2009 Honda Pilot - Engine Piston Damage

[SteveSRT8]

Skyship

This engine selectively shuts down cylinders with deactivation of the valvetrain and stopping fuel injection and spark when lightly loaded at appropriate speeds.

There appears to be issues not yet worked out!

 

[Quest]

unfortunately, we can only get so much (info) out of mechanically-inclined posters though.

Next thing you know: all the horseflies start to swarm around and the reverberation and "echoing", "dittoing" ensued.

I feel sorry for the OP's encountering. But then I also feel sad for all these "dittoing" and more.....

My handle pretty much sums it nicely (my stance on the internet nowadays).

Please take care.

Q.

*statistically-speaking: 0.1% failure means 1 per 1000. In modern quality control RE: mass manufacturing, it's very challenging to be able to maintain a consistency of 0.001% (1 per 100,000), letting alone 0.01% failure rate (that's 1 per 10,000) To put it in a slightly different way: an automobile comprised of several thousands of components putting together and yet still achieve less than 0.1% failure rate for such mass-produced product...that's considered a miracle if you ask me. I typically let the dealer (under original factory warranty) to deal with that odds of manufacturing failure part and luck has been on my side so far.

 

[Ram01]

Good luck with the motor

 

[Trav]

Skyship knew that he just forgot.
He talked to the Honda engineers and got the skinny on this a few years ago while he was a pilot flying cost to coast.
Or maybe on one of fishing boats he worked on, or on some visit to the biggest dealer in Germany where the engineer joined him in laughter at the ineptness of some owners as he was doing an insurance claim.

Oh wait. The Liqui Moly guy told him to make sure only to do an idle flush on these engines or they go boom. You have to love these Google hero's.

 

[fdcg27]

Originally Posted By: gfh77665
Originally Posted By: JOD
Originally Posted By: cptbarkey
a honda engine fails, and everyone laments about how honda's quality "just isnt what it used to be." get a life. really.


Yeah, it's pretty insane. Honda makes a lot of very reliable, abuse-tolerant engines. This particular engine doesn't seem to be one of them. When a spark plug shoot out of a Ford cylinder head, where is the blanket condemnation of entire line of vehicles?


I think it is because you pay more for the Honda nameplate, so to speak. Hondas do cost more, and presumably you get more quality because you spend more $$$. So when there is an issue, it just glares. The PAX tires was and continue to be a debacle for Honda, and to lesser extent the trans and VCM issues, too.


There is a comon misconception that new Hondas are premium priced.
Not so.
We paid 16.8K for our '99 Accord and 19.1K for our '12 Accord.
The '12 is the seventh Honda we've owned, and I can assure you that we don't keep on buying them because they're not good machines.
The Hondas we've had have been reliable and durable cars.
We have a number of people crying about the V-6 and the automatic transmission.
The V-6 has been a good and durable engine for years.
The OP happened to get a bad one in a used car of unknown maintenance history.
The automatic is trouble free in most cases, except for a few years of the Accord V-6 and second gen Odys before 2004.
Other than than, there is no transmission issue.
There are bad used cars of every make.
The OP happened to buy one.
It is nice that he had a warranty, although absent that, he would have had reasonable cost alternatives.
It's too bad that so many have made this thread into a "Honda has a bad VCM implementation" festival.
The OP bought a used machine that was rode hard and put away wet.
The selling dealer bought the distressed piece at auction and sold it to the OP.
End of story.

 

[Clevy]

Originally Posted By: Trav
Skyship knew that he just forgot.
He talked to the Honda engineers and got the skinny on this a few years ago while he was a pilot flying cost to coast.
Or maybe on one of fishing boats he worked on, or on some visit to the biggest dealer in Germany where the engineer joined him in laughter at the ineptness of some owners as he was doing an insurance claim.

Oh wait. The Liqui Moly guy told him to make sure only to do an idle flush on these engines or they go boom. You have to love these Google hero's.

Originally Posted By: Trav
Skyship knew that he just forgot.
He talked to the Honda engineers and got the skinny on this a few years ago while he was a pilot flying cost to coast.
Or maybe on one of fishing boats he worked on, or on some visit to the biggest dealer in Germany where the engineer joined him in laughter at the ineptness of some owners as he was doing an insurance claim.

Oh wait. The Liqui Moly guy told him to make sure only to do an idle flush on these engines or they go boom. You have to love these Google hero's.

Post of the year.
Count me in on the ford spitting out a plug on my mustang. The 2v engines are very durable,as long as the plugs stay in the head.

Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Originally Posted By: gfh77665
Originally Posted By: JOD
Originally Posted By: cptbarkey
a honda engine fails, and everyone laments about how honda's quality "just isnt what it used to be." get a life. really.


Yeah, it's pretty insane. Honda makes a lot of very reliable, abuse-tolerant engines. This particular engine doesn't seem to be one of them. When a spark plug shoot out of a Ford cylinder head, where is the blanket condemnation of entire line of vehicles?


I think it is because you pay more for the Honda nameplate, so to speak. Hondas do cost more, and presumably you get more quality because you spend more $$$. So when there is an issue, it just glares. The PAX tires was and continue to be a debacle for Honda, and to lesser extent the trans and VCM issues, too.


There is a comon misconception that new Hondas are premium priced.
Not so.
We paid 16.8K for our '99 Accord and 19.1K for our '12 Accord.
The '12 is the seventh Honda we've owned, and I can assure you that we don't keep on buying them because they're not good machines.
The Hondas we've had have been reliable and durable cars.
We have a number of people crying about the V-6 and the automatic transmission.
The V-6 has been a good and durable engine for years.
The OP happened to get a bad one in a used car of unknown maintenance history.
The automatic is trouble free in most cases, except for a few years of the Accord V-6 and second gen Odys before 2004.
Other than than, there is no transmission issue.
There are bad used cars of every make.
The OP happened to buy one.
It is nice that he had a warranty, although absent that, he would have had reasonable cost alternatives.
It's too bad that so many have made this thread into a "Honda has a bad VCM implementation" festival.
The OP bought a used machine that was rode hard and put away wet.
The selling dealer bought the distressed piece at auction and sold it to the OP.
End of story.


Very well put. I don't think any more can be added. This post about covers it.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: Trav
Skyship knew that he just forgot.
He talked to the Honda engineers and got the skinny on this a few years ago while he was a pilot flying cost to coast.
Or maybe on one of fishing boats he worked on, or on some visit to the biggest dealer in Germany where the engineer joined him in laughter at the ineptness of some owners as he was doing an insurance claim.

Oh wait. The Liqui Moly guy told him to make sure only to do an idle flush on these engines or they go boom. You have to love these Google hero's.

I actually look forward to his posts now. It lightens this place up considerably!

 

[TFB1]

Originally Posted By: Brule
Originally Posted By: nmike101

Right now I am on the hook for about $600 of the repair out of about $5800.


Glad they are at least taking care of most of it. Is the $600 considered a deductible of some sort? So the odometer is still going to read 72K?


Absolutely, it's illegal to roll back a odo even if EVERY part in the drive train were replaced with new...

 

[blackman777]

Originally Posted By: cptbarkey
a honda engine fails, and everyone laments about how honda's quality "just isnt what it used to be." get a life. really.

Agree. I have colleagues who drive Civic and Accord Hybrids, with VCM to downstep the active cylinders from 4 to 3, or 6 to 3. These cars don't have any engine problems whatsoever. And I see other people listing these cars on ebay with almost 300,000 miles... still running.

To me this Pilot problem is a lot like the Toyota Sludge problem. It is ONE bad engine. The other 30 or so models are fine.

 

[Brule]

Originally Posted By: TFB1

Absolutely, it's illegal to roll back a odo even if EVERY part in the drive train were replaced with new...


Whoops...I promise you I'm really not that retarded...maybe I was drinking

when I posted that. I guess my flawed thinking was that if the ECU came with the replacement engine it would have that engine's miles. Maybe that's what I was thinking, but whatever it made me look stupid.

 

[Brons2]

Originally Posted By: Quest

*statistically-speaking: 0.1% failure means 1 per 1000. In modern quality control RE: mass manufacturing, it's very challenging to be able to maintain a consistency of 0.001% (1 per 100,000), letting alone 0.01% failure rate (that's 1 per 10,000) To put it in a slightly different way: an automobile comprised of several thousands of components putting together and yet still achieve less than 0.1% failure rate for such mass-produced product...that's considered a miracle if you ask me. I typically let the dealer (under original factory warranty) to deal with that odds of manufacturing failure part and luck has been on my side so far.


Many manufacturing organizations attempt to achieve "Six Sigma" or a defect rate less below 6 standard deviations less than baseline. Or something like that, I wasn't really listening that closely in the seminar

 

[annually]

I remember some similar discussions that sounded like,
"Except for the ones that failed, none have ever failed."
And some that denied all problems sounding like,
"Problems? What problems?"
And,
"Problems are the fault of the owner."

Seeing this again here and expect more of the same again. Like this:
Quote:
We have a number of people crying about the V-6 and the automatic transmission...The automatic is trouble free in most cases, except for a few years of the Accord V-6 and second gen Odys before 2004. Other than than, there is no transmission issue.
Try that on someone with a broken Honda Odyssey, Honda Accord, Acura MDX transmission. For those owners the transmission failed 100% of the time or more. Many later ones have torque converter shudder and other problems. Even 2011. Even 2011 Odyssey tested by Motorweek and Motor Trend.
Quote:
It's too bad that so many have made this thread into a "Honda has a bad VCM implementation" festival.
Too bad for whom? Why not discuss issues. Discussing is better than hiding problems.

I prefer a vigorous discussion. I do not prefer to hide problems or shout down posters.
Maybe some who are most interested in defending a particular brand would rather just rehash these old lines.

"Except for the ones that failed, none have ever failed."
"Deny all problems."
"Problems, What problems? The fault of the owner."

 

[jdawg89]

How the f*ck do you kill a honda? My honda quad has been Stupid stupid stupid tough. I've had that thing running on a 1/2 quart of oil on a 76 mile ride. Its always down about 1/2 quart but runs fine

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: jdawg89
How the f*ck do you kill a honda? My honda quad has been Stupid stupid stupid tough. I've had that thing running on a 1/2 quart of oil on a 76 mile ride. Its always down about 1/2 quart but runs fine


Unfortunately contrary to popular belief not all Honda engines are perfect. These things happen, even when well maintained, and not only to Honda engines.

 

[KrisZ]

Originally Posted By: annually
I remember some similar discussions that sounded like,
"Except for the ones that failed, none have ever failed."
And some that denied all problems sounding like,
"Problems? What problems?"
And,
"Problems are the fault of the owner."

I prefer a vigorous discussion. I do not prefer to hide problems or shout down posters.
Maybe some who are most interested in defending a particular brand would rather just rehash these old lines.

"Except for the ones that failed, none have ever failed."
"Deny all problems."
"Problems, What problems? The fault of the owner."


Wow, first post since joining in 2009 and you hit the nail squarly in the head. Bravo sir! Looks like your time reading BITOG was not wasted.

There will be plenty of cheerleaders defending a brand, no matter what. This thread strips Honda from its crown and shows that Honda is just another manufacturer, bound by laws of physics, engineering compromises and profits. The blind cheerleads simply cannot comprehend that their beloved brand has flaws just like everybody else.
In a way I don't blame them because if you put something on the pedestal and above everybody else for so long by so many people, car magazines and media in general, you will have a hard time adjusting to reality.

 

[Vikas]

There is the difference though. And I am the one who has Odyssey with 3rd transmission. It is no secret about the transmission problem. The data is there to conclude that this is indeed the problem. When I use the similar criterion to see if the engine damage as reported here is widespread or not, I conclude that the number of incidents of this particular problem are miniscule.

 

[gfh77665]

Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Originally Posted By: gfh77665
I think it is because you pay more for the Honda nameplate, so to speak. Hondas do cost more, and presumably you get more quality because you spend more $$$. So when there is an issue, it just glares. The PAX tires was and continue to be a debacle for Honda, and to lesser extent the trans and VCM issues, too.


There is a comon misconception that new Hondas are premium priced.
Not so.
We paid 16.8K for our '99 Accord and 19.1K for our '12 Accord.
The '12 is the seventh Honda we've owned, and ...


I bought my van in 2006. I shopped for 6 months, looking at Honda and ALL minivan competitors. The Honda and Toyota Sienna were our first choices, but I just could not pull the trigger on buying one due to price. Finally, we ran across the van we own now on sale because it was a "last one" 2006 model, with $3000 off sticker.

Had it not been for that rare reduction, the Hondas were higher priced, across the board, just like they have been for years. I know, I diligently shopped for 6 months.

 

[jdawg89]

I can't really say mine was well maintained..when I bougt it I drained about a pint of tar from the motor...that's it. I've sorta had it run with no oil once or twice too lol