Brought our 2015 Honda Fit into the dealership for a valve adjustment
 

The dealership informed me that because a locknut was missing and one was loose on two of the valves and that they would need to replace the whole engine. To which I was not very pleased with. I am not particularly savvy with cars, but I'm not completely clueless.
This suggestion seems pretty extreme and from what I've read, a locknut can go missing within the cylinder head and retrieved. So I'm hoping that is correct. The car runs, it goes into limp mode when it's started but after warming up it drives relatively normally, outside of some erratic idling, hence needing the valve adjustment. I'm taking the car to a local mechanic on Tuesday, but my main question is, am I off base, and does the engine really need to be replaced? Or I am correct that this issue can be resolved by taking it to another mechanic. I scoured the forums trying to find a thread that could possibly give me some answers, but couldn't find anything. Any knowledge or help would be greatly appreciated.

The obvious question is would this engine replacement be done under warranty or is it at your expense?

Unfortunately engine replacement is not under warranty, it would be at my expense.

. I’m not a mechanic, but an engine replacement does indeed seem rather extreme... I don’t trust dealers any more or less than other mechanics, but they’re sure pricier... definitely get a second opinion!!!

Same here, luckily the town I'm in is just small enough that independent mechanics try to keep up a good reputation. So there are few of them I trust more than the Honda dealership. Hopefully the second opinion will be better news!

I'm not convinced that erratic idling will be fixed by a valve adjustment. When valves go out of spec on these small engines, engine doesn't breathe as well, and doesn't have as much power, but shouldn't have idle problems.

Good luck on your second opinion. I'm certainly not convinced you're anywhere near engine replacement. Dealer replacement, yes.

Thank you for the info! And definitely thanks for the luck, I'll take as much of it as I can.

I can't offer any recommendations, but I sure like to know how a lock nut goes missing when everything is sealed under the valve cover. Sherlock Holmes, can you give me a hint?.

That definitely ran through my head when they told me what the "issue" was.

How many miles on the engine?

It's got 101,000 or so miles on it.

It goes missing by falling down the large cavity on the timing chain side. There are holes large enough tor the nut to pass through.

In short, the dealer is recommending a new engine because they can not determine where that lock nut will find a resting place or if it will. It could wedge itself in the timing chain/gear and lock up the motor.

A regular mechanic could disassemble the motor until they find the nut, but dealerships just don't do real motor work anymore. They are just parts changers and so they are recommending a whole new motor.

Your basic options are 1. do the valve adjustment and ignore the missing nut and hope for the best. 2. have someone take apart the motor until they find the nut, re-assemble, and do valve adjustment. 3. put in a new motor

Ah, I see. Thank you so much for the information! I guess we'll see what my mechanic recommends and we'll go from there. I will keep this knowledge in mind when they let me know how they're going to proceed.

It's shaping up to be carbon build up in the intake valves and clogged fuel injectors. There's more to the equation, so my mechanic will let me know on Monday. I appreciate all the replies and all the help!

That is very common! Good luck!

My thought is was the nut missing when the cover was first removed??

I worked in the auto repair business as a tool and support and salesperson.

All most employees had some sort of financial commission on all tickets??

With my 200 plus mechanics, I witnessed a 90% complete dishonesty at all levels.

The only exception was a dealership that was owned by a very close personal friend of mine. I worked in his racing division so we were together for the whole race season. When I viewed this dishonesty at his dealership he asked me who is involved and then he would fire all involved. A spy I was. It was the only way.

Rick

that's why i hate the idea of leaving my car with a dealership , been avoiding bringing my fit down to get the fuel pump recall taken care of.
i'm tempted to give them some story so they just give me the new pump , i can install it myself . it shouldn't matter to them . they just have you sign
the paper , the recall is covered . i remember doing that years ago with the igniter on my '90 civic . i brought the failed part to the dealer to match
it up and it turned out to be a recall item . they handed me a new one and had me sign the paper , done .was a $90 part . that said , a missing lock nut ?
that can't be good ,good chance it should still be sitting up in the head somewhere , if not , i guess you could look under the timing chain cover or in the oil pan , and then there's the potential of a damaged valve . , at the least , there's alot of labor on this one . good luck

Fun fact, the mechanic that looked at my car after the dealership assessment, said that all the lock nuts were on the valves when he opened up the valve cover. I'm thinking that might have been a little snub at me from the dealership, but I digress. It's unfortunate to hear that auto repair business has this kind of dishonesty. Honestly, I can deal with it to a degree, I see it as "mark up" for their experience. However, I don't have patience for it if they're not actually solving the problem and just making it worse. The mechanic I took it to, replaced the injectors, and gave me a 3 year warranty on the work and seemed fairly honest. Also, the car is running great.

Good for you! So much for the missing locknut, it was there all the time. Who knew...

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.

New Engine.
 

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.