Hello all. Last Friday, I ran into a huge problem with my 2015 Honda Fit EX. As I was trying to accelerate after being stopped at a red light, my Fit completely stalled. I tried turning it back on, but after the car turned over and ran for maybe a second, it would shut off again. Because the car was inoperable, the car had to be pushed off the road (thanks to the construction guys next to us that got out and pushed!) and towed to a dealer.

I come to find out that the pressure sensor inside the fuel rail was faulty and now needs to be replaced. A couple days later, they called again saying that not only did they have to replace the whole fuel rail (though they kept in the old fuel injectors), but my low pressure fuel pump also had to be replaced. I've seen a couple of other people on this forum run into issues with the fuel injectors, but I haven't seen much around the fuel rails and fuel pump, but I might not be searching the right keywords to find the right posts about it.

The car only has 56,000 miles on it and I cannot believe that these kinds of issues are happening on what I thought was a reliable Honda. All of these repairs are going to cost me about $1,500 and I am totally at a loss as to what to do besides have the dealership move forward with the repairs. In fact, even the independent shop I went to in order to get some other quotes said that these problems are rare and it would be pretty much the same price in either having them do it or the dealer do it (side note... maybe I'm going to the wrong shops!). That shop even said that they wouldn't be surprised to see a recall in the future because the fuel rail shouldn't be failing this early, but I'm not going to get my hopes up.

Has anybody else run into these kinds of problems? Is there anything else I should be doing?

 

There is a TSB here on all 2015's and a few thousand early 2016's where the entire rail and all four injectors had to be replaced. If this happened within warranty, Honda replaced everything. When it happens out of warranty, Honda has been all over the place as far as goodwill toward repairs, at least from reports here.

In situations like this, I recommend starting with Honda corporate. Find the TSB and present it to them, state that your fuel injector system should be replaced, and it shouldn't be on you. You might encounter pushback saying since it's out of warranty, sorry, not our problem.

In that case, more drastic measures. Schedule a sit-down with the Honda district manager and politely ask why a defective design should be on the consumer. You might not get anywhere with such an approach, but you do indicate your lack of faith in Honda as a company.

You can also picket the dealership. I'm not kidding. Saturday mornings are good. Contact your local police first to let them know you're there, stay well within the law, catch people before they set foot on the dealership's property, and calmly state what kind of non-service you're getting. It's amazing how few people avail themselves of this. When the dealership finds out what you're doing, they often come running, and with offers that were previously non-existent.

 

Why are you suggesting to picket the dealership? They did nothing wrong, so far.

 

In theory, no. But when Honda corporate decides to saddle customers with junk fuel systems and there is no legal recourse, how would you suggest getting the point across to corporate? Obviously if you schedule a sit-down with the district manager and they decline to help you, what other recourse is there? If you have a good one, let me know.

One reason Honda doesn't want to goodwill any repairs toward injectors and rails is the cost, that's obvious. But they're also banking on the fact that few people will actually picket a dealership. Let's sit down for a moment and think about this. If every person here that had bad injectors, rails and starters picketed the dealerships individually, Honda would have a hot mess on their hands and would actually have to do something about it. Until it gets to that point, I doubt they care. If you have better options, I'm all ears.

 

Tow the car to Honda local office with a big sign that reads "This car is junk". I bought a new house and the onsite superintendent allowed faulty workmanship to get by because he never inspected the subcontractors' work until the walk through. I took pictures and posted them in my windshield parked the car in a legal spot near the model office.. I got their attention very fast. Later, the superintendent got fired. Honda's main office is American Honda Motor Co., Inc.
Honda Automobile Customer Service 1919 Torrance Blvd. Torrance, CA 90501-2746. But, I think any Honda centers will work. https://www.honda.com/operations

 

Great idea! If anyone here cares to try it, I'd be very curious as to its effectiveness.

 

Thanks for the all the suggestions, everyone! I ended up getting it fixed at the dealership and unfortunately the "low pressure pump" (or whatever the pump is called that pumps the gas from the tank to the high pressure system) also failed and that had to be replaced, too. After getting the dealer to give me a "discount" on labor costs, the whole thing ended up costing about $1,500. I definitely will be trying to talk to the regional reps as some have mentioned... as for picketing in front of a dealership, that might not be a bad idea but at the end of the day, with me moving this month and having a 4-month old baby, this probably won't be happening any time soon. Maybe the next time a $1,500 repair comes my way.

It's funny because not even a week before this happened, I was bragging to my wife about how glad I was to have bought a reliable car in the Fit unlike my sister who has been having loads of issues with her Ford Focus' transmission. Now I'm somewhat envious because at least Ford replaced their entire transmission for free! I still mostly love my Fit, but if it becomes another money pit like the car it replaced, it will have defeated the whole purpose in buying a supposedly "reliable" Honda.

 

11hawkinst,

I'm in a similar boat. I recently bought a 2015 LX and wasn't aware of the fuel injector issue. I thought I had done a fair amount of research, but I never looked at this forum until after I bought the vehicle (facepalm). Fortunately I haven't faced the fuel related problems yet, but I'm not too excited about the prospect of it happening.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm very disappointed in Honda. I too, bought this car thinking it would be reliable for many many years with basic/affordable maintenance. Clearly, this is not the case with the first couple production year of 3rd-gen Fits, then again a lot of people advise staying away from first models of new generations. . . but here we are. I attached the two TSBs that I found in other threads concerning the fuel issues.

I need to get off my lazy butt and talk to corporate about this, but I haven't yet. Has anyone had luck bringing up the TSBs to corporate, like first-hand experience? Care to share your approach?

 

If you want to talk to Honda corporate about a fuel injector problem that you don't currently have, well, that's going to be a pretty short conversation.

 

Hello all

Spent the last few days investigating the combination of TPMS, emissions, check engine light (misfire cylinder 3), power steering and traction.
Found the thread that talks about the recall and redesign of the 2015 fuel injectors. Recall also includes some portion of the 2016 build.

I continued to search and could not find any definitive description of the changes Honda made to the injectors, just that the original part number has been superseded by a new part number.
I also was pretty horrified at the cost of new OEM parts, and not willing to buy items that "claim" to be the correct item on ebay and are cheap and ship from China. Who knows what they are selling.

So.. I used car-parts.com and ordered a full set of four injectors, and attached fuel rail from salvage yard in California this AM.
Delivered cost to my door $325 including tax and shipping.
The salvage yard shared the vin # of the donor car, so I was able to verify that that was indeed a 2018 fit, and the honda parts www site confirms the new injectors are the same part number as those I would order for my 2015.

My question to the group is, does anyone know what the "change in design" was the Honda made to improve the injectors?

If yes, please share, if not.. I will take some images of the old vs new injectors and share.

I have done a lot of wrenching in my day, but never replaced fuel injectors before, first impression is it is not hard to do, but are there anythings I should look out for as I proceed down this path.

Second question: Does anyone understand why a misfire on Cylinder 3 would set off all the other lights in the dash (IE Blinking TPMS, traction control, others)

Thanks

Thanks in advance to all here who share.
The Honda Service Bulletin that applies is attached.

2015 Honda Fit wiht 28K miles and defective fuel injectors. (Sigh)

 

I'm also interested to see what the difference is in the parts. So, if you don't mind, those images would be clutch! Unfortunately, I'm not too well versed in Honda dash light meanings, being a new Fit owner. As for the injectors, I wonder if the excessive cost is due to them being direct injection. Not sure if that also affects installation, etc., but something worth looking into?

 

I have never seen anything anywhere. An argument could be made that the information should be kept close to the chest for competitive reasons - eg competitors might be in the process of making the mistakes in the design of their injector systems and Honda wouldn't want to tip them off or provide info the competitors could use to avoid the problems Honda ran into.

 

Just wondering if software needs to be updated with the new (revised?) injectors, rather than just plug and play.

 

...and the person I'm standing next to is the service writer who is escorting me to pay $144 for a CVT fluid change, oil change, tire rotation and car wash.

I start up a conversation. Come to find out he was wrenching there a few years before going the service writer route. I decide to pick his brain, we ain't goin' anywhere the way the line isn't moving.

"So curious, on this Fit forum I'm on, we're seeing problems in three areas: injectors, starters and VTC actuators." I went on to explain the situations behind each, or at least the way I understood them.

Here's what he said:

"On the injectors, yeah, we've replaced them within warranty and sometimes outside when we can get Honda to approve. The way we look at it, if it's not your fault but it's out of warranty, we'll do everything we can to get Honda to goodwill it."

"On the starters, haven't seen that as much as a problem on the Fits as on the Accords." He understood I was talking about the pushbutton start models specifically.

"On the VTC actuators, same thing: Haven't seen that as much of a problem on the Fits as on the Accords."

FWIW, I get good service at this dealership, so I'm happy to go back there. The service writer seemed like a nice guy, drove a Mazda 6, and knew everything I was talking about. When I told him, yeah, I think my vehicle is in the TSB SN range for injectors, so if my dash ever lights up like a christmas tree with misfire codes, gotta hightail it here pronto. He said, if you're in the TSB SN range, there is a possibility that Honda might goodwill it for you, so by all means get it back here.

Now whether any of this discussion matters if the injectors implode, who knows...but at least there is one dealer out there who is willing to go to bat for you in such situations. I don't know if it's cool to identify this dealer by name here because it might appear like I'm some kind of shill for them. I'm happy to name it privately if you PM me.

 

If software needs to be updated then I would think that that would be mentioned in the repair procedures because it's additional billable time, but there's not the slightest hint of that so I would assume not.

 

Update: The recall says to pull the plug and coil from the cylinder with misfire (#3) in my case, and swap plug and coil to different cylinder.
I decided, well new fuel rail and injectors not here yet... so... I did that.

A little consternation at the tiny socket (14mm deep well) needed to remove the small tall plugs... but... I got them loose with a std socket, then used my magnet tool to grab the top of the plug and remove it since my 14mm deep socket is not a spark plug socket with magnet, or rubber insert to hold plug)

Tried my cheap Harbor Freight ODB 2 reader to read and clear the codes.. no joy... communication error.
Ok.. Moved on to my brand new Scan Gauge 2 that I use to monitor my sprinter diesel going down the road.
Strike two no joy.. no communication.. just wait wait wait... , tried the trouble shooting method no joy.

Ok out comes my ancient Dell windows XP computer and my Ebay Honda HDS system and software.
After 15 minutes of boot up, and please wait.. reading system.. I was in, re-read codes, and then cleared codes.

Started vehicle with unit still connected.... engine is obviously still missing... (its only 4 cylinders LOL)... and lo and behold.. tenative Cylinder 3 misfire found... so according to the Honda recall paperwork (and the fact that spark plug and coil were moved to a different cylinder).. I have confirmed a fuel problem.

Pretty disappointed in the "quality" of the system.. and no my ride is not under warranty because it was very inexpensive, and slightly under water last November. Just a light dunk.. that got the SRS computer that I replaced.

Good news: Found a seller on Ebay selling 30 days of service manual access for $7... Honda wants $10 for one day.

So far the online service Manual has been pretty good, printing lots of pages to PDF format for future retrieval.
If anyone needs some service manual pages , let me know and I will try to share, or check ebay yourself and splurge on the 30 days for $7 package, it is worth it.

Ok.. will update when I start on the replacement. SM says clearly that all 4 need to be replaced together.. and thats what I have coming.

Agree that I did not see anything about updating software to fix this issue, just new hardware.

Will update this thread as I tear into it.