Bud Clary Honda of Moses Lake

Bud Clary Honda of Moses Lake responded

On 05/27/11 Ms. King had her 2000 Honda CRV towed into our dealership for repair. The timing belt had broken and the vehicle would not run.After looking at the vehicle, my service advisor advised Ms. King that there was a likely chance that she had bent the valves due to the timing belt breaking. Ms. King was then advised that we needed to do a cylinder leak down test to determine if the valves were bent. (Aside from pulling the head, the leak down test is a less expensive option to determine if any valves are bent) When we performed the leak down test all cylinders passed. If the leak down test had not passed we would have informed Ms. King that we need to remove the head and replace the valves. Since the vehicle passed the leak down test we replaced the timing belt. The vehicle ran good but due to having 152,000 miles on it the technician recommended adjusting the valves and other maintenance items that were long overdue like the timing belt that should have been replaced at least twice by this time, but was not. Once all of the work was done my technician test drove the vehicle and everything checked out good. My advisor than called Ms. King to let her know her vehicle was done. Ms. King picked up her vehicle and drove for two and a half hours without a problem. She then called and advised us that her vehicles check engine light came on and started to run rough. Ms. King was advised to take the vehicle to the closest Honda dealer to have it looked at. Later she called and informed us that Kirkland Honda had looked at the vehicle and it needed a new motor and we needed to pay for it. I then called Kirkland Honda and spoke to Scott their service manager. Scott informed me that the advisor working with Ms. King was off and would not be available for a couple days. Scott said that he would go over the technician notes from their technician that was working on Ms. King’s vehicle. Scott informed me that the technician had found that the valves were not adjusted wrong and that the #4 valve bent causing the problem. The technician recommended replacing the #4 valve and retesting. I explained to Scott what we had done and he stated that according to what I had told him and the tech’s notes we did not do anything wrong. It is a vehicle with high miles that has not been maintained and anything could go wrong at any time. He also explained that due to mileage and nothing else that they were recommending rebuilding the lower end of the motor as well. I then called back and spoke to the advisor working with Ms. King. He told me that the valve would probably fix the car but if they resurfaced the head they would need to rebuild the lower end of the motor due to increased compression. (You do not need to resurface a head unless the head gasket blows or if the head is warped and you will have the same compression no matter if you resurface the head or not) Their advisor Dave then informed me that Ms. King had approved all of the work to be done. Including, rebuilding the lower end of the motor that was recommended due to millage and did not have to be done in order to fix the car. In conclusion, if Ms. King’s vehicle had a bent valve the vehicle would not have passed the leak down test and would not have run right. We would have recommended replacing the bent valves. If we would have adjusted the valves too tight, they would have bent when we started it up. Not two and a half hours of driving later. Our diagnoses was correct, our valve adjustment was correct and confirmed by Kirkland Honda’s technician. On a high mileage vehicle anything can happen at any time and when a timing belt breaks it increases your chances of having other problems down the road. John Jochems Service Manager