Burning oil, seating pistons or something else?

Volvo802 · Mar 28, 2014

Hey guys, first time poster. I'm not super new to Hondas, and I've owned a few fun cars but I am not an professional mechanic by any means, more of a back yard do it yourselfer (who tries to do everything right, and not just make it work lol).*

Anyways, I bought a 6th gen (2000 accord coupe, EX 4 cyl) and I have some issues that need to be settled.*

She has ~150k on the odometer and before I had it never burned any oil, nor did I notice any after the first incident.

Basically, the distributor cap was missing the o-ring, moisture got in and after several hours of diagnosis and the car sitting flooded for 4 days it's on the road again. New spark plugs, dizzy and oiled the cylinders. How long exactly before said oil clears out? I was told the piston rings (the dealer who sold me the car did the work) need to seat. I'm thinking to myself it has 150k, i... They shouldn't need to seat again, and I have since than gone a a few pull sessions to make them seat faster (been about 500+ miles now as well) and I'm getting excessive blue smoke at WOT and I've been told stinks in general (not to mention I believe my cat was burnt through at some point).

Is it true the rings will actually need to seat again? I'm getting the vibe he is just trying to get me off his back until it's not his problem anymore.*

Volvo802 · Mar 29, 2014

Anyone...?
Update, same issue again, maybe it's not the distributor cap. Not sure if it's flooded again, but I had to have it towed again.

xci.ed6 · Mar 29, 2014

Oil in the cylinders, maybe 10 seconds. Stuff in the intake/exhaust manifolds, around the block.

BlkCurrantKord · Mar 29, 2014

Volvo802 said:
Hey guys, first time poster. I'm not super new to Hondas, and I've owned a few fun cars but I am not an professional mechanic by any means, more of a back yard do it yourselfer (who tries to do everything right, and not just make it work lol).*

Anyways, I bought a 6th gen (2000 accord coupe, EX 4 cyl) and I have some issues that need to be settled.*

She has ~150k on the odometer and before I had it never burned any oil, nor did I notice any after the first incident.

Basically, the distributor cap was missing the o-ring, moisture got in and after several hours of diagnosis and the car sitting flooded for 4 days it's on the road again. New spark plugs, dizzy and oiled the cylinders. How long exactly before said oil clears out? I was told the piston rings (the dealer who sold me the car did the work) need to seat. I'm thinking to myself it has 150k, i... They shouldn't need to seat again, and I have since than gone a a few pull sessions to make them seat faster (been about 500+ miles now as well) and I'm getting excessive blue smoke at WOT and I've been told stinks in general (not to mention I believe my cat was burnt through at some point).

Is it true the rings will actually need to seat again? I'm getting the vibe he is just trying to get me off his back until it's not his problem anymore.*

When you say "flooded" what are you talking about? Was this an actual Honda dealer or some used car lot? Unless they put new pistons in (which is highly unlikely) those things were seated by the time the car hi 10k miles, and no, they don't need seated again. Also, who and why did someone oil the cylinders?

You have oil getting through somewhere. Whether it be the piston rings, the valve seals, or something.

Volvo802 · Mar 29, 2014

BlkCurrantKord said:
When you say "flooded" what are you talking about? Was this an actual Honda dealer or some used car lot? Unless they put new pistons in (which is highly unlikely) those things were seated by the time the car hi 10k miles, and no, they don't need seated again. Also, who and why did someone oil the cylinders?

You have oil getting through somewhere. Whether it be the piston rings, the valve seals, or something.

A actual Honda dealer did the diagnosing. Took them 4 hours and two guys (one was an apprentice). They didn't charge me because I'm family but the guy I actually bought the car from picked it up from them (used car lot) to do the work for free. He oiled the pistons to get better compression which is my assumption. He said the "numbers were right up there" and didn't give many more details than that. He had to run the engine without sthe spark plugs to try and get the excess fuel out. Possibly running extremely rich and burning out the cat was a warning sign maybe?

I don't know. But I'm about to back out, though I like the car very much.

2000BlackCoupe · Mar 29, 2014

since i replaced my header my car has been burning oil as well. i replaced the cat with a test pipe so i expect it to stink. its not the highest quality piece, but im wondering why im suddenly burning so much oil (however, i checked my dipstick and its still golden and within where its supposed to be

BlkCurrantKord · Mar 29, 2014

Volvo802 said:
A actual Honda dealer did the diagnosing. Took them 4 hours and two guys (one was an apprentice). They didn't charge me because I'm family but the guy I actually bought the car from picked it up from them (used car lot) to do the work for free. He oiled the pistons to get better compression which is my assumption. He said the "numbers were right up there" and didn't give many more details than that. He had to run the engine without sthe spark plugs to try and get the excess fuel out. Possibly running extremely rich and burning out the cat was a warning sign maybe?

I don't know. But I'm about to back out, though I like the car very much.

So, basically the engine is on its way out and he did that on purpose. I've never heard of an engine flooding that bad. Something or someone isn't right here.

xci.ed6 · Mar 29, 2014

You make no sense.

When the compression is good WITH oil,rings are bad

No SPARK plugs, you get FUEL, they make SPARK.

Does your mil come on when you first turn the key, before yô start it?

HondaLuver83 · Jun 9, 2014

The only reason he put oil into ur cylinders during a compression test is to see if theres a difference from the first test. Basically, if u gain compression when u added oil, ur rings are bad, if u didnt gain compression and ur numbers are still low then somewhere in the head is to blame.

The ladt thing u wanna do on a freshly rebuilt motor is flood the cylinders full of gasoline only to wash the thin coat of oil on the new sealing surface lol