[AmazeGuru]

This thread could not have come in more appropriate time for me. I gave my Amaze i-DTEC (Sep-2013 model) for 1-year service today (after completing 16500 kms) @ Magnum Honda, Kanakapura road. This was the very first issue I raised with the Service Engineer.

As expected, he was clueless about this problem, and to top it he did not know where the air intake pipe was I had to show him where it is located! I had to narrate this very incident to him and told him repeatedly that there is indeed a design flaw and forced him to write it down in the issue list for check-up.

When I went to collect the car in the evening, he told me that it was checked and re-checked and found that the intake pipe hose position is fine and that it is located at the higher level. I asked him to put this in writing in the job-completion sheet that is handed over to me for reference.

While I am still skeptical about the issue, is there a way we can check the location/position of the hose? Can any Amaze i-DTEC owner throw some light on this?

[anshul26]

Originally Posted by anshul26

I knew it. Amaze had hydro static locking issues and it's not restricted to oil burners.

Just got a chance to check my petrol Amaze physically. Unlike diesel air intake in petrol variant is on top, as Tiger_Stripes rightly said at the level of headlight.
Big relief.


Pardon my ignorance but I was wondering how can water do to such a severe damage to car engine?

My Pulsar has a faulty fuel lid and when it rains heavy, water goes inside petrol tank causing the bike to stall. Bike's engine never got hydrostatic locked.
All I did was got the fuel tank and carburetor cleaned and it's up and running again.All it costed me was Rs 70

I agree car's engine's are more complicated but the basic mechanism is same in all 4 stroke engines.
After all it's just water. It will evaporate. The first thing people do if they drop there cell phones in water is keep them under sun to dry. Most of the times phones work fine.

Originally Posted by AmazeGuru

When I went to collect the car in the evening, he told me that it was checked and re-checked and found that the intake pipe hose position is fine and that it is located at the higher level.

That make's me rethink if air intake is the root cause of hydolocking. Could be some other reason as well.

Originally Posted by deetjohn

They towed the car to the workshop where Honda diagnosed the issue to be some sort of a hydrostatic lock.

Would be great if you can confirm from your cousin or Honda if the Air intake was the culprit in your case.

[.anshuman]

Originally Posted by anshul26

Pardon my ignorance but I was wondering how can water do to such a severe damage to car engine?

Hydrolock occurs when water into the engine through air intake. See this quote from Wikipedia:

Hydrolock occurs when a volume of liquid greater than the volume of the cylinder at its minimum (end of the piston's stroke) enters the cylinder. Since most common liquids are incompressible the piston cannot complete its travel; either the engine must stop rotating or a mechanical failure must occur.

My Pulsar has a faulty fuel lid and when it rains heavy, water goes inside petrol tank causing the bike to stall. Bike's engine never got hydrostatic locked.
All I did was got the fuel tank and carburetor cleaned and it's up and running again.All it costed me was Rs 70

Because the engine did not suck the water through air intake, very small amount of water mixed with Petrol may have reached the engine, and i doubt if it would have even passed carburetor.

After all it's just water. It will evaporate. The first thing people do if they drop there cell phones in water is keep them under sun to dry. Most of the times phones work fine.

Phone do not have internal combustion engines.

Furthermore, from Wikipedia-

Diesel engines are more susceptible to hydrolock than gasoline engines. Due to their higher compression ratios, diesel engines have a much smaller final combustion chamber volume, requiring much less liquid to hydrolock. Diesel engines also tend to have higher torque, rotating inertia, and stronger starter motors than gasoline engines. The result is that a diesel engine is more likely to suffer catastrophic damage.

[KTM_aravind]

With the recent mayhem that the rains have caused in Bangalore, this is something that everyone should be cautious about. I am actually very very surprised that there are so many amaze owners! My close friend and my business partner also owns a i-DTEC amaze and looking at all the flaws in design and ghastly and cheaply made interiors i am surprised that the company is selling so many units. This may be off topic, but then, the front vents for the radiator are so huge that even bigger rocks can enter and hit the radiator/condenser. I don't why Honda is trying to sell off sub-standard designs to people in India at 10L.

Off topic again but another serious issue -My partner's Honda Amaze had a total brake failure at home in the parking lot when he tried to park the vehicle outside! The radiator was damaged, suspension noise in the cabin! So many issues for a new car. I mean no offense to the amaze owners here!

[deetjohn]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Didnt he purchase RSA at the time of delivery? Looks like Honda charged INR 1500 for the rescue as well!

Any idea which part required lathing? For INR 7000? And why have the included LHS headlamp and a/c gas recharging?

CD, No RSA was purchased at the time of delivery. Honda or Vision didn't waive any charges at all. No idea on what was done in the lathe. On the headlamp, guess Vision was either being very conservative, or very money minded as noted by BHPian hserus earlier.

Originally Posted by AstaAddict

Did your Cousin ever thought of approaching the Consumer Forum? I think he should, going by the number of verdicts which are going in favor of the complainants these days.

Not yet. He isn't very initiated about cars and I have asked him to write a strong email to Honda with all details. He did write one already when the Vision took their own sweet time to repair the car. Initially, Vision kept the car for long in the workshop citing parts unavailability. Let's see what comes out the communication with Honda.

Originally Posted by anshul26

Would be great if you can confirm from your cousin or Honda if the Air intake was the culprit in your case.

Petrol engines are a lot more resilient to water in the system, but diesel engines hate water. The SA says routing of the intake is the problem. I am not sure if there is any other else too.

Edit:

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

I think we should include the new 2014 City as well in the thread title, could find a similar case of hydrostatic lock reported online -

So, its all cars with i-DTEC then. Maybe the Mobilio will be spared as the increased ground clearance will help. Will ask for a title change for this thread. But most say, this problem is fixed in the 2014 Amaze, so they would have accounted for it in the City right?

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

I think we should include the new 2014 City as well in the thread title, could find a similar case of hydrostatic lock reported online -

Estimate given is 2.5L for repairs!

http://www.carwale.com/honda-cars/ci...ews/43290.html

[vnabhi]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

I think we should include the new 2014 City as well in the thread title, could find a similar case of hydrostatic lock reported online -

Estimate given is 2.5L for repairs!

http://www.carwale.com/honda-cars/ci...ews/43290.html

The same link has been posted by pdma on page 1 of this thread!

While on this, I think it is worthwhile to educate all iDtec owners about this potential problem and have them approach Honda for a permanent solution. This is simply not expected from Honda!

[ramzsys]

Question not restricted to the 1.5 iDSL engine alone:

Is the intake the only concern? Not the ECU and the rest of engine electronics? Wheel bearings?

What happens when the hot turbocharger is getting splashed?

[//M]

I am an owner of a i-DTEC City and can safely say that I have not faced any such problem so far. It includes experiences of driving the City extensively in the monsoons and on couple of occasions a water-logged street with considerable amount of water. So far, no problems as such !

However, as a proactive measure I will surely have a discussion with my SP regarding this serious problem. Also, it would be really helpful if anybody can provide E-Mail addresses of any Honda top official. The Honda website does not list any e-mail addresses. It does mention the customer care number though. But I feel such an issue should be escalated directly to the top officials who should recall the cars and fix the issue at the earliest instead of charging people with 2.5 lakh of repair charges.

I bought a Honda over a Fiat Linea by going against the heart just because of its reliability quotient. If Honda's have such serious flaws that can put a hole in the customer's pocket, the reliability factor goes for a total toss.

[aaggoswami]

Well, this thread is revealing a lot of things. Glad my uncle bought Amaze petrol and not diesel as the diesel was found way too crude and noisy.

A few months ago, one of my colleagues was in market of a compact sedan. He was inclined on Amaze. Primary reason was the Badge on the front. During his discussion with me, I told him that Dzire is rather the best buy among Etios, Dzire, Amaze ( the three cars he was looking at ).
He argued that Honda is a big and nice brand, Honda wont do anything stupid and Amaze had much better engineering than Suzuki.
To back up his feelings and to get Amaze booking done, he visited Honda dealer. Now, my colleague is a technical guy who is now HOD of a department. To quench his curiosity, he went into service centre and to his shock more than 3 diesel engines were lying on floor ( he specially asked if the details of engine as he thought that Honda engines last for more than 2 lakh kms. ). Further inquiry made him realize that the engines were in for overhaul due to water entering intake.

He informed & thanked me and now has a Dzire. He was informed by dealer that Honda is not having experience of diesel in Indian market so the failures. But now its becoming evident that reason is not bad engine design, but poor overall engineering in design not being adopted to Indian conditions.

The above is an indicator of something seriously wrong. Honda should have rectified. The gravity of this concern might not be as large or as serious as GM ignition switch recall, but the attitude of Honda seems to be similar.

[longhorn]

Almost every manufacturer goofs up once in a while. There's nothing new to that. What matters is how the company deals with such cases. Brushing it under the carpet and making the customer pay for it is just not done. They should take responsibility for their actions. This is not the first time a hydrostatic lock has occurred on a car. The bozo who approved that design should have known the consequences of his actions. This is what happens when you take cost cutting too far. Unfortunately, its the customer who is paying for what is essentially a manufacturing defect.

[thoma]

What is the official status maintained by Honda on the issue in general? Why are they not yet initiating a recall? Or if a recall had indeed happened, why are there a good number of cars plying the street that have missed the recall? Especially when the issue is not trivial.

So much for the hallowed brand name.

[Whiplash7]

Some time back, I had to cross nearly 1 - 1.5 feet deep water or had to go around for nearly 60km. I waited and saw a Tata Sumo cross it with 60% of its tyres inside the water.

I decided to cross and followed the Tata Sumo's path. After almost crossing it my i-Dtec started coughing and the engine was not running as it used to. But after a km or so it was back to normal. Later, I got a call from the gonna dealer asking me to bring my vehicle when I was free to change the air intake hose. I got it replaced, but one day I was on the highway during heavy rains and I had to go over water patches at 60 kph speeds and I remember that the engine had again started to run abnormally. It felt as if it was misfiring, but later it was back to normal again. Never did the engine stall.

Does this mean that water must have gotten into my engine and was later pushed out? Could there have been some damage done to the engine? The engine runs as usual and FE is not affected.

[Whiplash7]

Here are pictures of what I think is the air intake and air filter in the Honda Amaze idtech E MT model.
I read from the previous blogs that the air intake is at the bottom for the amaze idtech but can some one show it in a picture, Because I think it is indeed at the top as marked in the picture, please correct me if I wrong.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by Whiplash7

Here are pictures of what I think is the air intake and air filter in the Honda Amaze idtech E MT model.
I read from the previous blogs that the air intake is at the bottom for the amaze idtech but can some one show it in a picture, Because I think it is indeed at the top as marked in the picture, please correct me if I wrong.

If I am seeing it correctly, is the outlet facing up? I see that the pipe emerges from under the battery and then ends there with an cover on top. It looks stupid. A good splash of water can send it down the pipe. Though the upper cover protects the intake from water seepage, I don't think it can protect itself from the splashes caused due to driving in heavy rain or waterlogged roads.

Also this is the first time I'm seeing an intake pointing upwards, if that's really the intake duct.