Honda 1.5L Turbo Reliability?

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Mar 31, 2021
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- looking at purchasing a 2024 Honda Accord with the 1.5L turbo engine

- looking for feedback with respect to reliability on these engines.

- I’ve heard about problems with blown head gaskets and oil dilution. I’m not sure how frequent or common these problems are. We’re these problems addressed for the 2024MY?

- looking for other peoples feedback / experience with the Honda 1.5l turbo engine. Do you own one? What problems have you had? How many miles are on the vehicle? Would you purchase one if the goal was reliability?
 
Oil dilution is over blown. If you fall into the driving criteria which increases oil dilution, like short trip in cold temps, change the oil at 5k intervals and rest easy. And/or, use 5W-30 oil, since it's thicker, and better able to hold up to dilution.

Blow head gaskets can happen, but it's not a high failure rate. People blaming the use of regular fuel are just guessing. There are NO FACTS in support of this. Speculation is the flavor of the day it seems, and anyone can create a youtube channel.
 
You can watch this Honda/Acura tech youtube channel

Interesting. My ford fusion 1.5l ecoboost engine has the same slotted grooves between the cylinders and is losing coolant because of it. Was looking at the 2024 Accord 1.5l as a replacement.

Did honda take any corrective action(s) to address the issue with the blown head gaskets? Design change to the block? Change to the head bolts? Etc if yes when did these corrective actions get implemented?
 
Interesting. My ford fusion 1.5l ecoboost engine has the same slotted grooves between the cylinders and is losing coolant because of it. Was looking at the 2024 Accord 1.5l as a replacement.

Did honda take any corrective action(s) to address the issue with the blown head gaskets? Design change to the block? Change to the head bolts? Etc if yes when did these corrective actions get implemented?

None that I'm aware of. And the slots in the block causing the problem is more speculation. It's amazing how many social media "influencers" are more knowledgeable than OEM engineers.
 
I don't own one. I read that different Honda models use different amounts of turbo boost, and that the CRV had less boost than the Accord, and because of this HG failures are less frequent with the CRV than other models that use the 1.5 T with more boost.

But I don't have any real data about how frequent HG failures are on any years or models.
 
Interesting. My ford fusion 1.5l ecoboost engine has the same slotted grooves between the cylinders and is losing coolant because of it. Was looking at the 2024 Accord 1.5l as a replacement.

Did honda take any corrective action(s) to address the issue with the blown head gaskets? Design change to the block? Change to the head bolts? Etc if yes when did these corrective actions get implemented?
I haven't heard any updates or corrections made to this engine. I personally would stay away from this 1.5T if I wanted to keep the car beyond warranty period. Their hybrid powertrain for Accords seems to be more reliable.
 
I haven't heard any updates or corrections made to this engine. I personally would stay away from this 1.5T if I wanted to keep the car beyond warranty period. Their hybrid powertrain for Accords seems to be more reliable.
That’s my concern. Looking to keep this car beyond the warranty period and would like to keep until it reaches 200-250K miles.
 
That’s my concern. Looking to keep this car beyond the warranty period and would like to keep until it reaches 200-250K miles.
imho why go into something with a concern. At the end of the day you're the one spending multiples of 10k for the vehicle, not somebody you don't know with a keyboard and mouse telling you this or that.

I have no idea but this notion of driving 250k miles may not be as viable as 25 years ago, simply because that's not where the emphasis is today. I've only done it one time myself, with my 1998 Nissan purchased new. It got junked 2023. With the 2006 Lexus, there simply isn't enough time as it's at 145k now (at this rate it would take 12 years to go another 100k). I don't commute as far as I once did. If you're planning on driving north of 200k miles, you drive a lot and should get a reliable car. Or you'll need 3 or 4 cars to reach that number.

jmoymmv
 
None that I'm aware of. And the slots in the block causing the problem is more speculation. It's amazing how many social media "influencers" are more knowledgeable than OEM engineers.
The "slots" are a slotted deck to allow coolant to keep the very top of the gasket cooler so it doesn't blow. The "knowledgeable" OEM Engineers know this is a band aid but there too cheap to cross drill - which is expensive. 10% of engineering is design, the other 90% is cost cutting, or "value engineering" in industry terms.

Ford learned the hard way and after too many blown head gaskets they finally started cross drilling.

The question is if the head gasket in that area can handle it. It appears the Honda may be slightly wider at the thinnest point, but clearly there still having some problems.

Everything in design is a trade off. In general this engine has it problems but seems to last OK. Toyota generally gross drills, but I can't say that on all models. Not sure about others?

CRV is turbo / small displacement non-cross drilled and CVT. They seem to hold up, but very generally as far as design goes, all of those things tend to be less robust than a larger engine and ZF multi speed trans.
 
The "slots" are a slotted deck to allow coolant to keep the very top of the gasket cooler so it doesn't blow. The "knowledgeable" OEM Engineers know this is a band aid but there too cheap to cross drill - which is expensive. 10% of engineering is design, the other 90% is cost cutting, or "value engineering" in industry terms.

Ford learned the hard way and after too many blown head gaskets they finally started cross drilling.

The question is if the head gasket in that area can handle it. It appears the Honda may be slightly wider at the thinnest point, but clearly there still having some problems.

Everything in design is a trade off. In general this engine has it problems but seems to last OK. Toyota generally gross drills, but I can't say that on all models. Not sure about others?

CRV is turbo / small displacement non-cross drilled and CVT. They seem to hold up, but very generally as far as design goes, all of those things tend to be less robust than a larger engine and ZF multi speed trans.

the GM 1.5 ecotec doesn't have slots or cross drilling, and also doesn't suffer head gasket failures. The area between the cylinders isn't any bigger either. So maybe the grooves are actually making things worse. It's definitely the narrowest point towards the coolant circuit.
 
If long term ownership is the goal, I would go for the hybrid model of the Accord. We have several members here with older Honda Accord hybrids aka HAH, and they seem to be happy and reporting very few issues overall. I certainly don’t recall them reporting anything about the engine, battery, transmission issues.
 
Thank you for all the feedback.

I wanted the type of long term reliability that people are used to seeing with Japanese cars with this next purchase and I’m thinking the best bet would be to stick with a naturally aspirated engine instead of a turbo.

Unfortunately a lot of the Hondas have switched to turbos. I’m still not sure about the hybrids. I see Toyota and Mazda still sell cars with naturally aspirated engines.

Curious what people’s opinions are of Mazda? Specifically the CX-5 2.5l, cx-50 2.5l, and Mazda 3 2.5l? They seem to depreciate a lot more than the Honda and Toyota which makes it nice for a certified pre owned purchase, but curious how they compare in terms of quality reliability. Same tier, or completely different group?
 
The problem with trying to buy a new car that will last 15 years, is you really don't know its long term reliabilty until about 15 years from now.

Take for example my 2002 Jeep GC. The heater core failed at about 10 years. It was 22 hours book rate shop time to replace, so labor, etc at a shop would have been well over $3K. For a heater core.

Been seeing reports of failing ECU's on some brands at 10 years. Replacement $2K if you can get one. Fortunately there are repair shops that work on those - but that is going to continue to be a big issue. Can they repair the new ones - which I assume are multi layer surface mount stuff?

You just never know. Engine is but 1 of 100 things that can kill you.
 
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