I know right?! That's exactly what I was thinking.

 

that was a close one , but not for nothing , the dealership actually told you there was a missing lock-nut ?
and your mechanic found no such thing ? i'd be firing off an angry letter to Honda , that's fraud , seriously . better still if you've
got anything on paper . tell them you're gonna write to consumers

 

Get real. The dealership will simply say that the mechanic decided to replace the missing locknut for free when he reassembled things so that you wouldn't be driving around without it. End result dealership=hero and you=scumbag for making wild unfounded allegations.

 

A K20 swap would have been awesome.

 

Did the warning light service reminder indicate that the car needed a valve adjustment? Every 8000 miles or so my service reminder light calls up the letter-number code that means "if you hear valve noise, adjust the valves, otherwize you can leave the valves alone!" So far I haven't heard any valve noise yet on my 2015 fit, with about 40,000 miles. Typically valve noise first shows up when the engine is cold then goes away as the engine warms up. At this point, the operation of the engine should not be affected yet. Same power, same acceleration, same fuel economy, just a little clacking when cold. It should not cause erratic idling. It is simply your cue that you ought to adjust the valves within the next few thousand miles.

I could be mistaken but it seems to me that a missing locknut will cause the valve lash to go rapidly out of adjustment, and no matter which valve it is, the cylinder won't provide a normal level of power, and as soon as that happens, which would be only a few minutes after the nut gets lost, the OBD2 system should turn on the check engine light, and at that point a scan tool should show a misfire on the cylinder with the maladjusted valve.

 

So pinoretread - did a cleaning fix the idling/hesitation issue? If so what was the cost?

 

My 2015 Fit had a recall for all 4 door handle bracket – someone forgot to galvanize them and the repair would consist of replacing them with new galvanized door handle brackets. There was also a recall for the 2 rear ceiling grab-handle brackets. The recall says they need to be replaced with redesigned brackets that would not be in the path of the air bags, should the air bags deploy, and possibly puncture the airbags. So I said can you give me the bracket and I'll do it myself? They would not agree to that.

So I let them do it. How much damage could you do when putting them in. The answer is not too much damage, but you can make a mess. You could rip the headliner when replacing the grab handle bracket but the headliner did not look ripped. You could neglect to replace the plastic film humidity-control sheet in each door, when replacing the door handle brackets. Well, they replaced the plastic film, fairly close to the way it is supposed to be replaced, but not quite correctly. One small section that is supposed to go under something, they put it over the thing. But no big deal really. What the did do is get the black sealing compound adhesive that is used to hold the film to the door, onto the window glass, so every time I rolled a window down, and then up, the goop would get on the window. A couple times I cleaned it off with a solvent, but each time when I rolled the windows down-and-up the goop would get on them again. So I had to take the door panels off, reposition the plastic film, making sure to keep sealer away from the glass. Had to do this for all 4 doors. With the panels off I did smell the fact that they sprayed something on the door inner metal surfaces where the new brackets go – it was to control rust the work sheet said. I have a feeling that they actually did not replace the grab handle brackets because the headliner was perfectly in place when they finished and I doubted they were capable of placing it so well. I mean – it looked just like it had looked from the factory. But they billed Honda for doing that. I didn't want to pull back the headliner to check because I didn't feel confident that I could do it neatly. I had no problem with the door panels but I was not confident about the headliner.

There is a reason people call dealerships stealerships.