I have just bought a 01 Prelude and after I got it the check engine light came on. I took it to Honda and it was a Missfire on cylinder 1. They suggested a tune up. I called they guy that sold me the car, which is an hour and a half away and he said he would take care of the bill if I let his guy do the work.

The check engine light comes and goes. I runs fine and idles fine unless it is cold. When it is cold it idles rough and if the light is not on it will come on in a fews seconds. After it warms up it is fine. Anyway I took the car to this machanic that changed the plugs, wires, cap and rotor. When I got in the car he had test drove it so it was warm. It ran fine with no engine light on. When I got in it this morning it idled just as rough as before and them the check engine poped back on. Back to the shop I go. Missfire on cylinder 1 again. The mecanic told me that he would not be able to tell the problem untill the engine is cold again so I had to leave it over night. I drove home in a loaner car (damn Saturn)

Does anyone have any idea what would cause
1. Missfire on the same cylinder every time.
2. Idles rough only when cold. (When the missfire happenes also)
3. blows smoke out of the car.

The car has 74,000 miles on it.

Thanks in advance!

Jamie

 

I just had a similar problem on my 97 Type SH (123K miles). One dealer couldn't figure out the problem and told me that maybe there was carbon buildup on the valves and to try to run an engine cleaner thru. That didn't work. A second dealer finally discovered that the EGR valve was broken, so they replaced it AND they replaced my fuel injectors FREE OF CHARGE! I guess there is an extended warranty on some parts for emissions control, but I was amazed that they covered the car with over 120K miles on it! Anyway, that fixed the problem.

FYI for any Chicagoland Honda owners - it was at Castle Honda in Morton Grove IL. I was very impressed by their service department.

 

I will certainly pass this one to the guy working on it. He said it was most likely an EGR problem. Did yours misfire on the same cylinder every time?

Thanks for your reply!

 

Yep, the code always read cylinder 1 misfire, although I'm not sure why an EGR valve failure would always impact the same cylinder. Hope that fixes your problem so you can get out of that Saturn ASAP!

 

Well I am not sure where the EGR valve is on the Prelude but if it feed into the manafold by cylinder 1 I would think that it would efect it.

 

heh
well obviously it would have to feed somewhat evenly to all 4 cylinders or else honda would have a problem on their hands

its located by the thermostat housing but its on the intake manifold, looks like a big mushroom (bronze colored, black plastic top) with a 3 wire plug and 1 vacuum line coming out of the top of it.
ill make it easy, heres a picture

look, you would get an EGR code of some kind if this was the problem, maybe it is, i dont know but when my valve broke, i got a code and the engine ran like shit, maybe check the distributor and associated timing sensors, cause im pretty sure it can only detect #1 cylinder misfire anyway, not the oher 3.

did they test or replace the spark plug wires? i had my #1 cylinder wire fail the other day (see related thread )

let me know

~boomer

 

Is that true that it can only detect cylinder 1 misfire, and not the rest? That would explain alot in my case.

As for an EGR code, I never got anything but the code for cylinder 1 misfire when my EGR valve died. Strange.

BlueLude, I'd at least have a Honda dealer look into an EGR problem since there is evidently some sort of extended factory warranty on the issue (on my '97, at least).

 

They have replaced the wires, plugs, cap and rotor with factory stuff. Does this thing have a pulse wheel in it that might be bad? I would imagine that would be telling the ECU that there is a misfire. I am going to ask the guy to do a compression test on it today. This really bums me out because I have only had the car for 2 weeks. The check engine light was on when I was looking at it and I told him that I would not buy the car unless the problem was resolved, which I think all that was done was reset the ECU leaving me with the real problem. Now, like I said he is taking care of it with his mechanic, 1 and 1/2 hours away from me. Because it only does it when it is cold it is taking awhile. I am almost about to tell the guy to take this car off my hands and give me something else. I love the Prelude, but I can not enjoy it because of the problems. I have had the car for 2 and 1/2 weeks so I dont know if he would let me trade it. The car also has that famouse growl sound that everyone here thinks might be an auto tesioner. I could swear that the growl was not there when I test drove the car. This is my 5th Honda and I have never had problems like this.

 

OK, the mechanic just called me and said that the #1 cylinder was running lean on a cold startup. He is replacing the fuel injector right now and I hope that solves everything.