I have a 2007 manual base model Fit with 247,000 miles on it. I bought it used from a dealer when it had 89,000, and have been amazed at how little this car has cost me in terms of maintenance. I love how much cargo I can carry, and the close to 40 mpg's I get-- it's just an awesome little car.

This is the first year since I've owned it that I've spent some real money taking care of the thing. I got new tires, and a badly needed new clutch (it was the original). It's also had a somewhat mysterious cold engine problem for probably 4 years now-- no matter the temperature outside, the cold engine light is always on for the first 5 minutes. If you don't warm the car up before moving, it dies on the first stop or turn. I'm a patient person, so the modus operandi has been to just warm the car up before I go. However, it's gotten worse in the last couple months (dies while just idling unless I give it a bit of gas), and last month the check engine light came on. It said cylinder 2 and 4 are misfiring. We replaced all the spark plugs and coils and still got the same codes.

So, now it's at the mechanic's shop, and I'm looking at $2,000 for him to redo the valves. When he called to say what it would cost, he was surprised I wanted to go forward with the repair rather than buy a new car. Bear in mind, I hate buying cars, I like this car, and I've put some money into it already this year so it seemed worth it.

Question for the forum: am I making the right decision? How long can I reasonably expect my car to last? I live in the desert (no rust), I drive pretty conservatively, and these are mostly going to be city miles from here on out (though in the past it was a lot of highway miles). Any advice to help extend its lifespan?

 

Replace valves or valve adjustment? Adjustment shouldnt be 2k, thats alot for 2 hr of work. Replacing valves means removing head, that may be poor decision for you

 

If they're talking about tearing the car down to replace the valve train or 2 grand for a valve adjustment then stop the work before they tear into the car and find another shop.

The L15 in the Fit is a rather simple engine that is somewhat picky when it comes to valve lash. Over time, the intake valve tends to tighten and the exhaust valve loosens which can give you stalling issues if you try to drive shortly after cold start ups. This stalling issue reduces as the engine temp increases as well as you can see cylinder misfires if the valve lash is out of spec enough.

For most folk, the general rule of thumb is to perform a valve adjustment every 100k miles. Valve lash specs should still be on a label under the hood of the first gen Fits.

 

If this is just a valve adjustment, a dealer quoted me 700 for it last year. Maybe your shop is applying their standard "I don't want to do it" rate.
if entire valvetrain replace, I agree not worth it. Wouldn't new engine be cheaper ... ?

 

i second this opinion. Valve job requires no parts unless you change the valve cover gasket. It’s about 30 minutes to an hour to remove some stuff to get in there, about 30 minutes to do the adjustment, then about an hour to put everything back together.

One thing that can drive up the cost is that the official Honda procedure is to drain the coolant and remove the intake headers. When I do it, I only remove the plastic intake manifold and leave in the metal headers. This allows me not to have to drain all the coolant. Draining the coolant does add a bit more time and the price of Honda coolant (I wouldn’t bother putting the old back in).

 

I had a valve timing adjustment on my 08 Fit at around 118k miles and it fixed all my rough idling when cold problems. Some people told me that wasn't the problem and other shops simply didn't want to do it. Don't get ripped off, this job should be under $700.

 

Ditto. 2nd owner, 260K miles, valve adjustment was never done, or done 100k ago. Doing valve adjustment solved the cold stalling and rough running. Exhaust valves were way too tight, intake was a little loose - typical. DIYed it myself and it hasn't stalled since or stumbled in the morning when it's cold. Completely restored, drivability got a little better.

Get this issue fixed. You don't want to be stalling out. Every time the engine is below idle IPM, oil pressure will not be high enough under load conditions (in gear, throttle open, cold engine, trying to accelerate) to sustain the oil film thickness between rotating assembly components. You likely are cumulatively hurting the engine every time a stall or low rpm struggle happens, slowly making some glitter in the oil pan. Wearing the bearings every time that occurs.

Yeah, $2000 is a lot. I could see $700 being... acceptable (but high) - but only if a shop is also changing your spark plugs and your filter and cleaning out your EGR and throttlebody while they are there... Job can be done by experienced mechanic in about 2-3 hours. It took me around 4-5, as I was taking my time and never done it before. Don't need to drain coolant, can just move the throttlebody out of the way if you unbolt it from the intake manifold. Look it up on youtube