Quote Originally Posted by Bobjones View Post
This is the response I have from my Dealer with respect to the noise:

"I have duly read your comments and concerns and can advise in relation to the “ pinging/rattling ” you are experiencing that Honda Technical have received a small number of similar incidents and have reported same to the Factory and are waiting for direction from them. Until such time as to that investigation being concluded we would not attempt to carry out further diagnosis, however we will advise you accordingly as soon as we receive advice from Honda. If you wish to lodge your concerns directly with Honda Australia on this issue phone Customer Assistance on 1800804954.

While I can understand your frustrations at this point in time I can only reiterate that until we receive advice from Honda we are unable to finalize the engine issue."


Accordingly, I will be contacting Honda Australia but other than that they are working on it and only time will tell if there is a viable solution.
This sounds like it's got through the "veil" to Honda Japan. This is good. I have found by previous experience that it's only when the Japanese manufacturer hears of the problem that real solutions happen.

However, I think the issue arises from the high compression ratio of the engine. As it's pretty hard to change, the solution might be 1) You all must use 98 RON petrol; or 2) They take your cars and tell you they're going to fix it but in the workshop they upload a new programme for the engine computer that retards the timing or squirts more fuel in for a given load.

Neither solution is really acceptable as both come at a cost at the petrol pumps for the owners.

Solution 3 could be that it is was a dud knock sensor (or O2 sensor) afterall (that explains why not all cars have the problem). The solution for this is a replacement sensor. I hope it's something as easy as that.

I did not experience the problem when I test drove the car and our one dealer in Darwin is too tight to fill the tank with 98 RON (at $2.00 per litre at the time of the test drive!) so the test car would have had 95 RON in the tank. And its hot up here; so it's the worst conditions for "pinging".