[sai_ace]

A quick search led me to this - https://www.lazada.com.my/products/8...200270736.html

The reviews though few, seem good.

The product seems similar to what you have in hand. The cost at 17k for 8 pcs also seems vfm.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by dr.aviansh

...what reference should I give him, if at all?
Planning to call him before going to a crowded Malviya Nagar area.

No reference required as such, but you can tell him Dr. Sengupta from Vasant Kunj gave you his number. And yes, it's best to call during these times of viral infections. He might put you on hold for long periods, but don't get disheartened. Hang up and call again if required.

[dr.aviansh]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

As an an afterthought; always get your car hooked up to a proper OBD scanner/analyser as it is likely to pinpoint the problem much more precise.

I asked the A.S.S. for the OBD, they said it wouldn’t diagnose unless there’s an error light in my center console.

Originally Posted by balenoed_

And you never know, you may decide to extend it beyond 15 years as well.

I would love to, but >15 year old Petrol cars are unanimously banned in Delhi-NCR.

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

No reference required as such, but you can tell him Dr. Sengupta from Vasant Kunj gave you his number.

I said I am from Team-BHP and he was all ears then. He told me that there’s a chinese brand PowerX which would cost me 900/- each. Till now, there haven’t been any complaints in Civics and Accords.


NOW, MY LAST QUESTION TO ALL OF YOU, IF YOU CAN GUIDE ME :
The OEM Hitachi ones are costing
Rs. 4,000 x 3 from a Hitachi retailer
against PowerX Rs. 900 x 3 from a seemingly dependable person.

Will there be a perceptible difference in Power Output?
I spoke to my acquaintance in Honda Service, who denied it. But still, your opinion matters as well.

An increase in Fuel Efficiency with Hitachi can never equate the 5 times cost, so it’s just the power output I’m concerned about.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by dr.aviansh

I asked the A.S.S. for the OBD, they said it wouldn’t diagnose unless there’s an error light in my center console.
.

No, that is not true although it is often thought so, but mechanics should know better.

These days all cars have pretty advantaged diagnostic capabilities way beyond mere emission control. And it can all be checked and to some extend controlled and set via what we typically refer to as OBD. A capable OBD hand scanner, that can handle generic and car model specific error cost does not cost more than a good professional set of sockets!

More importantly, just about all OBD systems store error codes. So even if your check engine light came on and extinguished itself it will have stored what was wrong. Especially relevant with intermittent problems!!

I have said it many times on this forum. On a modern car with problems, a good mechanic will always do a full OBD scan before even opening the hood! Even the fact that nothing would show is an important first step in further diagnosis.

Run a mile from the rip and replace brigade who tries to sell it to you as experience. In most cases it is just ignorance. Forget trouble shooting and diagnosing on modern cars without an OBD scanner.

Rip and replace part strategy are too often, a sign of poor diagnostic skills. On cars with or even without OBD.

If you don’t have an OBD checking the coils can be done easily, with the engine running at idle, unplug them one by one. If the RPM doesn’t dorp you might have a problem with the coil, the spark plug or the cable. Swap the coil with one of the others, see if the problem shifts with it. If not, it is unlikely to be a coil problem and you need to start looking at something different. Etc.

Jeroen

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by dr.aviansh

He told me that there’s a chinese brand PowerX which would cost me 900/- each. Till now, there haven’t been any complaints in Civics and Accords.


NOW, MY LAST QUESTION TO ALL OF YOU, IF YOU CAN GUIDE ME :
The OEM Hitachi ones are costing
Rs. 4,000 x 3 from a Hitachi retailer
against PowerX Rs. 900 x 3 from a seemingly dependable person.

Will there be a perceptible difference in Power Output?
I spoke to my acquaintance in Honda Service, who denied it. But still, your opinion matters as well. .

For less than the price of 1, you get 4 coils. Fit them in as a set, try them out, and in the unlikely event that they fail too quickly, you don't have a lot of money to lose - but Arun has a huge reputation to lose if he's selling you duds, and I don't think he'll risk that.

Coils will either work fine, or not. They won't make the engine generate less power. But faulty coils will show an error code.

[chieftain]

Wow, can't believe I'm seeing a thread about this. We had a 10th anniversary edition City ZX CVT and, from what I understand, these exact symptoms. You may otherwise have a misfire, but it is probably NOT that that causes the shudder.


Over many years many different things were tried, from ignition coils, to transmission fluid, to bushings and insulation, but no avail, except that tinkering with the transmission would make it a little better for some time. Multiple FNGs and Honda techs had different diagnoses and different solutions and none of them worked.


Eventually it was figured that it was transmission failure and our local FNG concurred, and offered to replace the transmission (or buy the car), but such a thing would cost almost as much as the car was worth. Our running is very low, too-- this issue must have popped up well before 40k kms.


What we did was use a transmission fluid additive which is supposed to deposit on worn out transmission components and sort of rebuild them, called Xado. A few 100 kms later the shudder was gone. We sold the car soon after, to a family member who knew about this issue. This seems to be a common issue with early CVTs, but since CVTs were not so widely used at that time there doesn't seem to be enough support, especially not in India. Honda seems to be avoiding this issue in their newer CVTs by adding a transmission fluid change at 30k kms.


It makes sense -- CVTs, by virtue of always having a component sliding, probably use a lot more transmission fluid than traditional gearboxes, but conventional wisdom is that cars usually don't need transmission fluid changes in their lifetimes. Honda uses a wet clutch in their CVTs to start and stop and I suppose it is that which gets starved of fluid and disintegrates.
I suppose you could try ignition coils first, but if that does not fix it (or if it returns), you should look into this.

[dr.aviansh]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

Coils will either work fine, or not. They won't make the engine generate less power. But faulty coils will show an error code.

Thank you much Dr. Sengupta for your advices throughout. But, if there isn’t any fault code there might be something else too?

Originally Posted by chieftain

What we did was use a transmission fluid additive which is supposed to deposit on worn out transmission components and sort of rebuild them, called Xado. A few 100 kms later the shudder was gone. We sold the car soon after, to a family member who knew about this issue.

Chief please throw some light on your relative’s experience after buying the car.
Did the problem show up again? And for how many kilometres did he use the car?

From where did you get this additive? My CVT oil replacement is due next month so I’d get it for my A.S.S. to do the needful.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by dr.aviansh

Thank you much Dr. Sengupta for your advices throughout. But, if there isn’t any fault code there might be something else too?

Yes, or there may be a fault code stored on the ECM but not showing up as a CEL. If your Honda ASS people are confident about the coils being culprit, I'd say go for a coil change - they handle thousands of the same model of car, and diagnosis comes effortlessly to them. If this does not sort out the issue, further investigation would be required obviously.

[sumeethaldankar]

Originally Posted by dr.aviansh

I asked the A.S.S. for the OBD, they said it wouldn’t diagnose unless there’s an error light in my center console.

The Honda guys can a do a HDS (Honda Diagnostic Scan) for around 250 Rs and provide it with the error codes. I do not see why they are refusing to do so and will do only if there is a check engine light. Try another Honda service centre or go to independent garage which will have a scanning tool.

The CNG's coils will be a bad idea as CNG is known to hammer the coils into bad shape.

Kindly check and see if they are original type. I have not really bought from them so really don't know their history.

https://www.partsbigboss.in/electric...icle_model=250

[chieftain]

Originally Posted by dr.aviansh

Chief please throw some light on your relative’s experience after buying the car.
Did the problem show up again? And for how many kilometres did he use the car?

From where did you get this additive? My CVT oil replacement is due next month so I’d get it for my A.S.S. to do the needful.

For your first question, I actually do not know. My mother has spoken with that relative a few times since then but the topic of the car hasn't come up since around the time we sent it. I will update you if there is further correspondence. It did not come back while we were using it, which was a period of a couple months and a thousand or so KMs, maybe even less. No clue beyond that.


We got the additive from Amazon. I am unsure about the rules of posting amazon links on here (mods may remove it if it is disallowed), but this is the listing. As far as I remember you can buy it directly from their website also. We did the process ourselves.


Is this your first CVT oil change?

[sabyasachighosh]

I did a google search for the product part number and the results led me to this page.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-Jap...-/163377563219, the seller and product looks genuine.

Have a look at it, hope it helps.

[iron.head]

Originally Posted by dr.aviansh

Thank you much Dr. Sengupta for your advices throughout. But, if there isn’t any fault code there might be something else too?

Car manufacturers often keep selling some spares at original/launch price even after a large number of years and do not pass on the cost benefit when the spares get cheaper due to advancement in technology/manufacturing techniques or just for the extra profit itself.

Also, Hitachi may be one of the few who were able to manufacture this part with the required quality back then but that usually doesn't remain to be the case for too long at least for parts on the older/ICE cars.

ebay's seller review and number of units sold is a great indicator of the feedback of the product or else the seller review would have gone down if the number of units sold is high enough.

For instance, look at this one:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/4PC-JHD311-...L/142875341414

Always worth it to look at ebay, etc and not just Aliexpress alone when looking for such spares and the works.

The one you bought off Aliexpress may be a good quality part too. Though I am not sure if a mix of coils from different manufacturers may cause some issue.

[sharc_biker]

I have the exact same problem on my 2007 Honda City ZX VTEC MT. So the issue isn’t restricted to CVTs or the I-DSI engines. ASC quoted Rs. 5,500 as well. The car has done 190k kms and the problem started at around 180k kms and has gotten worse. I’m assuming more than one coil needs replacement.

The power delivery is so bad due to the ‘coughing’ that the car struggles to climb an exit ramp. Planning to take the car to an FNG this week. Do let us know if the PowerX ones are good if you’ve already purchased them. Thanks in advance!

[wheeledsoul]

Weak spark plugs/spark plug wires too cause jerky acceleration. I would recommend to have them checked first. Also try cleaning the coils with WD40, hope the issue would be sorted out.

P.S: I am not an expert/pro, just my 2 cents out of experience.

[Jeroen]

Just to add a bit more information about misfiring and their correlation to ignition coils and whether getting an error (misfire) code for a wonky coil.

Misfiring on just about all electronically controlled engines, is done through a (crankshaft/camshaft) sensors measuring crankshaft acceleration. If there is a lack of acceleration detected, within certain threshold, it triggers a misfire error or TDC code. Depending on what it is, in can trigger a general misfire or a cylinder specific error code.

So anything contributing to insufficient or irregular crankshaft acceleration can trigger a “misfire” code! Check the OBD definition of these misfiring codes, they refer to misfiring in a cylinder, not a wonky coil.

So it is entirely possible to get misfire error codes, or misfire symptoms for that matter that have nothing to do with the coil as such. There is all sorts of stuff that can cause a misfire other than a coil.

A coil can be on its way out and still work sufficiently not to throw a code either. Check the DIY car/engine forums and you will see endless reports along those way.

On more elaborate engine management system there might be a way to get a slightly more in-depth of the working of a coil. There are some specific coil error codes too. So whereas a misfire error code does not necessarily mean a wonky coil a specific coil code might. OBD caters for for various error codes on primary and secondary circuit, both high and low values, and malfucntion. Whether that is actually implement in a particular car needs verification.

You can do a few simple measurements of coils with a multimeter. But that is not necessarily 100% conclussive. The only other proper way is actually to put the signals on a oscilloscope (one of the few applications of oscilloscopes in automotive trouble shooting) and measure the High Voltage output as well. When all is said and done, it is usually quicker to just swap two coils and see what happens. Few garages have an oscilloscope. But I can guarantee you one thing; if you come across a garage that does have one, you are likely to have found a place where they really understand car electronics!

Of course, as noted, a first clue of a coil going south might be its appearance. A quick visual might give an indication of it being damaged and current leaking away outside the coil. As I indicated, very easy to check if that is indeed the case. Although a good technician can probably tell by a visual only.

Jeroen