Surging

My wife just came home in her Odyssey ('01, 99,756 miles), and it is
surging from 1K to 4K RPM continuously every 1.5 - 2 seconds. Anyone
have an idea what can cause this? I haven't the first clue.

Thanks.

Dave Kelsen

 

You could have a large airbubble in your cooling system as that is a
common cause.

A common way to burp this out is to put the car on a level plane, take
off the radiator cap, start the car and vary the engine speed from
normal to about 2-3000 rpm -- just cycle it with a couple of second
intervals. Watch for the radiator level to drop. When it drops, add
more coolant (the honda OEM or approved kind). Eventually, the air
bubble will burp out and the problem hopefully will be gone.

Not sure on your Odyssey, but most Hondas have a nipple that can be
opened to let the air out and basically do the same as described above.
You may want to check with a service manual on the specifiic procedure
for your van.

Remco

 

Oops -- just noticed that you asked the same question below this one.
Just follow their advice.

 

Yes, this was the 'original' message which didn't show up on my server
-- until today.

Anyway, I did top off the coolant, but it wasn't very low; I don't
believe it took more than about a cup to fill the overflow tank, and the
radiator itself was full. (How about that antifreeze... they tell you
up front that they're selling you half water, and *still* charge $13 for
a gallon. Oh, my achin' backside. Ah, well.

The problem turned out to be just what it sounded like - the part they
replaced is called an IAC, and I believe that stands for Idle Adjustment
Controller. The technician said she had never heard one cycling as fast
and as hard as mine. Replacing that one part solved the problem, and
was covered under my warranty (which expires in 220 miles). It would
otherwise have cost me $259.89!

Thanks to all who responded.


RFT!!!
Dave Kelsen

 

Such poor quality control these days. That part was designed to fail after
the warranty expired!

 

You might become familiar with www.odyclub.com . The Odyssey has a lot of
problems that keep showing up. Most are covered in detail by the thousands
of forum members. It is an information resource that any odyssey owner
cannot do without.

 

actually, that's /good/ qc. detroit's spent a lot of money on r&d over
the years, but as you can see, not much has gone into innovation - a
huge proportion has gone into lifetime limitation. it's /very/ hard to
make something that reliably works well for a specific period then
fails. nature tends to be for rapid failure or long life. lifetime
limitation has been the prime objective of the last 30 years. ask any
taxi driver how long the last transmission on their detroit hunkojunk
lasted - they'll all give you a startlingly similar number. that's no
coincidence.

 

Yep. Been a member since October of 2000. You can go there and see
pictures of my Oddy, in fact. Incredible source of information.

RFT!!!
Dave Kelsen