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Hello everyone,
I’ve been lurking on these forums for the last several weeks and the info has really helped so thank you! But now I’m stumped…
I’m sure I will get a lot of eye rolls while explaining this story and I get it, but hear me out. A month ago I purchased a 2017 RDX Advance sight unseen from the auction for what I felt like was a good price ($6700 shipped). It was last registered (8/2022) with 65k miles on it but didn’t have keys so the auction photos didn’t show the current mileage. I took the risk thinking WORST case it has 100-120k miles now.
Upon delivery it had some exterior cosmetic issues but the interior was unbelievably clean. I had a locksmith cut new keys and the engine would crank but not start. No problem, new battery, checked fuses, checked fuel pump, checked spark, no issues there. I go to check the timing and it turns out the timing belt had snapped. Again, no problem, I installed a new engine myself in my CR-V last year so I was also prepared for that worst case scenario.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the mileage! The odometer is reading 235k miles at the moment! Now a little sleuthing reveals that the RDX was a repo from one of those “pay here, biweekly” shady car lots. I check their inventory and they have another 2017 RDX Advance with only 67k miles on it. So we arrive at my question…
Has anyone ever seen 170k+ miles put on a passenger car in a single year? And how plausible is my suspicion that the timing belt snapped on my car and the shady car lot switched the PCM or whatever holds the odometer info into their other car to lower the miles on it? Then they simply “lose” the keys to mine and produce new fobs for that other RDX. I know this is a lot of speculation but I just have a hard time wrapping my head around how someone could put 465 miles on a car every. single. day. for a year. Full time Uber drivers only do like 50-60k miles a year.
TLDR: bought a car at auction, last odo reading was 65k on 08/2022, odo now reads 235k. Interior seems too clean for that kind of sit time. How is it possible? How do I check if the PCM (or wherever the odo info is stored) has been changed? Car came without keys so PCM/fob match didn’t matter.
Looking forward to your responses because this has become quite the curiosity for me lol. Thank you!
-Cory
5 days a week is roughly 650 miles per day. That gives you weekends to do regular maintenance; yes, it's possible. It seems pretty far-fetched, but a regular run to a place you have somewhere to sleep, then back "home", could be feasible.
Again, pretty unlikely.
I would lean toward your theory of arranging for the odometer info to be swapped.
RFT!!!
Dave Kelsen
--
There is always grief. It is joy that is the rarest thing.
Thanks for letting me know I’m not crazy for thinking it’s not impossible, but maybe implausible Dave. I live in Texas so we put big miles on our cars but 10 hours (at a constant 65 mph, no breaks) of seat time x5 days/week for a whole year seems excessive in a passenger vehicle.
So is there a physical vin printed somewhere on the PCM or some way of checking whether the odo has been altered?
I plan to drop/swap the engine next week. Does anyone know if Acura would be able to verify/adjust the mileage if the dealership can determine it’s been altered? After the engine replacement I’ll need to get the car inspected and registered which means that 235k miles would become “official” even if it’s not correct. That’s pretty much a $10k hit to the value of the car. If it’s correct mileage then I’m cool with it btw but just wanted to know if there’s a way to verify?
From my understanding, only Acura dealers themselves can write a VIN number to a a new or used ECU. They should be able to tell you if the ECU/PCM is true to the car, or if it doesn't match and came from another vehicle.
Both new and used ECU/PCMs will not function with your vehicle UNTIL the immobilizer system has been programed to match your keys. So if the key you bought was programmed and works, that's great - and at that point, I would also assume somebody swapped in a different cluster. The various reasons why a seller would do this are still up in the air, it seems. Regardless, 235k is no spring chicken. If the interior is also original, you'd be able to tell if certain body + powertrain components have a ton of mileage on them. During your inspection of the timing belt, I assume the state of the engine bay reflected closer to ~65k then 235k.
Ultimately, your next steps are obviously removing and potentially repairing timing system components. I had the belt snap at 4k rpm on my TL, and fortunately, the only casualties were the belt, the timing cover plate on the crank, and the lower timing cover itself. That alone is dodging a bullet, as there can very often be damage to the crank position sensor or other things in that area. The belt tends to "gum up" at the toothed gear on the crank once it's broken. My engine was somehow fine with just throwing on a new belt. I recommend the AISIN kit off rockauto. If you want to be safe, I would do a compression check once the new belt is on. Or potentially pulling the plugs and visually inspecting the tops of the cylinders for damage or debris, if you didn't want to wait for a new belt. Beyond that, the J series actually has a decent track record for being fine after TB failures.
Good luck with it all!
Last edited by TheSauceBoss; 11-11-2023 at 01:05 PM.
Thanks for the reply SauceBoss,
It’s my understanding as well that the dealership is the only one who can dig deep and/or make adjustments when it comes to the odometer/PCM.
I’m glad your J was able to walk away with only the timing belt damage! My plan is to just replace the whole engine with one with 25-50k miles to be safe. The engine bay is dirty but it’s difficult for my roughly untrained eye to determine mileage on the engine so I’m erring on the side of caution and replacing the whole engine. Plus the “new” engine will only run me ~$800 plus $600 for 5 days of shop time. So ~$1500 for 25k miles on an engine is a better value than replacing a bunch of parts on an engine that possibly has 235k miles IMO.
I will try to document/photograph as much as I have time to and maybe do a write up since, outside of the factory service manual, there isn’t a lot of easily accessible info on pulling the engine on the 2nd Gen RDXs. I’ll be using the FSM for torque data obviously but dropping subframes on Hondas is usually pretty straightforward *fingers crossed*
So I’m assuming if I register the vehicle with the 235k miles THEN take it to the dealership to dig into the odometer info, they can issue an “odometer adjustment” sticker if it is incorrect?
Honestly same here. These cars are very comfortable but the human body can only sit for so long.
And for so many days in a row, week after week. I've done a couple of thousand milers on the motorcycle, but those days are spread out by a few days. I just remembered the time I did just over 3300 miles in three straight days in a rental van. I was a zombie when I got back.
I'd sooner be in a long wheelbase Mercedes Benz or BMW 7 series for comfort.
It is likely that someone attempted to tamper with the odo and failed. If you search online you see each year about 250K cars in U.S. get their odo tampered with.
Buying cars at such auctions is always risky. If you swap the engine this car may cost you around $12K before it's on the road. Still a good deal if the rest of parts are OK.
Lol they’re comfortable but definitely not comfortable enough for 10-11 hour driving days. Surprisingly I haven’t found a single old french fry under the seat so factor in stopping and eating time as well and thats a ton of time on the road.
It has been a busy couple of weeks so I haven’t had a lot of time to work on the RDX but I decided to simply replace the timing belt (and buy a lottery ticket) so that I can assess the damage, run leak down tests, etc. So far it looks like the tensioner pulley failed in two places, the bolt through the bearing (that contacts the belt) snapped off and i found indications that the contact point for the hydraulic tensioner also snapped off. Which one happened first is a mystery but I’ll be replacing the timing belt, tensioner, and pulleys this weekend and will hopefully know more about the status of the valves, etc. once EVERYTHING turns again.
BTW I dont care about changing the water pump and if by some miracle the engine runs fine, then I’ll go back in with an Aisin kit. I’m just installing a Bando TB, GMB tensioner, and Duralast tensioner/idler pulleys to get timing back in sync.
Besides the shredded belt and bits of tensioner pulley behind the timing cover, the engine looks fairly clean. I saw some photos of a 230k mile Odyssey’s timing components over on their forum and the RDX seems MUCH cleaner. I’ll examine the shredded belt more to see if it’s OEM. I know everyone replaces around 80-100k miles but anybody ever see the OEM belt/components go 235k miles?
Everything is a clue in this mileage puzzle at this point lol. Going to finish pulling the old tensioner and pulley (what’s left of it) tomorrow so I should be able to get stamping/numbers off those.
I can't say I would recommend any components outside of the Aisin kit or OEM (especially Duralast...) but I do understand that you're still unsure of the state of the engine. Which I suppose cheap parts are just for testing. For people that ignore the 105k service, the TB tensioner itself, or the bearings in the water pump are usually the first to go. The belts themselves typically stay in good condition as long as the timing covers are in good shape and there is no oil or dust or anything that gets into that system. I'd say in order of "importance" for replacement, it goes the TB tensioner, the water pump, the two corresponding pulleys, and then the belt itself.
What I typically do, is once everything is installed, hold off on putting the timing covers, side engine mount, accessory belt back on and just run the car off the battery for a bit to make sure you don't have any issues. That way, everything is easily accessible if you need to adjust something (or, you don't do all of that work putting it back together only to find out the engine can't even turn over).
Quick update: I got the new timing components installed yesterday and like I figured, I’m getting a misfire so it looks like I’ll be doing an engine swap. I included a photo of the old parts because I like trying to determine the cause of catastrophic failures lol.
To SauceBoss,
I 100% agree on the parts choices, I only use OEM parts and fluids on my Hondas but like I said, I wanted to give it a shot just to see, if by some miracle, the valves were okay. In this case, I didn’t waste much money on OEM parts just to discover the valves/heads/motor are trash.
I’ve never had great luck replacing head gaskets for some reason (planed, machined, and cleaned surfaces but would still blow) but granted this was when I was a teenager and it was an iron block/aluminum head running 18lbs of boost lol. So I’m leaning towards full swap. I swapped (without any assistance) the engine in my CRV last year at a local DIY shop so I have the know-how. Lift, bay, and tool rental totaled $600 for 5 days and I got the 55k mile JDM engine for $1200 shipped to the shop.
Honest question here but let’s say the RDX really does have 235k miles on it, would it really make sense to pull the heads, replace the valves, purchase parts/gaskets, and still pay the $600 bay rental, on an engine with that many miles? I’ve never worked on the heads of a J35 but it seems difficult especially if the damaged head is the one at the firewall.
I’m thinking it’s probably easier to replace the whole thing than do head work. What held me up on the CRV was that the engine harness disconnected under the dash so it was a PITA but on the RDX it seems that everything disconnects right at the PCM under the hood. After that it’s just drop the exhaust, remove hoses, axles, etc and drop the subframe. I don’t know I think I’d just feel better with a *known* lower mileage engine after this whole experience lol.
While 235K miles is certainly not the limit for these engines, it would be enough to point me toward an engine with lower mileage. Your experience and comfort level with doing the swap is a positive thing. That's what I would do -- but the last time I participated in an engine swap was 1974, so there's more than a grain of salt.
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.
While 235K miles is certainly not the limit for these engines, it would be enough to point me toward an engine with lower mileage. Your experience and comfort level with doing the swap is a positive thing.
I'm having the same thoughts. A used engine with lower miles shouldn't be too hard to find, and it won't be absurdly espensive. If the rest of the car is still working perfectly fine, a used low mileage engine is a lot more cost effective these days.
Yeah I’m looking at around $800-1000 shipped with 25-50k miles so pretty cheap. And I figure that buys me a little maintenance insurance since the big stuff (timing belt, water pump, etc.) doesn’t pop up until 80-100k miles, right?
20 years ago I was swapping engines every couple of weeks because I’d blow gaskets or throw rods while racing lol. Eventually decided to time myself and got a swap done in 1hr 45min, the fluid drain took the most time. I’m not going to time myself now because I need more breaks now but I plan to document it if time allows. I don’t think many, outside of the random Acura/Honda tech has had to swap a J35z2 yet so that’s good news for us but bad news for folks looking to DIY.
I will more than likely pull the FSM section for the swap just to get torque numbers and make sure I’m not overlooking anything but I went to the junkyard a couple days ago to see how the J35 drops and literally every J35 was already dropped on the subframe, I’ve never seen anything like it. I guess it makes it easier to access parts?
And I figure that buys me a little maintenance insurance since the big stuff (timing belt, water pump, etc.) doesn’t pop up until 80-100k miles, right?
It depends on the age, but changing out the timing belt wouldn't be a bad idea.
11-10-2023, 06:27 PM
So you're planning on doing a full engine swap? Or pulling the heads off to inspect everything?
