Did I get ripped of by Honda?

I have a 92 Accord. I brought it to the dealership on August 21, 2003
for a 168,000KM service and checkup. One of the things they did during
the checkup is change the distributor cap. They tell me the car is in
excellent condition for a 1992 Accord. I believe this is true. The car
has no rust, and has been treated every year by Krown. Anyway,
September 2nd, my car stalls on the highway. I drift to side shoulder,
stop, put he car in park and start the car again. I figured to myself,
maybe it is vapor lock. The next day going to work September 3rd, my
car again stalls on the highway. I am able to start the car after a
few attempts and I immediately drive to the dealership. The dealership
keeps the car all day. They tell by phone that they have let it run
for several hours and have driven it but cannot reproduce the problem.
I pick up the car after work and drive it home. The following day
September 4th, while driving to work, the car stalls again. I try
starting again. I am able to drive it to the shoulder but then the
car stalls, another time. Rather then risk my life trying to make it
to the dealership, I get a tow. The tow is $75. I call the dealership,
from work and they tell me that, they are not sure what the problem is
but they think it might be the ignitor and the coil. They ask me if I
wish to have them replaced. I tell them to go ahead. Next, I did
some research. I did a Google newsgroup search. "Accord Stalling".

What I found was astonishing. There were several posting directly
relating to the problem. One that, in fact, fit it exactly.
I will quote "

From: Vince Comunale ()
Subject: 91 Accord Stalling & Ignitor Civic RECALL !!!


View this article only
Newsgroups: rec.autos.tech
Date: 1996/05/09


I have a pre-owned Accord with approx. 63000km and recently
experienced
stalling on city driving.

It happens a couple times a day now, the Tach meter showed a sudden
drop in RPM and engine stalled. A quick shift to neutral and restart
sometimes worked, but not always.

At times, I had to pull to the side, wait, restart. After several
restarts,
I could get it started again.

I initially post this on rec.autos.makers.honda, then called an
experienced
Japanese mechanic regarding this question. He acknowledged the problem
and suggested that the Honda Civic '90 '91 etc has recall on the
ignitor;
as it should be the cause for this kind of problems.

However, he pointed out that Honda may not acknowledge that the Accord
uses the same part as the Civic, nor do they offer compensation to
Accord
owners.

If you Accord owners out there have the same problem as mine, please
let
me know as I am willing to spend the time joining forces to get some
form of compensation. After all, Honda Accord is "perceived" as
A-Okay,
if not the reliability benchmark for family sedan; I was under this
illusion, if you will, when I bought this car!!!

Thanks,
Vince
"
After reading this posting, I had several reactions. First, I was
happy that the problem with my vehicle, would likely be fixed, but I
was also angry. Why hadn't the dealership properly diagnosed the
problem? They had returned to me a vehicle that was a hazard to drive.
Don't the Honda dealerships have access to a knowledge database
describing symptoms of problems and solutions? I found the likely
source of the problem in 15 minutes on the Internet. Shouldn't the
dealer be able to diagnose the problems better then me? Isn't that
the reason I go to the dealership in the first place?

And the cost of the replacement of the ignitor and coil is an issue of
fairness. The ignitor is recalled on the Civic but not on the Accord,
yet they are the same part. That doesn't seem very honest. When I
contacted Honda Canada, they denied any knowledge of this problem and
said there was no recall on that component or know issues with it.

Also, did the dealer perhaps break the ignitor when they changed the
distributor cap?

True my car is old, but is not a recall on a component a recall. There
must be tens of thousands of these cars still on the road?

Thanks

 

Your symptoms sound like the infamous cold solder joint on the main
relay problem. If your problem persists with the replacement igniter
and coil, I would resolder or replace the main relay ($46 US).

Andrew

 

I am a 1991 Civic owner and I have been through the ignitor (and coil)
run-around. Mine first failed after a lot less miles and years than yours.
That's the good news, and it's important, IMO.

As I now post regularly and others will attest, the ignitor (and arguably
the whole distributor system) is the Achille's heel of Civics and Accords c.
early 1990s and maybe other years. If a Civic or Accord is failing, I think
it's fair to say the most likely cause will be something in the distributor
(ignitor, coil, or rotor) or the main fuel relay (but one replacement and
that's fixed for quite awhile).

From data posted here over the last few years, I think you got your money's
worth out of this ignitor (and the coil, for that matter), both time-wise
and miles-wise. That is, if I owned your car, I wouldn't be thinking that
Honda owed me a free replacement of the ignitor. The ignitor "recall" (it
may have been something a bit different but pretty much the same idea) for
the Civics is old and somewhat time-limited. I know; I tried to get one.

As to the shop appearing to have misdiagnosed the problem: I think you have
a very good case (based on my experience as well as your 15-minutes on the
net) that they should at least have mentioned to you *after your first
visit* in this series of visits that the ignitor and/or coil might be the
problem. But this is a matter of competence. They don't have it. I have
found I mostly have to live with this, with some exceptions as follows.

If you want "satisfaction," you could tactfully explain to the Service
Manager (don't waste time with anyone else) that you have communicated with
other Accord owners and understand ignitors are a very common cause of
failure; you are disappointed that they didn't nail this from the get-go;
it's caused you a lot of trouble; etc. Presumably, you could ask for a
partial refund or that they at least pay the towing bill. If they don't
offer much compensation, I think I'd try to find another shop. Dunno if
Honda headquarters would do much for you. I think not, based on my own
experience with the ignitor. (Some manufacturers do jump all over
dealerships that give lousy service, though, and a customer gets
"satisfaction.")

I don't think I'd pursue the possibility that putting a new distributor cap
on broke the ignitor. I agree it's certainly possible it did. For example,
if the technician is a real slob about putting the new cap on, and if for
some reason he's also replacing the rotor (good chance) or splash guard
right beneath the rotor, then he can mess up the ignitor leads. But it's
kind of hard to do this on a Civic, and I think the Accord is not different.
As importantly, as I note above, you got a "lifetime" out of your ignitor.
At most, some technician monkeying around in the vicinity of the ignitor
might have added a straw that broke the camel's back. So I would find it
hard to argue this point.

If and when the ignitor or coil fail again, make sure that whoever does the
work uses OEM ignitors and coils. I tried the cheap route, trying to save a
few bucks (dumb in this case), and I am pretty convinced it's not the way to
go with these parts.

I have had my car serviced at (unbeknownst to me) a completely incompetent
dealer's in the past. It does happen, amazing as it sounds. I don't know
where they get these guys, but it seems pretty random as to whether
technicians in a Honda dealership actually have extensive experience with
Hondas. Maybe it's this way at all dealerships.

 

Ignition switch.

 

Or any of hundreds other possible faults. It would be cheaper to
just replace the whole car than to start replacing "possible" defective
components without troubleshooting first.

 

<snip>

I think Caliban makes a lot of good points. I would add:

The dealer probably should have told you at the first visit that it
was likely either the main relay or the ignitor. However, in their
defense, it is pretty hard to diagnose an intermittent problem if it
is not misbehaving while it is at the shop. Both of these problems
are fading into the past now and turnover of mechanics at dealerships
can be high. It is entirely possible that the mechanic servicing your
car never sees cars that old. (The older cars tend to go to
independent mechanics.)

Also, most mechanics don't frequent car groups on the internet. I
think they should, but they don't. It isn't hard to be more
knowledgeable than the average Honda mechanic (about common Honda
defects) if you hang around here. The defects are not that common
that the mechanics may have only seen it once or twice.

Not that any of this really excuses the dealer for not being aware
(and for replacing your coil which was unlikely to be bad.) But it is
believable. It might be time to find an independent mechanic more
experienced with Hondas of your vintage. And (when possible) post the
problem to the honda groups. Odds are someone here has had what
you've got.

 

Hi

Thanks for your comments. I've added some more info. JS>>

JS>> They charged me $320 CAN labour and parts for the ignitor and
coil. Do you think they overcharged me?

JS>> I spoke to the service manager today. He said, that the
information in their database available to their technicians about the
repair precedures for the 92 Accord are limited because the car is too
old. Also, from his perspective, the technician worked very hard to
try and figure out what the problem was, but because the problem was
intermittent, he had difficulty finding out what the problem was.

JS>> You were correct, they replaced the Distributor CAP And Rotor
(CAP ASSY, HEAD COMP)

JS>> I'm sort of soured on Honda. I'm thinking of selling the Accord
and getting a 1 or 2 year old Camray.

 

Does this include what you paid for diagnostics (on Sept. 3, I think) before
they figured out the ignitor and coil were the problem?

If so, based on my experience, you got a bargain, especially for a
dealership.

What you paid is about $234 U.S. An OEM ignitor goes for around $90 U.S. for
your Accord at online sites from which the public may purchase. A coil goes
for about the same. (If you search, you might do a bit better. But these are
prices I've seen a lot online.) Sounds like they charged you around $50 U.S.
for labor, which is maybe half an hour, but I doubt that this is the "book
rate." I bet the book rate is higher.

See
http://catalog.honda-auto-parts-wholesale.com/?make=HO&year=1991&imageField.
x=53&imageField.y=16 for a typical online Honda parts site.

Admittedly a dealership gets these parts for less, but if you had a friend
do the work, paying only for the parts, you'd pay close to the same.

BTW, as someone mentioned (Gordon?) you may not have needed both a new coil
and a new ignitor. But in my Honda experience, if you'd never had them
changed out, it was a good idea to do both.

In this vein, I think Gordon made a particularly good point: Cars this old
are probably not seen by dealerships that much anymore, and this problem is
I think more unique to early '90s Hondas.

People who have cars 10+ years old are probably well in the minority. Honda
people might be an exception. Still, I bet the average age of the Hondas
that dealers see for service is quite a bit younger. They have to cater to
those who have warranties in particular, after all, and those cars are just
a few years old.

So based on what Gordon observed, I am inclined to be more forgiving of
these guys. Yes, they're supposed to be experts. But if a technician has
never seen this before, then a day of troubleshooting by your dealer's
people compares well with the full day a Firestone shop spent on my Civic
around 1996 ultimately figuring out it was the ignitor (and they had a
non-starting car, too). It's a very quick repair once one knows this is the
problem, so I don't think Firestone was just sitting on their hands all day
with my car. (I say this with a lot of hindsight experience, now.)

Two morals I learned recently: Do my own homework on my old but beloved
Honda before letting any shop work on it. If possible, don't let a shop BS
you into something your research indicates is not likely.

snip

Thanks for passing along the info. Lest I ever let another technician
replace my distributor cap and rotor (very unlikely) and have to tactfully
caution them about keeping their paws from hitting the ignitor during the
job.

Most importantly, how is your car running? Did the shop say they *confirmed*
a failed coil and ignitor? Ya know, it might run with no problems for
another 50,000 miles, easily, assuming you do the usual maintenance (oil and
belt changes, etc.).

snip

Well Toyota's the only other car I'd consider besides Honda.

Someone here told me to look at the new Toyota Scions, too, should I be
serious about leaving Honda.

 

----------------
susserj,

Now that you know what you know, keep an eye on the description of the
'main relay failure' (hot sun shining on dash) and see if there's any
connection for your car . . .

Hope we won't be hearing that you've got that problem too :-(

'Curly'

--------------------------

To REPLY: If there are a couple of underscores in my return address,
you must remove them to reply directly . . . . . . Thanks.

Regarding stage performances: When everyone else has finished playing,
you should not play any notes you have left over. -

 

Accords place coil outside leaving room for igniter to breath. Civic
place coil inside the distributor. Densely pack inside a tiny space,
it heats up. Rotors don’t like to be melted. Igniter
doesn’t like heat and coil don’t like vibrations. Because
benefits of Accord are over Civics, they may win in court. (Igniters
are mounted outside on most Legends but still fail.)

Paranoid as it may seem, I mark my expensive parts when I take my car
to service. Igniter, ECU, O2 etc.

....I recommend Civics over Toyotas. Some Hondas are safe (they
don’t become flying shrapnels), honestly constructed (easily
interchangeable) and enviromentaly friendly (less toxic electrical
parts.) Sales team may not.

Soichiro Honda past away in 1992. Accords got worse ever since.
Starting after 1990 Accords don’t make em like they use to.
I’ve seen so many deaths related accidents on the 2000s Accords.
Some near my backyard. I’m against the new Accord but not the
Civics.

 

Curious, since 1. Soichiro retired from the Company in 1973. 2. The
Accord has a very good safety record.

 

Soichiro Honda past away in 1992. Accords got worse ever since.

Curious? Here are some opinions. Being raised in an Asian family means total
respect to the elderly. Speaking to elders requires a special respectful
vocabulary. Any advices made by elders are well looked into. And any
requests made by elders are met, at whatever cost. Until elders past away, I
still have to live under their philosophy.

Western thinking argues against this oriental idea saying that the idea
above impedes progress, and I understand. Progress is very important.
Absorbing new cultures and technological achievements are important.

(IMO) The difference between pre 89 and post 90 Accord/Civ appears that new
electronic circuit changed, for example most went from mechanical to
electrical and smaller. Overall, post 90 appeared to have very drastic
exterior designs and electrical upgrades. Just like any competitive company,
these changes will probably occur whether Sochiro is still alive or not.
Regarding safety, I haven't base them on statistics, just observations.
Koji