Is my friend getting hosed?
 

As part of a "routine maintenance" on his 110K mile Honda Accord (a service that would include belts, plugs, "rotating tires," etc.), my friend's mechanics said they need to "check his valves" as part of "preventative maintenance." They plan on charging him $210 for this. I'm assuming that they mean intake/exhaust valves. This seems odd to me; the only time I've ever gone anywhere near valves in a car is when I've broken a timing belt or blown a head gasket.

Are they trying to rip him off?

Check the owner's manual. Not usually since most valve trains are hydraulic and you can't adjust.

It depends on the Honda. The older ones required a valve adjustment every 15k miles.

JR

His is a 2005 or 06, I believe.

As a rule of thumb, I don't pay jack for "checking" anything. If they're going to adjust the vales that's a different story.

Valve seat wear.. Valve guide wear...

Wear in the valve train... the car has 110K on the clock...Some of our beloved Porsches have trashed valve guides a lot sooner than 110K not sure how Hondas hold in this regard..

So they are going to pull the head... check the valves for $210?

Hydraulic Valve lifters? These are overhead cams. It is about a 10-15 minute job, involving pulling the valve cover and rotating the engine and checking/adjusting the clearence. 15K miles? Sounds about right. I haven't owned it since 2001.

$200+ for the check? Well, add in a valve cover gasket and then add in the time minimum (maybe 30 minutes) and you'll certainly get $200+.

Come to think of it, I think it was every 30-45K miles.

7.5K is oil change
15K oil Filter
Yep, 30 or 45 for Valve clearence
90 for timing belt (I did mine twice!)

Which model? Which engine? In 2005 they were still using engines that required periodic valve adjustments.

The easiest thing to do would be for him to look in his owner's manual to see if there is a valve adjustment interval specified for the particular engine in his car.

JR

Honda still has adjustable valves on some models. They also require the upper plenum to be removed to get the valve covers off.
Like JR stated, check the owners manual for the adjustment interval.

My 2003 Accord V6 needs to have the valves checked/adjusted at 105,000 along with a new timing belt and I will replace the water pump and spark plugs all at the same time. Everything except the water pump is called for in the 105,000 mile service. WP just makes sense since you have to take off the timing belt to replace the water pump.

If you can adjust, or check, 16 valves in 10 minutes you are good :) Unfortunately this is exactly the kind of job that gets billed and never done at some shops. Assuming they do the work that's not a bad deal, assuming new gasket. If it's a V6 it's not a bad deal at all.

Adjusting valves is very fast and easy once the cam/valve covers are off. I've done several 4 cylinder/2v valve adjustments in 10 minutes. It's really easy. Never done this particular model, but unless they've re-invented the wheel, it shouldn't be any harder than doing the valves on a Suzuki Samurai, or whatever else.

This was 1993. The Accord LX was a 4 cylinder and it was only 2 valves per cylinder. The hardest thing about the job was finding a 22mm (or was it 25 mm?) socket for the engine main crank bolt. The transverse mounted engine and nothing over the valve cover made this quite easy.

You guys are good. Even if you rig a remote start switch, it takes a few minutes to line of engine correctly to check each cylinder. I guess I'm slow, I do them one at a time, rather than figure out that when 1 is TDC, you can adjust more than just cyl 1.

When I was a Honda dealer, it took a lot longer than 15 minutes for my technicians to do a valve adjustment. And, they did them all day, every day, so they were quite good at it. It's amazing how the advent of the internet has increased the productivity of some people.

My suggestion for the guy that gave rise to this thread would be to actually talk to the shop that quoted the work and find out what they are actually doing. When we did a valve adjustment on an engine, it was always in conjunction with other work. He ought to also be able to shop around a little. Any decent-sized city will have more than one Honda dealer, as well as a bunch of independent Honda shops.

JR

I was once a service mgr at a large Honda dealer and I had some incredible techs and none of them could do a valve clearance check/adjustment in 15 mins. It is insane how people downplay any type of technicians work. I guess its a good thing that these guys don't come up with the flat rate guides . Nobody would ever make any money in the service business if they did :D
As far as the guy who said he wouldn't pay for any kind of "check", exactly how much time do you think is involved in checking over a vehicle? Do you just wait until things break before getting them repaired? How would you like your family to be traveling in a car and have something go wrong in a bad area or at night just because you think you were smarter than the vehicle engineers who don't have enough sense to determine at what point an issue may become ...well, an issue?

Excuse me? Downplay? I'm giving you a data point. A 1993 Honda LX with the 4 cylinder engine. It would take me about 15-30 minutes, total. 4-6 nuts on the valve cover. Pop cover. Rotate engine with ratchet to the correct position. Check with feeler guages. Repeat 7 more times. You are talking to a bunch of car guys that rebuild 911 engines and transmission, not a bunch of wankers on a "tuner" site.

Besides, go back and read what I said. I was justifying the cost and thought it was reasonable for a valve check.

Javadog, how long would it take your technicians to do a timing belt? I know your book says 8 hours, and that is in a shop with all of the right equipment. I had it down to about 10 hours on my driveway without a lift, and that included time for lunch. I discussed this with a Honda Dealer shop manager (They were working on my A/C), and told him about it taking 10 hours. He laughed and said that the book says 8 hours, but his techs could do it in 3.5.

[QUOTE=red-beard;5107702]Javadog, how long would it take your technicians to do a timing belt?[QUOTE]

You know, its been too long for me to remember. The guys could always beat the flat rate from a Chilton, or similar flat rate manual. Not always by a lot, it depended on the job. The Honda flat rate was what they paid for warranty work and it was considerably less than the other manuals. They had a very hard time equalling that, especially for jobs they only did a few times. After 8 or 10 trys, they could get down to Honda's times. Honda was cheap. I wouldn't work for the flate rate they paid.

One other thing to think about, there's at least 15 minutes used up for a technician to be assigned a job, go get the car, get it on a lift, get the parts needed, test drive the car, return it to the lot, complete the paperwork, etc.

It's not an easy living.

JR

I never said otherwise. And your boys weren't getting paid the shop rate! Nope, I wouldn't run/operate/own a service shop. Far too many crazy people out there.

From a mechanic, thank you

You forgot a few things, remove old gasket, clean 110k miles of gunk off the inside and outside of the cover, properly prepare both gasket surfaces, verify all your torque specs, rotate engine and then RECHECK all the clearances .......by now your 15 mins is gone about 3-4 times over.
I can do a Honda 4 banger timing belt on a 93 in less than 3 hours. Ive done many of them in my time. I was in a dealership service dept for over 11 years and I can tell you that most people dont take into consideration that techs dont just walk up to a car already in the bay, all the correct tools laying out, parts already at the car, and spec sheets and info laying on the car . I have participated in flat rate time calculation test with GM and Mazda as a tech and as a tester. Everything is all layed out, tools, parts, books and what not . Then the techs perform the job start to finish 10 times. The AVERAGE time is then figured and that is the time that goes to the flat rate for taht operation. The reason a tech can beat the times comes with his experience . Most techs spend a lot of time losing ground to the flat rate calculations, especially on water leaks, squeaks and rattles and pita things before he gains the experience to actuall make or beat time. Remember, if you tech takes 3 times as long you still only pay for the flat rate time . So it is give and take sometimes.
Flat rate time should be around 1.3-1.7 hrs for a job like that Plus parts, taxes and shop supplies. So with average rate of $95.00 per hour and using OEM gasket , $200.00 is probably about right.

Actually most of my time was as a Fixed Operations Director at a very large volume, multi line new car dealer. We had 25-30 techs in service , 12 in the body shop, 9 in parts, and averaged sales of over 3200 units per year. We used the Mitchell flat rate book in service . I had body shop guys who could beat the body shop book by a mile. One of them averaged over 100 hours a week in flat rate time . He is the best body man in the business. Oh, and thank you, thank you very much.

I ran synthetic. There was no gunk on the inside of my valve cover! :D

[QUOTE=javadog;5107726][QUOTE=red-beard;5107702]Javadog, how long would it take your technicians to do a timing belt? AMEN TO ALL BROTHA! Honda sucks in both warranty time and quality. They make thier living on the ILLUSION of better quality. We replaced many o' trannys on those "bulletproof " Hondies in my tenure.

Touche'

[QUOTE=vwbobd;5108194][QUOTE=javadog;5107726] Yeah, and the stupid door handle latches and fan/air knobs were ALWAYS breaking. I ended up keeping spares knobs in the glove box. The door handle cover I fixed by smearing about double again the thickness of Plastic Weld on the backside. Never broke again.

Car lasted me 230K miles (Fall 93 to Spring 01, so 7.5 years), so I can't complain too much. The radiator needed to be replaced, because the road salt corroded the hell out of the aluminum fins. I replaced it with an aftermarket copper one and it ran great. Drove the snot outta that car. I only replaced it because I wanted 4WD for skiiing.

If at all possible, i always adjust valves with the engine running.

No wonder it takes you so long.

I was an auto tech. If you don't count the valve cover R&R you can do a valve adjustment in about 5 minutes on a 4 cyl car with a running engine. Or about 10-15 minutes if cranking it by hand and using a feeler gauge.

If you add in all the other stuff, pulling it in, putting it on a lift, test drive, blah, blah, blah....45 minutes is more reasonable for the entire job. Considering that the only part in play is a valve cover gasket, i would consider $200 to be highway robbery.

I am sorry, but a lot of the dealerships sell 30K mile services for $500+ that are nothing more than glorified oil changes with about 10-15 things that can be checked while the oil is draining out of the car. I am all for "checking" things, but price it reasonably and people might not call dealerships "stealerships".

Thanks, guys - as usual, this was helpful.