Dealer keeps saying its time for a valve adjustment (140,000 miles). Is this true? Engine and vehicle runs fine but finding it difficult to find gasket kit complet.
I would think any competent shop could find the necessary gaskets and adjust the valves.
Past due, if its never been done.
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I’ve adjusted them on my 1999 Civic every few years, when I clean or replace spark plugs. There are always some that have drifted out of adjustment. Whether this has helped my car reach 190,000 miles is hard to say. I do it because I enjoy having it done, by me, without paying someone else.
They say the valves that wear badly are those that have too little clearance. You can’t hear that.
If you can hear the valves tapping, they need adjustment. I had it done on my 2005 Accord V6 around 110,000 miles, and the noise difference was obvious.
In a perfect world valve lash should be checked and adjusted as necessary every 30k miles. However, this is not often done. What? Charge me for something I can’t notice…
Valves too tight can burn both valve and head leading to replacement. Valves too loose can cause lifter and cam lobe damage along with mushroomed valve stem tips which just makes the situation worse by making the adjustment near impossible. This can in some cases cause hard starting at times.
For what it’s worth, I’ve dealt with mechanical valve lash since the 70s and tales of lash not needing to be checked are in most cases a bit misguided. I’ve adjusted more than I can even remember at varying mileages from 1000 miles on up. Hondas, Subarus, etc with screw type adjusters)
Shim and bucket adjusters (VW, SAAB, etc, etc) are more prone to staying in adjustment but even that design does require inspection and adjustment as necessary. And yes, same scenario as having had to adjust many at around 15k miles and up.
To repeat a tale for your benefit, a guy brought a Subaru in once that was barely running. The car had a bit over 1000 miles on it. Compression check was horrible. ALL valves were snug when cold. The guy never copped to it but we believed he did not like the mechanical tick sound and snugged them up to zero like an old Chevy 350 or whatever. This wiped out all of the exhaust valves and both cylinder heads to the point of being scrap metal. He had to pay for this out of pocket and never complained about warranty denial so we knew he was at fault.
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For me, valve adjustment was one of the most satisfying DIY jobs over the years.
I did it on my '75 Civic, '81, '85 and '88 Accords. Varied 15-30K miles.
Also did it for friends/family/neighbors.
An easy way to make an engine run stronger and quieter.
My '06 Toyota Matrix I checked at 60K.
One intake was at the loose end of the tolerance band,
but not worth taking the cam off to change a bucket shim.
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Funny!
I’ve never adjusted the valves on my 97 Accord with 220k miles on it when the original owner owned it, and since I’ve owned it?
Tester
Do you mean It’ll make me look better?
Because the car runs as the day it was bought new.
Tester
I haven’t adjusted any valves for about he past forty years, when the 71 Super Beetle stopped being so super. I didn’t know any major manufacturers were still producing antiques.
CSA
If you are not pulling the valve cover then you have no idea at all what’s going on under there. Do hundreds of them and you will see the need for it., Some people just luck out; others don’t.
The purpose of the exercise is to assure a problem does not surface and to make sure the engine is at it’s best.
All of the car makers using mechanical lifters make the same asinine recommendation. How does one do that? How you hear a valve tightening up and burning? How do you determine whether a valve is too loose and causing damage to the valve train? I’ve done it for decades and cannot do it with my ears.
As or pulling cams on shim and buckets SAAB is the only one I’m familiar with that requires the camshaft be removed for adjustment as the shims are under the buckets.
You remove the cam if you do NOT own the special tools for other models and I do own them. Pricy but worth it.
Subaru makes a double handled wrench for the screw type. It took me a few weeks to get the hang of it but cuts lash adjustment time by half and the double wrench can be used with one hand. I just happen to be of the mindset that valve inspection is necessary.
When I worked for Honda every car that got a so-called tune-up or major maintenance service got a valve lash inspection.
Only on the rarest of occasions did one find a car that did not need several or all of the valves adjusted; especially the exhaust which stretch over time. Thrown in overheating episodes and it become even worse. To each their own. I prefer correct.Guess I’m a nitpicker.
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Thanks very much to all who resonded.
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Add Nissan to that list.
Not only you have to remove camshaft[s], but they have no shims and you are supposed to measure the lifter’ “cup” height, add or subtract the deviation from the norm and identify the proper size and part number for the replacement ones, mind you they are not cheap either… the cherry on that cake - parts for the intake and exhaust side are DIFFERENT and you are supposed not to cross them, they are the same diameter, but somehow considered to be different.