Car is burinig engine oil fast, what can be the reason?

shiyang

I have a 1995 Honda Odyssey, In December 2000, I did the manufacture recall to repair an potential oil leaking. The dealer did the repair but they also chewed gasket for the timing belt between polly and broke the timing belt. Of course my car died. They find the problem and repaired the engine, What they did was replaced timing belt and repaired bent valves. When I got the car back, I found that the car is consuming too much gas compared with before. The miles/gallon dropped about 15-20%. Another problem is that engine burning oil at the speed of 2 quaters/month/900 miles. I did send it back and they repaired PCV valve 10 days ago. But I l found that the problems still exist, i.e. dropped gas mileage and bruning oil. My question is, what can be the reason and what I should ask them to do next. So, far, they are very polite and covering all the cost for this mistake they made. If after three times repair the problem is still there, do I have any legal options? I live in Massachusetts, I heared that there is a law called "Lamend? law"?. Any addvise is great appreciated. Thanks.

armtdm

Have the engine looked at elsewhere for diagnosis then go back. Yes they are liable for the repairs if damage caused by the broken belt

adc100

with your car explaining the lemon laws for the various states.

itsmeagain

...covers only the first year of ownership and 15k miles, whichever comes first. If during this period your car goes in for repair at least 3 times for the same problem and the car in for repairs more than 15 days, then you qualify for the Massachusetts lemon laws. You clearly do not qualify for this. However if the dealer made a mistake on their end then you have a different case but it sounds like they are working with you. Good luck.

thor8

You said they broke the valve belt, bent valves. Sounds like head damage, valve guide holes maybe miss aligned, oil leaking into cylinder chamber, this could account for the oil, the same problem can account for the drop in mpg due to valves not sealing correctly.

Mr_Shiftright

Yes, this is no longer a Honda factory issue, this is a DEALER issue.

IF you have a cog driven belt, I don't see exactly how a gasket affects this...if the engine is chain driven, then I'd expect the engine to fry before the belt broke, as you would suffer oil loss through the gasket.

While I do understand your upset, and while you may be 100% right about the dealer screwing up, your story, from a mechanical point of view, doesn't make sense the way you explained it.

shiyang

Dear Mr_shiftright, You have a very good answer. But it looks that I need explain more about the problems. The Honda recall was to replace/install a retainer because of the balancer shaft oil seal was bad. It could potentially cause oil leaks for Honda Accords and Odysseys between 1995-1998?. Obviously, to do this job they needed to open timing belt cover and put it back--correctly after the work was done. The problem was the timing cover was not put back correctly. Car dead after drove about 50 miles. It was towed to another Honda dealer, they found the following:"Romved timing cover, found hole in timing cover and timing cover gasket was chewed up in the pulleys. Tried to install new belt to start VEH, VEH won't run". At this point I had to contact with tht original dealar who did the recall work and they accepted to tow and repair it for me free of charge. What they have done further was to repace bent valves. On their report was :" 8 valve EX, 1 gasket, 8 valve IN" I believe they have replaced at least 8 valves there. After this repair, two major problems occured and the scary thing was that "Check engine Oil" lighted and stayed on for about 10 minutes while I was driving on highway. I had to exit highway and stopped. Only at that time that I found engine was burning oil at the speed of 2 quaters/900 miles/month. They accepted these facts and is doing repair. It is aobut two weeks ago, they replaced "bad PCV valve". But the problems are still there. I checked oil level two days ago, it's about half left and gas/mileage is still about 14 miles a gallon (for a 2.2-four cylinder Honda?). It used to be 17-18 miles/gallon. I would like to hear more of your opnions. Many thanks.

Mr_Shiftright

Hmmm...okay....now making more sense, thank you!

Well, it still sounds like a possible dealer negligence issue. What I'd suggest is for you to ask the dealer to do a "cylinder leakdown test" to determine if there is cylinder/valve, etc damage. If there is, then I think they owe you an engine, presuming all the facts have been carefully presented here and presuming the engine was not burning oil beforehand, etc blah blah blah.

What you should do from this point on is keep a careful record (start a 3-hole binder or a folder) of everyting that's gone on here, and keep all the receipts. Make notes of all conversations. I know this seems tedious, but this will help your case further down the road.

isellhondas

How in the world this could decrease gas mileage.

Mr_Shiftright

Oh, by low compression, if there's engine damage.