Lack of Power at 60.000 km

After a year of ownership, I had the impression that the car didn't have nearly the amount of Power it should have according to spec. Fuel Economy was not as expected and I did always have the impression that the car should be driven in a gear lower than anticipated. When I did, it did not help a thing. I simply did not have the feeling of driving a Honda!

I booked a time at Scantune in Låsby in Denmark - a company known for its Dyno. The result of the measurement was a fairly weird set of curves. Horse Power measurements shown acceptable values, but the torque curves reminded more of something I would expect from a Fiat Punt 1.6 than a Honda Accord 2.0. Worst of all - the max. torque came over 6.000 RPM and not at 4.500 RPM as it should according to Specifications. With these measurements in my hand I drove to the local Honda Dealer to talk to them about the Problem and possible solutions.

At the Honda Dealer they looked at the graphs a curves and told me, that they did not have a clue how they should be, and they had no intension of investing time and money finding out how it should be. Then he came up with the idea to tell me that these Dynos aren't worth the money. There aren't exactly exact in their measurements - which I could only confirm - but then again also told them that this was the reason why I had selected exactly this specific Dyno which is known of one of the best in the country. That made them think again, and after a while they agreed with me. They looked again at the curves and then they came to the conclusion that everything was as expected. It had to be the tires I had on the car which were the reason. He asked me about the width and when I said 225, he told me to put 195 back on again, and then everything would be fine again. After that he did not want to talk to me again - and honestly - I didn't want to talk to them either.

I drove home and wrote a mail to the danish Honda Import company. They never replied. I waited 3 weeks and then I wrote FDM (Union of danish Car Owners). They were not of much helt, but suggested I had the car serviced. If that did not help, they would consider looking into the problem again. I drove to Flensburg in Germany and booked time for service/inspection. I told them about the problem and I was Cross Examined for about 45 minutes where they wanted to hear about all the symptoms. At the end they came to the conclusion that some adjustments were needed and probably also a firmware or two.

A week later I came back and once again I was interigated. This time the best mechanic was attending (which is quite unusual in Germany) and we had a long talk about the problem - and also about the quality of Dynos. As the mechanic said: A dyno test does not always tell the truth, but it tells if something could be wrong. Unfortunately it does not tell exactly what is wrong. The art is therefore to find the problem. As I told them about the used Dyno, the mechanic jumped out of his chair, borrowed the key, ran out and drove the car into the garage. A few minutes later he came back and told that he had found the first 2 issues. Both Calibers in the back had defects (I've later learned that this is a general issue with this model). We agreed that he had to make a major service on the car, and then we would take it from there.

After 6 hours the mechanic came sweating out from the garage. He had managed to save one of the calibers, the other had to be replaced. Honda Import in Germany had agreed to take the costs. All valves had been misadjusted and it was his impression that whatever inspection and service this car had had, it wasn't worth the time spend. He had adjusted everything from scratch and it was now according to the specifications from Honda. He was sure that I would feel a major difference.

And I can only agree on that. The car was completely different to drive - but I will till the day I die - should I live that long - claim that the car still wasn't quite as it should be. But the Engine rotated again and more RPM was agin equal to more power. After the last caliber was changed, the fuel economy changed dramatically to the better. All in all I was happy with the result. Where I wasn't happy was the way the local Honda Dealer in Denmark had ignored the problem and furthermore how the Honda Import in Denmark had ignored my mail. When it comes to cars in Denmark, this seems to be the standard.