Bad Piston Ring
 

Hi there,

I have a 08 TL 3.2L w/Nav 82k miles, black exterior/black leather interior. Last Friday out of the blue, (after just replacing the control arms/bushing, front struts, and 4 new Continental ExtremeContact DWS06 tires), I started getting misfires and grey smoke. Long story short, a piston ring is bad. I'm trying to decide if I should put a salvaged engine in or have the current engine rebuilt. Rebuilding will cost over 3k. There's a dude offering to put in a salvage engine (claims it has 90k) in for 1800 total. Other shops are saying about 3-4 k either way (rebuilt or used engine). Apparently the 3.2l has a known issue for oil getting into the pistons so there's not guarantee that a salvage engine won't have the same or other issues.

Rest of the car is awesome, leather perforations are cracked from my dog and the nav rom in truck is giving me the disk reading errors. Otherwise car is a So Cal car with low miles for a honda/acura.

The car's private party value is probably about 8-10k. Trade in will be 4-6k. Not sure I can get much of anything for it with the engine issue from a dealer at this point.

Anyone out there that had to deal with replacing/rebuilding their engine?

I had to deal with an engine replacement due to a bad ring. It was my own fault however. I've rarely heard of bad rings on these engines. I think you've just had some bad luck unfortunately.

I'd probably shoot for the engine replacement if I were you. I'd consider rebuild only if you're going to be adding performance items such as forged pistons/rods, sodium filled valves, high performance stuff like that. If not, I'd go with engine replacement. Cheaper and just as effective, especially for an 11 year old car. Just make sure you get some sort of indication of where the engine came from and the mileage before you pull the trigger. And make sure the shop doing the replacement performs the highly recommended service to the new engine. You should definitely replace the timing belt, water pump, tensioner pulleys, gaskets and thermostat. It's common to also replace spark plugs, radiator cap and motor mounts if needed.

because this engine is shared across the honda line up....used engines are CHEAP and PLENTIFUL.
and is exactly what I did when my car over-revved and damaged the heads.... I bought a used engine for $650 and had my mechanic install it for another $650.
in total, about $1300-1400 with fluids and timing belt.


WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better financially then spending $3k to fix it

So, I'm curious; what leads you to believe you have a bad piston ring? While not unheard of, it is a pretty damned rare happening on these engines.

Thanks for the opinion. Curious, why do you say it was your own fault?

My trust worthy mechanic told me so. He would not be the one doing the repair/transplant so he's not trying to profit off of me on this. He's been on point so far with other issues and he spent the weekend with the car replacing spark plugs testing etc... What else could the misfires and oil burning be caused by? Also, so noticeable lag at times when going from idle.

Thanks dude. Yeah, I would just need to find a reliable engine.

Is there anyway to verify the engine is in good shape or even the mileage if it's coming from a salvage yard reseller? The worst would be to spend the money and then within a year or so have an issue with the engine.

The thing is, bad rings do not just happen, and no, these engine are NOT known for getting oil into the cylinders. I'm still not convinced your mechanic knows what he's talking about. Did he borescope the engine and see a torn up cylinder wall or something? Or is he just making an educated guess?

junk yards usually state the condition of the component, test it, and then give a short 30 day or 90 day warranty.
with the internet, this makes it easy, as Car-Part.com--Used Auto Parts Market rummages through junk yards and will list the components you need by location.
enter in the year, make, model, component needed, and zip code... and the results will be junk yards with what you need, in a table data base form. you can filter by location, price, and other criteria.

in this table, it will list what condition it is in and if it has been tested.
engines will be tested to see if it runs.

I picked up a used 2005 J32 engine with 100k+ miles on it...these things are tanks and All i did was change the oil and it has been serving me well since 2015

I'll ask and perhaps get a second opinion. I called another Honda specialist I've gone to in the past and he was the one who said the 3.2l is prone to leaking oil.

Thank you for the help!

Yes, there are a few leaky points, but none which could cause a bad ring.

could be a plugged catalyst....:dunno:

Do at least leak down test, and like horseshoez asked, take a look inside the cylinder. Oh and which cylinder is supposed to be bad?

Sorry for questioning, but like other said, having bad piston ring is quite uncommon. You sure it's not just leaking?

I explained it in more detail in another post, but I'll try to make a long story short(er). I gutted one of my catalytic converters (removed the substrate) but didn't do a great job cleaning it all out. Unbeknown to me at the time, the engine can actually suck up the exhaust in some situations, like when the car is moving but the throttle is closed (e.g. coasting). Shortly after I gutted the cat is when I noticed the oil consumption. When the engine was replaced and we tore down the old one, we confirmed that it was indeed ceramic substrate from the catalytic converter. There were deep scratches in the #5 cylinder wall. We also found a couple of chunks of substrate lodged against the piston rings. Bad news. And an expensive lesson learned.

Oil consumption can be from a lot of sources, and doesn't always indicate a "bad" ring as much as a "worn" ring or leaking valve seal. And of course, leaks can be the culprit. The rear main seal, cam seals and valve cover seals can leak, though if it were significant you'd probably see oil spots under the car. I may have missed it, but did you say how much oil you're consuming? When I had a bad ring/cylinder liner, I was consuming a quart every 200-300 miles. If you're talking a quart every couple of thousand miles it's probably not too serious. And like horseshoez said, you should see if your mechanic has a boroscope that he can check out the cylinders and piston head with. That will give you a good idea as well. Not to mention looking at the spark plugs to see if there's any fouling.

When my engine was consuming oil, I never had misfires, lagging or rough idle. Those NGK Iridiums seem to fire no matter what. Granted, the plug looked like crap when I removed it, but it kept on going:

Neither of these are pictures of my spark plugs but they're pretty much exactly what I've seen. The first being normal, some orange or red deposits but usually the insulator is still white, or off white.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/acurazi...7c81770a7a.jpg

This one is a spit image of what my cylinder #5 plug looked like. The spark plug was literally coated in WET oil and had little chunks of what I presume was partially burned oil/carbon.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/acurazi...32560f9bc2.jpg



And here's the head taken off my old engine after removal (actual picture):

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/acurazi...37bd303f58.jpg

Can you tell which cylinder was burning oil :ugh: Doesn't take too much skill to see. The #4 and #6 (outside valves) are dirty as well due to recirculation of so much oil mist via the PCV. I don't have a picture of the rear head but it was much much cleaner. Typical of what you'd expect from an engine with 100K miles. A bit of deposits, usually orange or grey in color. But no buildup and NOT BLACK. :tongue:

The compression test on my engine still came back good. Slightly less than the other cylinders but still at about 95% of what the good ones were. It's possible for the oil control ring to be worn/damaged but not the compression ring. So a compression test would let you know if the compressing ring was bad, or if the valves aren't seating correctly (damaged or incorrect timing) but a leak down test is probably the best way to go. Especially if you do a dry and wet test.

You're mechanic should definitely do a leak down test on all cylinders before you go forking out the cash for a new engine. It may take a bit of time, probably a couple hours to do a thorough job with the dry and wet tests, but if it saves you a few thousand bucks then it would be worth it.