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A buddy of mine gave me his used Acura TSX 2004, automatic trans. It has 250,000 highway miles.
It threw a code: P2647 while idling. I turned the car off quickly, as it sounded like it was misfiring. Oil is not low.
I have done a lot of research, which has led me to remove the VTEC solenoid assembly. The oil pressure valve appears to be in good condition based of the resistance readings while under pressure and no pressure.
But checking the solenoid valve, i am grounding the body and applying 12VDC from the car battery to the two terminals in the connector. I don't hear any clicking of the valve. The resistance between the two pins is 18ohms, which from what I have read is good. Am I doing something wrong here? I don't want to order this $150 part if its not defective.
Any help is appreciated. The car is in great shape otherwise.
Try three things before you get a new vtec solenoid.
1) Clean all the terminals of the used Vtec solenoid and put it back on the car.
2) Change oil and filter. Put in an entire 5 quart container of new oil. This should make the oil level rise above the top mark on the dipstick. Verify this by checking oil in the morning before you start your car.
3) Reset error codes using a scanner from a mechanic.
I have taken the entire think apart and cleaned it, including the terminals. It was pretty nasty in there.
I was going to do an oil change before, clearing codes and restarting as well.
What worries me is that this appears to be an intermittent issue. I called my friend (the old owner) and he says this has happened in the past....it comes and goes.
Before I put it back together, i have to order another gasket. The one in there broke while removing it - it was very brittle.
Do you have any feedback on how to actuate the solenoid. If I knew for sure the thing was bad, I'd be happy to fork over the $ for a
About a couple of months ago, I was also having problems with this part. Throwing the same P2647 code. It ran horribly when cold and starting in morning. It was missing. Like one cylinder was not firing. I was ready to buy new part. But my
mechanic did the three steps mentioned above. The problem has not reoccurred. I have put in more that a thousand miles since. By the way, my mechanic never removed the old part,
I just don't know which of the three steps took care of the problem.
Was it the cleaning of the part and all the wires and all the connections? Or putting in the entire 5 quart container of oil (this will slightly overfill it as it is only supposed to be 4.7 or 4.8 quarts of oil but I have always done it this way)? Or was it clearing the codes with a scanner? Or all three together? or just one or two of the steps? I don't know.
My theory is that changing the oil and putting in all 5 quarts of oil is compensating for fact that my solenoid may be bad. The car will burn maybe half a quart of oil in 5000 miles. I believe, when the oil level goes below that top mark on dipstick, the solenoid is not detecting enough oil and this will set it off. Therefore vtec did not work when car is cold. And it will work when car is hot because oil expands. So I think it is very important to put in entire 5 quarts and overfill the car.
Thanks, as that background info helps! I will let you know what happens when i put it back together. I have to wait for the new gasket to come in.
SO i found how to test the solenoid.
There are two pins on the connector. Look at the wiring that connects to it. The terminal with the green/yellow wire is the ground, and the black wire is the positive. Connect the positive terminal to the positive terminal of your car battery, and the green yellow to the negative terminal. The solenoid switches on and off very nicely. Now i won't spend money on a new one.
After determining electrically that the VTEC solenoid and oil pressure switch were good, I cleaned the solenoid assembly and replaced the gasket/filter. Still had the retched P2647 code and terrible idle/engine shutdown. So then I cleaned all the electrical terminals per your suggestion - still terrible. Then I changed the oil, adding 5 quarts - still terrible. I took the dipstick out and noticed that it was only halfway between the low and full markers. So then I added a 6th quart to overfill past the full mark, per your suggestion - problem gone! It is about half a quart overfilled according to the dipstick, assuming that the distance between the two marks is indicative of a 1 quart fill.
I am extremely happy that the car is acting normal now. Just a little puzzled why it needs 6 quarts to behave. The oil is not leaking - I checked.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Otherwise, I would have given up or spent a ton of money trying other things.
I am glad things worked out for you. But for the record, I only recommended 5 full quarts. I did not recommend 6 full quarts. I think that is too much.
The reason why you only saw the oil halfway up the diptstick after checking is that you probably did not wait long enough to check it. It takes a long time for oil to drain to oil pan and get accurate reading on dipstick. The best time to check oil level is first thing in the morning before you start your car. If you do this, after putting in a new filter and 5 full quarts, the oil level should be past the upper mark.
I don' t want you to mess up your engine. The capacity according to our owner's manual is 4.7 quarts. You are way over. I would either get another oil change or drain some out. It will be free if you drain some oil out. It will be about 40 dollars if you do oil change again. But that is better than a new engine. Put all of five quarts in. If it still runs bad after day of two, buy another quart and just add a little bit at a time. And try again. You don't want to add whole thing at one time.
You did not state whether you used a mechanic's scanner to clear code after the oil change and cleaning out terminals. My mechanic did that. Maybe the code does not clear by itself and that is why it did not work for you first time? I dont know. But definitely drain out some of that oil. 6 full entire quarts is too much!
Prico 82: I think both our Vtec solenoids are worn out. It is good to know we can somehow, someway correct for this by overfilling with a little extra oil but eventually we will have to replace in future? I dont know. But I think the Acura TSX is a great car if you have gotten 250,000 miles on yours and I have gotten 150,000 miles on mine and we can keep driving our cars just by adding a little extra oil and problem disappears!
Ok, so I just went outside to check the dipstick. Did so 3 times. It is at the same level it was yesterday night. With 6 quarts added, it looks like it is only 0.5 quart over the full mark of the dipstick... the oil reaches the first twist of the dipstick. If I remove 1 full quart from where it is now, i will be 0.5 quart below the full mark, which is where I had problems yesterday. Tomorrow I will slowly remove a cup of oil at a time to gauge exactly where the oil needs to be, but even if I remove 0.5 quart to get to the full mark on the dipstick, my car will still have 5.5 quarts inside! I don't understand, because it is not leaking oil. I guess the question becomes should I go by the dipstick measurement or by what the manual says?
I have a code reader which I tried to use to clear the codes. When it did not clear them, I just disconnected the battery. Upon doing so, it still did not calm the car down immediately. It was minutes later...almost as if time was needed for the oil to drain wherever it is going. As far as the solenoid goes, I can say that when I tested it, it actuates great when testing with the 12V battery, and the resistance readings of the terminals are within spec. Not sure if there is other criteria needed to judge the integrity of the solenoid.
I agree, they are good cars. If I get 50k-100k more miles I will be happy.
04-16-2017, 01:30 PM
