Why the he'll doesn't Honda make this a tsb it's really annoying

 

Got my car back earlier this afternoon after Honda did the valve adjustments and replaced all 4 coil packs. It's running great, Honda didn't charge me a thing for the coils even though they're out of warranty and the mercedes dealer is putting a check in the mail for me. I'm much less frustrated then I was before and I'm 100% positive I'll be keeping the fit. I'm glad I found this forum and i appreciate all your input and feedback.

 

So I took my car in today to have them check my car out again and let them know that I found that a lot of people on this forum are having the same issue that I have and it was they have found that the coil packs were the problem so when they called me they told me that they found my EGR sensor to be faulty? but since they do not have the part and it need to be special ordered, I will not be able to find out it that is the problem until then....I will write a update after the install.

 

My Fit was 4k out of warranty and the dealer wanted to charge me for the two they found that were suspect. But, I had an extended and all I paid was $100.00. They were happy, I was happy and got a chance to drive a '09 Honda Civic: free rental. So far the car is running great w better MPG. And I would go back to the dealer; the service manager is a great guy.

06/22/2010 update:
Here we go again! And I have less than 5k on the warranty and the trouble is just starting again. My only hope is that it will be regular enough to convince the dealer to fix. I have never had a Honda nickle and dime me and this will be the last! I like the car but these problems are going to continue to be annoying and expensive. I got rid of my '00 Accord V6 because of that:
1. transmission repair coming up: $2500.00
2. front drivers seat broke and welded twice: $1200.00 just for the bottom that broke
3. 100+k tune up coming up: $495 to $650 labour alone and I had the parts: has Honda ever heard of a timing chain?? The whole front of the engine is taken apart with all gaskets and water pump and timing BELT (again: timing CHAIN Honda) and spark plugs changed )V6)
I really like Hond cars but taking care of them has gotten very expensive.

 

Hi guys,

I just bought my Honda Jazz 2003 (im in Australia) last november. With 128000 km (thats 80k miles) and it sometimes stutters really badly. Mostly at around 70 km/h (45miles/h) in 5th gear, just cruising steady it sometimes stutters violently.

Today the car just completely shut off when my girlfriend was driving slowly, and didnt start for several minutes (entire electrical system seemed not to work anymore) but suddenly everything worked again. SCARY! (this was in fact the second time the car just didnt start anymore for several minutes)

As far as the stuttering is concerned I think the consensus is that the coil packs are to blame. Could this also cause the other issues that we are having?

Whats the best course of action (in general)
1. Go to the garage and get the computer read to see if there are misfires?
2. then replace coils? or is there another step first that has some chance of success?

Hope you can help. THANKS

 

John,

I would suggest you got to a local auto store and get them to read the codes for you. Here in the states it is free. Check around and see if any places offer that service for free. If you cannot find anywhere to do it for free then I would suggest buying an OBDII scanner they cost 75-100$. If it is only a couple dollars for a garage to scan it well you can make that financial decision. If it reads a misfire on one of the cylinders chances are that your coil is bad or a fouled spark plug.

If a certain cylinder is misfiring and the plugs look good, I would swap the coil pack to a different cylinder and see if it follows. If the misfire follows suit then your problem lies in the coil and simply replace.

 

thanks dsmwookie!

I called the official Honda dealer here in the neighbourhood... $112 for the initial inspection. The guy didnt really wanna listen to "just read out"

Im new to the country so I now have the challenge of finding a decent garage (a lot sooner then I had hoped )

 

John,

Do they have parts stores there like Autozone or anything? Here in the states aftermarket part houses do the scans for free.

 

The last time I visited Costco in the Valley, I found a simple OBDll scanner for $29.99. It's been over 2 months, I dunno if they still carry them.

 

03/19/2010
I just rec'd a call from the district manager for my area of Georgia. Honda wants nothing to do with the Fit coil pack problem. She pulled up my 2009 complaint; up until now the reps @ Honda America have said there were no other complaints. I had asked the nice young lady two days ago when I called 1-800-999-1009 to pass along a request to replace the other two coil packs.
She said no. Even though I had a documented case before the 60k warranty limit. Stupidly I waited until the 'stutter/engine missing' problem was obvious. Maybe I will pick a couple up when I get the money.
Just like Toyota, Honda will stonewall this problem forever. They do not like to send out those letters giving permission to take your vehicle in for 'free' service.
Honda is no different than other corporate entities: customer service is always lacking to a degree or other.
On my Accord I never got a recall letter even though there were more than one. BTW for Accord owners: beware of the driver seat problem. I am going to get rid of my Accord; maybe I will look at a Mustang...

 

Hi guys,

just a little update of my problem.

yesterday evening the car completely broke down when driving home.
Battery was dead.

roadside assistance came (again). The car started again with jumper cables but he did a proper check of the battery anyway. The battery did pass the test but when he looked inside it was completely dried up!

So maybe the battery has been short-circuiting on itself intermittently. I wonder if the stuttering problem will go away now as well! (although why would that always happen under the same conditions as you all have that problem. internal resonance frequency of the battery is at 2500 rpm? )

The roadside assistance man filled the battery with distilled water and the ride home felt smoother than I had felt in a long time (or it was my imagination, you never can tell)

As I am (i think) the only non-american here and that my JAZZ is from 2003, there is a good chance the coils will not be the problem for me.

 

ummm wtf my local dealer had told me that coils were not covered under powertrain warranty...

 

So They replace the EGR sensor and as soon as I drove it out the stuttering was still there. so I took it back and and asked them to look at the Coil packs so low and behold they found a bad coil pack. My service rep said that he wanted to replace all 4 for me but that the extended warranty people would want to come and see it and if he did that and the other three didn't fail infront of them then there was going to be a problem with any claims I made after that. So I'm going to pick my car up after work and hopefully this will be the end of my stuttering problems..

 

I wonder if there are enough cases of this problem occurring to warrant a class action suit.....If this was occurring with other Honda models it would be more attractive to an attorney but there just aren't that many Fits on the road here...... Is this occurring on automatic transmission cars more frequently? Is it happening on cars using a particular grade of gasoline, type of driving style of the owners, driving conditions ( urban, highway, rural) or a certain climate more frequently...... British cars and motorcycles had coil problems all the time as well as air cooled VWs but it was no big deal when you only had to deal with one coil.

 

Keep on bothering Honda America. The more noise you make the better. Also, if anyone has an online subscription to Consumer Reports; there may be an avenue to go.

 

I have the same problem as many people here have described, the car stutters under load and low revs mainly, but some of the time it does it with no load and/or high revs as well.
The car has actually turned off a few times on me while driving, it's something I really need to get fixed.

To be honest I don't really have a detailed understanding of cars, I just understand the basics of how everything works and know how to drive.

So I've included some print screens that I took and hopefully someone will be able to point me in the right direction.
While I'm not a technical expert as mentioned before, I'm quite handy and would like to fix the problem myself if at all possible.

To the pictures. The first and last picture are essentially the same, except that I selected "Honda" as the manufacturer in the last picture. I'm not sure whether the first picture really adds anything, but I thought I'd include it since I had it.
The second picture are just some random graphs that I took with the car idling and stepping on the accelerator with the clutch disengaged. Again, don't know if it brings anything to the table.
In the third pictures are all the readings that it would give me and I thought I'd include them.

 

Your computer is telling you the crank shaft sensor is bad. You need to tweak the graphs to show the signal from that sensor to see what's going on.

It could still be the coil packs but you should rule out the crank shaft sensor before getting too deep in unnecessary repairs.

 

Save your self the trouble and just tell them that there are a bunch of other fits that have the same problem you have and once the dealers replace the coil pack everything was fine. I know because that is what I did. Good luck!!!

 

Thanks, I might do that.
Just a quick question though, I've got a 1.3L GLi with a i-DSI engine. Does that use the same coil packs as the 1.5L VTi VTEC engine?

 

I have been having this same issue for a long time now. Tried replacing the spark plugs to no avail. It was an annoyance but now that the car has stalled (while stopped at a light) I am concerned. I ordered 4 coil packs and will update after I replace them.