@ RDX 98K .
yep me too. bill quoted at 5100. Even my service manager knew something was wrong. The dealership contacted corporate. They have agreed to pay 4000 of it. I am going to go back for the remaining 1100.



withQUOTE=HuKaShI;16990475]So I have not posted here in quite some time. However, now is the time. It’s not gonna be a good one.

My 2019 RDX Tech's head gasket blew. I am at 72000 Miles. The power train warranty is 6 years and 70K. I just missed the warranty period.
The dealer did the diagnostic and showed me the pics of inside the cylinders all milky white with coolant and the coolant reservoir was empty.
The car exhibited some power loss and misfires in the upper RPM band at first and then all throughout and that's what prompted me to take it in. After much research on this, I am finding that this is a design flaw by Honda. The 1.5t engines have it worse but I think its only because they have been around longer. We will see the 2.0t's start coming into dealers soon I'm sure.
The cylinder walls have this slit in them to let coolant pass from one side of the engine to the other. However, a slim head gasket sits on top of that slit and thats where all of these engines are failing. Too much pressure and a slim little gasket is trying to hold it together. Damn thing gave up at 60K miles I think. I would think a class action lawsuit is coming. All of you with 2019's beware. Maybe even 2020's. I see an updated part number for the gasket. Don't know when they started to use the new revised part but it damn well wasn't in mine. You most likely will have this issue if you live in a cold climate or get actual winters.

I called corporate to see if they would cover this or at least help me out with it.
They are covering a portion of the repair bill. I believe they should cover the entire thing. This is their fault with some bad engineering decisions they made. I am pretty pissed. I have only owned Honda products from the day I got my license. I have purchased 8 vehicles in that time. I have been VERY loyal to this company. But in my time of need, they screwed me. I'm done with Honda. My RDX has given me nothing but headaches since we got it.

1. Trash Infotainment. Still doesnt work reliably.
2. Transmission goes into limp mode at least once a month when the engine restarts (auto start/stop)requiring me to pull over and restart the car.
3. Rear window shattered all by itself parked in my driveway.
4. The fuel door buzzes at me every time I lock and unlock.
5. The infotainment flashes "Mode Change Unavailable" at me on Hot days. WTF. They tried to fix this and still does it. New wire harnesses and stuff. Total BS. Nothing was fixed.
6. Now Head Gasket is blown.

This piece of shit has been nothing but headaches and heartaches for me and my wife.
I want to love this car because if it didn't have any of these issues, it really is the perfect car for our family. But this trash is leaving us after the repair is complete. Getting rid of it before the next tantrum it pulls F this car. And I will never return to Honda/Acura again. Especially if this is how a loyal customer for 3 decades is treated.

The total for the repair is about $8K and Acura is splitting the bill with me and so i will be responsible for 3K. I know technically I am out of the warranty period but WTF Acura. I hope they get sued out the wazoo for this. I will jump on that class action lawsuit when it starts.Idiot engineers.

Lexus, here I come.[/QUOTE]

 

Do they have updated part number for a head gasket? What is the root cause, and how do we know it will not happen again with the replacement gasket?

 

Assuming your RDX a 2019 as well - you missed the last digit, but wanted to confirm. Also you response is a little confusing. Acura is going to cover $4000 of a $5100 estimate and you are going back to Acura for the remaining $1100 or are you going back to Acura to have the repair done and you are going to pay the $1100?

 

did anyone get a quote from independent shop to do head gasket? I dont think its very complicated job with this type of engine. $5100 seems a lot.

 

Potentially good point by you. I have never gotten a quote for this type of repair but $5100 is certainly a chunk of change. Bet it could be done for less, but not sure it could be done for less that $1100???

 

$1100 is a good deal, it will cost more outside thr dealer. From my experience dealer prices are usually 2-3 times, so I am guessing $2-3k is probably the cost outside the dealer in a competent shop.

 

Agreed.

 

Here ya go:

 

So the head gasket material is faulty, or there is something else?

 

Looks to be the block design.

 

If that is the case, how do they fix it? Just put same replacement head gasket part number and hope for the best? In another 70k have same problem…

 

Yeah that's what they do for the 1.5ts too

 

Is changing coolant more frequent helps? Its not a corrosion of some kind?

 

Some information I found claims that fuel
dilution can be one of the contributors to head gasket failure…
Another reason I use 5w-30

 

It seems like the issue is caused a mix of factors: Oil Used- 0W-20 vs 5W-30 or other, Fuel Used - Premium vs Regular and Brand of Gas used, Driving Style - Short Trips vs Long trips and Softer vs Harder Driving, Coolant Flushes Frequency, the head gasket material & head studs Honda uses from the factory, and then the engine block design itself.

I wish there was a clearer picture of what exactly causes the issue since it would help Honda/ Acura in getting a fix out sooner. Although, I'm not sure how costly it would be for them to create a fix

 

The issue seems to be the design of block and also gasket. The block has a tinny passage for coolant between cylinder walls, this seems to be the weakest point for gaskets to fail. The part number for gasket was updated, but we dont have any official word from Honda if the updated part supposed to remediate the issues.

There is not much you can do to mitigate it. Premium fuel may help as it will reduce the knock which may weaken the gasket. Driving car with less turbo boost to avoid higher temperatures in the block. Using thicker oil has pros and cons, thicker oil will cool slightly less, but if your viscosity drops due to fuel dilution, more friction can make it run hot. I chose thicker oil to combat fuel dilution. Also change coolant every 50k miles or 5 years and also more frequent oil changes

 

I was at my dealer yesterday and asked my service advisor if any RDX/TLXs had been in for a head gasket. He said only two RDXs so far - a '21 PMC & a '24

 

I don’t think it is prevalent but is happening here and there.

 

Maybe not in some cases, but I am sure excessive turbo boost, abuse does not help either

 

100% agreed. 3.5L V6 > 2.0L Turbo.

 

How much PSI in the intake manifold do you get on a 3rd gen RDX?

 

good question, but generally turbos have higher PSIs and run hotter. If poorly designed, head gasket/block is more vulnerable.

 

Peak is supposed to be 20.5 psi in stock form, and I usually see around that number whenever I have my monitor hooked up. I'm sure a lot of the quick reflashes are closer to mid-20s, but I haven't played around with that yet on my 3rd gen.

 

Interesting. I'd agree with the speculation that boost pressure (and resulting heat) probably has something to do with it.

Even with mods and a tune, I max out at ~18 psi on my first-gen RDX. Stock is I think 13 psi. Less boost with slightly more displacement.

I wonder if an aftermarket intercooler could help the 3rd gen RDX.