Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 2009 Honda Pilot - Head Gasket Repair

I don’t let the dealer do anything unlesss it’s a warranty repair.

Thank you.
She was at the dealer for the oil chance so that makes sense. We haven't had the car that long, so she still has 50% oil changes and she had the day off. I rotate the tires or discount tire does, so I don't need to pay a dealership $50 for that 10 min job.

They made the mistake of calling her back yesterday after me making some calls. Big mistake.

On a what?



On the VWs, you will need a couple more wrenches to adjust the valves every 3,000 miles. On the square back, what would you do if you had a FI problem? I loved all of my Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, and Type 4 VWs, but they were high maintenance compared to the water cooled vehicles.
I worked on VWs exclusively from 1965-about 1980.

Thank you.
She was at the dealer for the oil chance so that makes sense. We haven't had the car that long, so she still has 50% oil changes and she had the day off. I rotate the tires or discount tire does, so I don't need to pay a dealership $50 for that 10 min job.

They made the mistake of calling her back yesterday after me making some calls. Big mistake.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the head gasket. They probably told her to change it since they were in there....When I talked to them, there was no mention of it. There are no telltail signs of an issue, which is why I called in the first place. Unfortunately it's a pretty well known dealer and they own a lot of different dealerships selling pretty much every make/model in the area. I won't be back ever. They tried to pull the wool over her eyes and she's smart enough to see through the bull schit.

We'll have the rest fixed, and it still won't be cheap, and it won't be at the dealership, but this damn rig may go on forever. I do see my stepdaughter getting it to drive, and she's 12.

Good stuff Tom,

Glad for you.

I lament the "shoddiness" that afflicts my industry !

Truly makes it hard on the precious few good ones.

I had a leaking head gasket on a Ford 302 V8.
I got a bottle of Bars Leaks Head Gasket Repair, and put it in.
15 minutes later, the gasket was sealed.
That was 2 years ago.
Still running fine.
For $32
Try it.

Glad you got it figured out, Tom!


I lived with a gal that had a Z24 back in the day. The car temp gauge would peg out every time she stopped at a traffic light. She brought it in to a chain auto repair place and they told her it was her head gasket and it was going to be $$$. She was going to college and working 2 jobs. She came home bawling her eyes out because she just didn't have the money to fix it.

I went to high school with one of the mechanics that worked for the same chain in a different town so I brought it to him for a 2nd opinion. He was out in shop for ten minutes and came in to the store side and said "got $14.00?" I said "yeah, why?" He said "It's just a bad radiator cap"

The next day I went to first shop and raised holy hell and made the manager apologize to her. Frickin crooks!

Did the same on my POS plow truck with a 350 in it.

The Midas shop in Duluth probably had to be closed for cleaning the day they told my sister they couldn't give her car back until she paid $1000+ in repairs. She called my dad in tears. He left work and drove up there in a hurry....they left with her car and the shop employees in tears.

I think we can put the myth of Japanese car immortality to rest now. My 2004 Corolla had a defective tranny case that eventually led to its early downfall. More recently, when I took my 2010 Impreza in for timing belt replacement at just over 100k, they informed me that it was starting to show signs of head gasket failure, a $3000 job. Fortunately, my ex totaled it before it died on its own, but it was making some seriously disturbing noises by then, bad enough that her co-workers asked her what the Hell was going on in there.

Cars are apparently now just like riflescopes; can't depend on any of them.

Amen to that! If I lived near your shop or Badger's I'd have no question where I'd take
my car when it needed service and it was over my head or abilities...

(For the MN guys)... when I lived back that way for 15 years, there was an Amoco Station on County Rd H or G... and I 35E... just one exit north of where the Walmart is... there in White Bear Lake/Vadnais Hts

it was ran by a guy named Scott Drake.. who actually was an accountant who loved working on cars...
Guy had already made his millions in life.. so bought a gas station and had a repair shop a block away.

Scott's hourly rates were actually a little higher than most of the dealers... it was higher than Anderson Cadillac there in Roseville....but I use to take my cars to him for repair work, even when I moved from White Bear Lake to Plymouth....

The reason was the guy was the most honest guy I've ever seen who owned a tool box....He used no flat rate repair manual.... he charged you how long he thought it should take his guys or him to do a repair...which was always 20 to 25% of the time listed in a flat rate manual....

once dropped my Volvo off for something at noon and he told me to pick it up at 4 PM... so I rode with another rep for the afternoon.. when we stopped by to pick it up.. I was told the car wasn't ready and wouldn't be done until tomorrow... that kinda tinked me off but what are ya going to do...

so I had to get a ride home from my buddy... 40 miles away.... and then I had to get a ride over there at noon time the next day....

got there to pick up the vehicle and Scott is handing me the keys... tells me that he found a few things that needed attention which he had his guys take care of.... but then it took 8 hours....
I groaned....then he rang me up for 2 hours worth of labor....

So I asked why only 2 hours worth, since his guys worked on it 8 hours? And what about the parts needed?

His reply, because my guys should of had it done in 2 hours... I'm not going to charge you 6 hours for their screw ups in getting it right....besides I finished the job to make sure it was right...

and then for your inconvenience, of having to get a ride home and a ride back.....the parts are on us...

That is why he did all my repair work exclusively for the entire time I lived in MN... he had the highest hourly rates in the Twin Cities, yet there wasn't a place under the sun in the Cities you could get your car repaired cheaper, quicker and with more honesty... he was about 10 years older than me.. so I am sure he is long retired and probably moved back home to Key West FL..

and the guy was a multi millionaire before he ever bought the business...Every Christmas he got a bottle of his favorite booze from me.... Antoseck? some Italian liquor... can't remember how to pronounce it, but I remember where to get it back in those days there in White Bear Lake.

I had a couple of Squarebacks have the fuel injection go out on them.. which was common in places that used Road Salt in winter.....what did I do when I had a Fuel Injection problem?

I'd get a set of carbs and the linkage for about $15 or less from a 66 or 67 engine.. and put them on.. which didn't take long to bolt on, and eliminated that problem....

In college I did this several times, buy a Squareback with a blown engine..$50 to $100.... then go down to the boneyard, and it wasn't hard to find an engine out of a wreck that only had 10K to 20K on it.. for $75 to $100.

took less than 30 minutes at a buddy's shop to toss it in.. would take the carbs off an old engine laying around his place, included in that 30 minutes and then I'd end up putting 100 to 125k on that engine...has several Squarebacks that the bodies had 250 K or more when I junked them... usually were starting to get kinda rusty at that point....I went to college in Massachusetts...

Use to buy Radial tires off of wrecks in the bone yard also for $10 each... off fairly low mileage cars...
just give them my old rim with tire and they'd give me the take off radial....

Put myself thru college and paid for it myself... so I was a kid on a budget... and If I didn't want to walk and rely on the subway system to get around.. that was what I had available....

Hard to have a love life with no car.....


Besides Butch, if ya worked on VDubs... as far as valve adjustments, ya know the old saying... it they are rattling, they ain't too tight....3 quarts of 30 wt every 2500 miles, points every 10K and plugs every 15K...along with a distributor cap....and in northern areas, wrap the heat boxes in Tin Foil real good and they would not rust out on ya....

The Honda dealer that I bought my '04 Pilot from started screwing us on repairs so I took it to another Honda dealer whose service department treats customers right. When you suspect you're getting the automotive shaft a second opinion is always a good idea.

Couldn't have said it better..............................