Did the dealership do it?

[Belkin1323]

1999 Accord LX 2.3l Auto. I had my timing belt/water pump replaced at 111k by a Honda dealership. My wife picked the car up and drove it to her work by the time she got there the engine light was on and it overheated. I went to look at the car and the dealership had not tightened the bleeder valve on thermostat so it lost most of its water. I started looking around and noticed that the #1 plug wire wasn't seated all of the way. When I pulled the wire I found that the sparkplug had not been tightened down. The dealership sent a wrecker and took it back to the shop and supposedly fixed the problems and said that there was no permanent damage done. I drove the car home this time and it seemed to drive fine. My wife told me the next day that something wasn't right, I drove the car and it had a sporadic miss at idle and as I would take off from a stop. The plugs had been replaced at 105k with Autolite Platinum. I called the dealership and they said that they had, had problems with these kinds of plugs. So I changed them out with Honda recommended NGK's and the problem stopped. Now 1000 miles later the miss is starting to come back. So here is my question. What could be causing the car to foul plugs? Is it a problem that is going to lead to total failure? Do you think it is the dealerships fault or a very odd coincidence? Thanks for your help!

[mpumas]

Sure could have if the car ran without water. It could have caused a lot of damage, some evident just after you picked up the car and some which might show up later. Hondas do not foul the plugs unless antifreeze/oil is getting into the cylinder. If you didn't have any problems before you took it into the shop and then started having problems after changed the timing belt and water pump, in IMHO they caused the problem. Get a hold of the dealer's maintenance manager, not a service advisor, and yell like hell. They have insurance to take care of these screw-ups.

[blacknight]

Originally Posted by mpumas

Sure could have if the car ran without water. It could have caused a lot of damage, some evident just after you picked up the car and some which might show up later. Hondas do not foul the plugs unless antifreeze/oil is getting into the cylinder. If you didn't have any problems before you took it into the shop and then started having problems after changed the timing belt and water pump, in IMHO they caused the problem. Get a hold of the dealer's maintenance manager, not a service advisor, and yell like hell. They have insurance to take care of these screw-ups.

Exactly what he said. When a car runs hot, it normally does internal damage. A lot of times it begins to show sometime down the road. (days/months/years) From what I know, Honda's don't screw up spark plugs unless antifreeze (messed up head gasket) or oil (messed up plug tube gasket) is getting through or something.

As mpumas stated, if ther ewas no problem before you took it to the dealer, and now there's a problem after they worked on it, go straight to the service manager.