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Hi Guys!
Im discerning what to do with my Accord that is losing oil and coolant. It is starting to drive me up the wall.
I have come to the conclusion that my Car had been losing coolant well before I had done my timing belt, shaft seals and water pump at the beginning of the summer. Over the course of the past several months I have worked on getting my cooling system sealed back up for once. I have replaced the upper and lower rad hoses as well as thermostat and gasket. Also, I replaced the coolant inlet on the cylinder head with its gasket. Now after doing these things I can no longer find a leak on the outside of the engine when I put pressure on the system. I thought I had it all knocked out, but then I was still slowly losing coolant and having to fill up the expansion tank every couple of weeks.
What I have done, is use a NAPA engine block tester to check for combustion gasses, but the results came back negative. However I did notice that when bleeding the cooling system, it seemed to be that I could never fully get air to bled out. It is mostly tinny doubles cumming out but then bigger ones will come out from time to time after the fans kick on a couple of times.
My second problem is that I had to add oil to my engine the first time before and oil change every sense I have had owned the car. The oil level was on the lower end of the dip stick before the first hole/mark. I thought to check my oil level the day I did after noticing that my VTEC was really not working and I had been running my engine hard for the past several months from time to time. It had not really been run had like that before in previous years, but it should be able to handle it. What can full throttle heart a time or two a week?
To sum it up:
1. Coolant is going somewhere that I can not see with my eye.
2. Oil is Pretty well doing the same thing now.The only oil leak that stands out to me is the oil pan gasket… It looks like it is leaking and it has been like that for years and I have not yet addressed the issue. I do not get dripping under my car when it is parked or running so I does not seem like an external leak is the reason why im losing oil so fast all of a sudden. Of course I could very well be wrong about that.
I do have a CEL for P0705, P1259, and P0430. I fell like two of these could be a resolute of the engine possibly burning oil, but I don,t know and that is why Im here. I don’t want to replace my VTEC solenoid and CAT if something else is causing the codes due to something going on with the engine.
I feel that I could be doing a head gasket and a valve job along with the possibility of rings. I think I will start with the distributor o-ring seeing that is has never been replaced, and an oil pan Gasket. I might be able to rule out an oil burning problem by doing this.
And yes I know I should do a compression test and a leak down test, but I have not gotten around to it yet.
What do you guys think?
Thanks!
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3.0 vtec? Those things leak oil around the pan from the day they leave the factory. :angry:
How much oil are you having to put in? Some folks might say one quart every 3,000 miles/3 months is “acceptable” on older cars. I am sure this is debatable.Well, it sounds like it has a few problems that are not necessarily related.
When you say “what to do with my honda”, you mean repair-wise or are you debating if you should even mess with it?
If it is needing lot of repairs that seem to be growing in number, it may be time to pass the buck to the next lucky owner.All older cars need SOME attention but when it is one thing after another, it is time and money wasted. Unless you WANT to do major stuff like piston rings.
Get this – I used to have a 94 grand prix with a 3.4 DOHC engine and 213,000 miles. Nice looking car. But it leaked – oil, coolant, PS fluid, blinker fluid, brakes were weird, steering was noisy, struts were noisy, A/C lines cut, whole under-body coated with engine oil, muffler bearings shot, had a timing belt and a chain and probably a timing rope, OBD 1.5 (transitional OBD, needed a special scanner).
One night when the return PS line started leaking and I was fixing it, I was in tears of frustration. THAT is when I knew that POS had to GO. I sold it and let me tell you, it was the greatest feeling ever. I mean to be rid of that G.D. car that caused me SO much grief,and I have not looked back.I have the 2.3L VTEC.
To give you a little bit of history it was my sisters car for a number of years before I bought it form her. My sister never had to do anything to it and I think she did get the oil changed on it I hope…. When I got it i did not even know what a piston was. When I first got it the brakes made a grinding noise and it had a stutter in the idle. I took it to the mechanic and they did a tune up and replaced the front routers and pads. Being the fresh driver that I was I did not think the car would need anything else until I decided to do my first oil change my self. I that point I was hooked and started reading the owners manual and found out about all these maintenance items the car had probably never seen before and it was well over due. So I decided to play catch up. As i got further in to catch up I started to notice other problems and take care of them. I finally took care of the CEL that the car had had every sense I have owned it.
I started college this fall with confidence in my car and then a few months later my CEL came on for CAT system efficiency. So I was like okay it has 170K miles on it so it would be understandable if it was warring out. I thought nothing of it and have been driving it like that every sense until I saved up some more money to replace the CAT.
Now had to add a about a quart of oil to the engine the first time before an oil change and I could have added some more. I just added what I had left from the past two oil changes.
I don’t mind putting a little work in to the car to fix it and I really don’t have much of a choice anyways. I cant afford a used car right now if I had to get one. I am attached to the car and I do really enjoy doing mechanical work on cars, but it sucks when you have to do it to your only car. The car has never broken down on me or anything. It just has been kind of expensive playing catch up on maintenance. I’m not giving up on it until it cost me 3K to fix it or I cant afford to keep it running.
I think i’m now going to replace the oil pan gasket next weekend when I go home. Sometime soon ill get a compression tester and do a compression test. I think that will be a good first step. How does that sound?
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