Rep Power: 0

hey all, recently the gf told me to look at her 02 civic. symptoms were her gps falling off the dash and the bumper rattling due to vibration at idle. seems to do this more when the car is warm and idling slow. driving behind her, it vibrates so much at idle the tailpipe moves side to side about 1/4 inch. i have checked all motor/trans mounts, all are tight. no broken rubber, all rubber mounts were replaced in july of '11. (after the $1800 trans guy only tightened the mounts finger tight and all the rubber mounts cracked the 200 miles back home)

trans fluid is good, no leaks no metal in the fluid seems to be mated to the engine just fine and its been fine for about 10,000 miles since the trans was rebult. shifts great, no slipping never stalled and its not showing any codes.


if it helps, i have the elm27 thing and the torque app. i can document anything the torque app can see if needed.

any help is greatly appreciated!

also, just replaced the oil yesterday. no metal or anything of the sort on the magnetic drain plug.


also, i tinted the cars taillights with gila cling on 35% tint awhile back. i think it looks pretty good for something you can return to stock in 30 seconds. finally found a pic on my harddrive and attached it to this post.


thanks again guys!

 
Rep Power: 209

is the engine shaking excessively when you look at it?

 
Rep Power: 518

Is the engine misfiring?
Check engine light flashing?

 
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just the idiot tune up light that flashes that i reset with the stalk. according to the torque app, its got no codes and no stored codes. seems to run great. it dont have all the sensors my car has, but what it does have seemed to be normal. only thing i found that puzzled me was it says the throttle is always at 3.1% at idle.

as for the engine movement, it seems pretty solid. cant move it by hand, the only time it moves alot is doing the motor mount test. (foot on brake and gas in drive) and even then it didnt move enough for me to suspect a cracked or broken mount.

 
Rep Power: 518

Does anyone else notice multiple problems with this statement?



If you could read that in VOLTS, it should be at 0.49v for closed throttle.

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Did this complaint start immediately following some other work or accident?
Oh, I see.
I bet this is when the problem started.
Aftermarket motor mounts? (They transmit vibration instead of isolating it. Rubber is too hard.)

Use FACTORY mounts.


Bent, damaged, tweaked, stressed mounts?
Neutralize the mounts?
Hood rattles? Exhaust rattles or contacting the body?

Get it vibrating.....place a floor jack (use a wide block of wood so you don't hurt the oil pan) under the engine and gently lift it while someone is sitting inside the car. See if taking weight of the engine off the mounts helps the vibration. Repeat with the jack under the trans.

It's a 4 cylinder. It ain't a Cadillac. It isn't glass smooth.

 
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i will try that with the jack, and get my meter on the tps. i just dont understand why this would come out of nowhere after 10k miles of running perfect after the mounts/trans rebuild. as for the idiot light, the coils and plugs have been done in the last 15k or so and i just changed the oil. so i dunno whats wrong with that statement. the thing vibrates more at idle then my giant park ave did with a bad wheelbearing. lol.

thanks again guys.

 
Rep Power: 518

1) There is no light that says "idiot tune up". (LOL)
2) What "stalk"?
3) It's trying to tell you something.
4) If you reset it daily, you aren't doing something right.

It's either the CEL, the green key, or the maintenance reminder light.

When you start the car the Maint Req'd light might flash like 10 times then quit.....for now.....
You reset the maint light manually using the odometer reset button. See the owners manual.


Wheel bearings don't cause any vibration when the car is sitting still.
I was driving a 90 P/A up until I bought my Civic. I wish the Civic had the cushy ride the Buick has.



Crap happens.

Ok, so what else is new?

Was some work just done immediately prior to this new complaint?

Run over something?

Did someone drop a wrench and now it's caught between the engine and the subframe? (BTDT)



Have you been under the car to look yet?

 
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i checked everything visually and with my pry bar when i did the oil the other day. no mounts seemed loose and all the bolts were still tight. (that one above the exhaust is real fun to get at) the light was just the maint reqd light, which i did reset doing the 20 second key on start procedure. she claims she aint ran over anything, and i didnt see any fresh scrapes or damage under there. ill try to remember to take a video tomorrow. was gonna jack it up tonight but the gf had to work late so i didnt get access to it till it was already dark. instead we went to tilted kilt. and the last work done was the oil 3K ago. as for the wheelbearing, it went out because gm used the same sealed hub/bearing on my car as they did the caviler. after driving about 9 hours straight never stopping, it heated up and went. on the highway in the middle of tennessee. which resulted in this.



nothing like spending $130 in tools you already own back home and replacing a hub in a parking lot to make ya remember a vibration like that. lol

 
Rep Power: 518

It went because it had something like 75k or more on it, not because it was a 9 hour trip.
That part was just your luck LOL.

My managers' sister had a DTS(?), I was doing a check over for a trip. Found a bad front wheel bearing. I wrote it on the work order, got the estimate, and all that.
They said no.
I said have a nice trip.
They got stranded for 3 or 4 days only 120 miles away.
I asked how much money they saved by not having me replace it before they left.
They don't talk to me much now.
No loss IMO. They weren't "good customers" in my book..



I made a lot of money fixing GMs. A nearly endless supply of broken cars.
Not like Hondas, some days I feel like the Maytag repairman in the commercials.

 
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haha. it is the bearings, atleast on my car. it will go forever in the city and on short trips, but i remember once, i was driving from memphis back home to chicago and by the time i hit effingham illinois the bran new timkin bearing was already howling. the midas guy in effingham literally told me, "those bearings cant go over about 400 miles straight on the highway with the weight of your car on them. you gotta stop at rest stops every few hours man"

typical dumbass gm engineers cutting corners on designs.

another example of that is me having to crawl under my dash like a monkey to replace a $55 signal flasher.

pissed me off so much i put a video on youtube. lol

[autostream]http://autostream.com/ibcivicforums/?page_type=firebirdplayerthumbnail&framepage=1387& transactionid=1362974938-71194109159&posted_by=_www.civicforums.com&youtube _video_id=ByMOTWlSZd4[/autostream]

 
Rep Power: 518

You got it wrong.
The original parts lasted 75k without any problem.
Probably less miles than what most consider ideal (lifetime), but decent nonetheless.


The BIG problems start when you replace them with the cheap crap from discount parts stores.Discount, white box, made in China. Counterfeit Timken bearing.

These places don't normally use factory parts.
They use the cheapest stuff they can get their hands on. (They depend on repeat business, and suckas that can't tell the difference.)
That guy must have plenty of experience with cheapass parts to give you a BS excuse like that.
And it's a 100% BS excuse.

Use more than 2 brain cells to think about that BS excuse, you should agree.

F'ing ham. I think I have relatives near there.



Have you replaced the plastic upper intake on that 3.8 engine yet?

 
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not yet, thankfully. i have replaced the egr valve though to prevent the grenading on startup.

among several other things. the car has been reliable for the 100k ive had it. i do think i need to replace my shifting module, or i might have a stuck check ball someplace. occasionally itll stall going from reverse to drive. change the tranny fluid every 35k though and ive not seen any metal or very much clutch material so thats good. it dont slip or anything, just likes to stall only from reverse to first. tps maf and iac are all in working order, so i know its not the engines fault. always shift from a stop too so that cant be it.

other than that, the wheel bearings (on my 3rd front set now thanks to napas lifetime warranty) and the turn signals all ive had to do is brakes tires and oil. so im pretty happy all things considered.

just waiting on the upper and lower intake manifold gaskets to go. no record of it being done that i know of, so its only a matter of time.

 
Rep Power: 518

Not sure what to say about the trans, I was never into those. I was more of a driveability tech.

The lower loses the gaskets.
But not spectacular like the 3.1/3.4 intake gaskets LOL, good ol'General.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I think the problems with the upper were fixed in 00 or 01 (can't remember now).
The upper melted the plastic between the EGR pipe and the coolant passage immediately adjacent to its area. Burns through and floods the intake with coolant. You go to crank it and it's hydrolocked, if you are lucky.
If you were unlucky, it did this out on the road and stranded you.


I liked that Buick (and the General) put their good money into the big cars.

 
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well, i finally got a chance to take a video of the noise. my otterbox killed all the vibration so you wont see any of that, but its so loud you can hear it over the engine. no clue what it is. once i can get a second person to hit the gas tomorrow ill take a video of the engine compartment.



on side note, im really impressed with the quality of the videos this s3 takes. just got my free upgrade from sprint. lol

 
Rep Power: 518

I sure can't tell much from that video on my cheezy laptop.

Would you like to replace that engine yet?



On a serious note: It didn't sound good.

This noise is less noticeable when cold, but gets more pronounced as the engine warms up?

How low was the oil when this noise started happening?

Do you have the old oil filter? Cut it open, open up the filter element, look for metal trapped in it.

Get it warmed up and knocking. Hold the RPM at a little over idle speed so the knocking is loudest, and remove one coil wiring connector at a time, listen for the intensity of the knock to change. Repeat for all 4 cylinders.
If one of these makes a big difference in the noise, you have it narrowed down to a specific cylinder (hopefully).


Searched for "rod knock", check out some threads:
https://www.civicforums.com/forums/3...ine-noise.html

https://www.civicforums.com/forums/3...ml#post4621959

https://www.civicforums.com/forums/2...5b7-knock.html

https://www.civicforums.com/forums/3...ml#post4629268

https://www.civicforums.com/forums/3...rod-knock.html

 
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after hearing it, i kindof thought the same thing. i was reluctant to tell her that though.

i just hope the thing dont detonate going down the Ryan or something. cause i sure as hell dont have the $ or tools to accomplish that myself. dont even have any roof to work under.

i can do the process of elimination though.

thanks alot for the links!

 
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well, i went out and tried to figure out which cyl was knocking, but couldnt. it never goes away. i dunno if that means its just spinning too fast, or there is more than one cyl causing it but i took a video under the hood anyway.

had her hold it at 2k rpm.

 
Rep Power: 518

I can't tell much of anything from that video. Sorry. They aren't real quiet engines in the first place.

Try slowly revving it up and down between idle and 3000, see if it rattles more during the increasing and subsides during the slowing down. Play with that action and see how to make the rattle the loudest. Once you figure out how to make it the most pronounced, then disconnect each coil one at a time, repeat that same action that made it loudest, and see if any one cylinder makes the significant change in the intensity of the knock.

You may need someone experienced with engine noises, that can actually be there to check it out in person.


I thought this was supposed to be something shaking the entire car that was knocking stuff off the dash and windshield?