silhouette1985

Hello,

I've come across a problem which I believe is unique and your help on this would be greatly appreciated!
Background:

I bought a Honda Civic 2004, LX Automatic, 85000 miles two months ago. Everything was going smooth until last week when the engine suddenly started to leak oil. I went to a mechanic today and he told me that the cam shaft seal needs to be replaced. I bought the parts and handed over the car to him for repairs.

The following is the list of repairs done today:

• Timing belt replaced
• Tensioner replaced
• Water pump replaced
• Cam shaft seal replaced
• Engine oil changed(Synthetic; The car had been running on conventional oil up until now)
• Oil filter changed
• Coolant changed

After the repairs were done, the oil stopped leaking and I took the car for a test drive. I hardly drove for three miles when suddenly the rpm dropped and the check engine light came on (before the repairs today, the check engine light had never come on) and the engine started making weird revving sounds, and not in a good way. It's a bit difficult to explain the sound, it was a muffled sound and it was going like vroom vroom vroom vroom vroom very rapidly (like something was going to explode) and then the car shut down on the middle of the road. After turning the ignition multiple times, the car started again and I happened to be near an auto zone outlet. I went in and got my engine light checked.
This is the reading that I got, it gave a P1129 code:
http://tinypic.com/r/ety2xu/8

My friend who had gone with me to pick up the car is somewhat of a mechanic himself. He said that this problem has nothing to do with repairs that I just got done and is probably a fuel injector issue. So we bought a fuel injector cleaning fluid, went to a gas station, poured the fluid in and topped the gas tank which was nearly empty. After that we went to a nearby kwik kar station and got the automatic transmission fluid flushed on his recommendation. I could immediately feel the transmission become smooth after the atf flush.

I dropped my friend back home, but by now my car had started idling at around 0.5rpm again and the oil pressure warning light was blinking rapidly and I had to push the accelerator to keep the car to at least 1 rpm otherwise the car started knocking and it felt that it would turn off at any moment.

I went back to the mechanic and showed him the problem and he immediately said, "Oh ****!" He popped the hood and my engine, along with other components connected to it were rattling like crazy; similar to like a ps dual shock remote but with far greater intensity. He went inside, brought out some sort of digital meter reading device similar to the one the guy at auto zone had used and connected it under the steering wheel for about five minutes. After he was done, the check engine light went away and the car was no longer idling. I think he restarted the ECU. That fixed the problem temporarily (No more idling, check engine light gone)

When I reached home, which is approximately a 20 mile drive away from the mechanics workshop, the check engine light came back on again and the car started idling. On my way back whilst driving on the highway, I discovered another problem; my car wouldn't go above 70mph. If I pressed the accelerator all the way down to go past 70mph, then I would start hearing those rapid muffled vroom vroom sounds again from the engine and the car would immediately stop accelerating. However when I pressed the accelerator very slowly, the car managed to reach 80mph(couldn't go above due to traffic).

Also, the car pickup felt different too, when I pressed the accelerator, it wouldn't immediately pickup, there was a momentary gap and then the car would start accelerating albeit slowly, this has never happened before either.

I don't have much experience with car repairs and am currently on a very tight budget and cannot afford to keep splurging money like this on the car for repairs. I've gone through the fourm and don't believe the problem has to do with the o2 sensor(I may be wrong?). Everything was working fine before the mechanic did the repairs and now I feel like I have paid to trade in a smaller problem for a bigger one.

I plan on visiting the mechanic again tomorrow but this time I would like your opinion on what the problem could be. I am working 2 jobs and am extremely reliant on my car so something like this needs to resolved as soon as possible and your help on this matter would be greatly appreciated!

Regards

ezone

The logical assumption then is your mechanic made errors in his work.
More evidence of errors. If there was a big disasterous one that caused the exclamation, there can easily be more errors.

Distractions in the shop can be hell, they break your focus and concentration.





Common errors, stuff to check:
#1 Verify cam timing is correct. P1129 MAP high --> mechanical fault --> cam out of time.

#2 Verify the cam gear was actually tightened correctly. Cam/gear/bolt/keyway damage, and valve timing errors if the keyway is damaged

#3 Aftermarket(?) tensioner --> came loose/came apart/bolt stripped/spring broken, causing cam timing to jump one or more teeth

#4 Alternator mount bolts left loose, many different possible symptoms and eventual "limp home" mode, and this can burn out the PCM if not corrected. $$$$.$$

If any of these errors were made by the mechanic, the mechanic owes you not only the repairs to correct his mistakes, he also owes you fixing any subsequent damage caused by the errors.


If any of the parts YOU supplied for the job were bad and caused problems, that's on you.

silhouette1985

Thanks a lot for the reply man. I will definitely bring up these suggestions when I meet him tomorrow.

As far as I understand, you suspect that he botched the job and will most probably have to redo the entire timing belt installation again, right?

I don't think(and hope) there was anything wrong with the parts, the mechanic inspected them thoroughly when I gave him the car and he said everything was ok, guess we'll find out tomorrow.

P.S. Do you think my car not going above 70mph is due to cam timing?

ezone

Depends.




What exactly caused the "oh ****!" comment? What part was left loose? All the noise that was going on could have been causing damage between whatever parts were rattling.

Most anything new looks OK before installation. Looking good doesn't mean it works.

"NEW stands for 'Never Ever Worked'"

There's a huge and well known problem with many aftermarket tensioners.
If someone caused the bolt (or bolt hole) to strip and that causes the tensioner to be loose.......
If anything causes the timing belt to let go it could cost you a bunch of valves.
$$$$.$$

Possible. There's several possible causes for your complaint though. Someone has to figure out why.


A clogged cat can limit top speed.
A poor running engine can limit top speed.
Some codes can cause top RPM to be limited
If the computer goes into backup mode due to extreme failure (fried), RPM may be limited to 3000.

mikey1

no offense, but please stop taking this so called "friends" advice.....he might be fun to drink beer with, but he is not helping your car situation

...

ezone

+1 internets for you (the system still won't let me rep you though)

silhouette1985

Alright. So I went to the mechanic yesterday and gave him the car. I told him about all the factors that might be causing the issue(cam timing, cam gear, tensioner etc.) but he said that that isn't possible and the problem lies somewhere else. I showed him the autozone receipt and he immediately put the entire blame on the 'faulty' map sensor. After arguing with him for like 5-10 minutes, he said to leave the car with him and pick it up on Monday so that he can examine it in detail and fix whatever is causing the issue. Let's hope it gets fixed.

silhouette1985

I know man. His advice didn't feel right and that is why I came on this forum for help. This is the last time I'm going to be taking his advice.

mikey1

i think your timing is off by a tooth or possibly two,

wether the timing was correct at the completion of the job, or the timing belt has "jumped time" after the job was complete will remain a mystery forever,

your mechanic sounds a bit on the "shady" side for lack of a better term, any reputable mechanic should be fixing this for you 100% free of charge, there is no excuse,

you brought him a perfectly running car, it should be returned to you in the same way,

i am very interested in you letting us all know what his excuse was, or how he explains this to you, he obviously messed up big time and im very curious as to what he will tell you (or try to tell you),




aside from this problem......what transmission fluid did the other shop put into your tranny? only honda OEM fluid should be used, and i think its safe to assume they probably used aftermarket fluid, if so, that should be the next thing or problem on your "to do" list

mikey1

Lol no problem......and same goes for my reps to you

ezone

I already stated what I think the root cause is.


You know, most of these big jobs are actually pretty easy if one pays attention to detail.......But it can become extremely expensive if you have the wrong person doing the work.

I've witnessed more than one expensive car that went to the auction block and/or scrap pile because the wrong people put a wrench on it.

[Many comments have been removed from the original version of this reply.]


Most of us techs just hate when consumers go searching on the internet forums, asking questions of and getting answers from people who know even less about cars than you do.




This.

But if the ego can't allow it, it won't be a "do over" job, it will be a "do more" job.

FTFY