My wife's 06 Civic hybrid just came up due for what I consider the 100,000 mile warranty on the maintenance minder at 104,000 miles. Called out for spark plugs, engine air filter, cabin filter, oil change and the usual inspections. I took it to my usual place for the oil change and tackled the rest myself. Ordered the OEM NGK Iridium tipped plugs for $12 each. Never changed the plugs on a car with the individual spark plug "ports" before and after overcoming the initial intimidation at getting to the back bank of plugs, it went smoothly. I did have to use two extensions on my socket wrench. Two short extensions proved better than one long as I had two assemble the extensions in the back ports because of tight clearance.

The car had been running fine prior to the service, although the idle was just a tad rough. The old plugs definitely looked burnt up. They were a bit blackened at the tip, and the point where the ceramic body meets the metal was black. The new NGK's came pre-gapped, I think at .044. Seems to idle a bit more smoothly now.

Also, My car has not seen a Honda dealer since new (bad experience) and I have unfortunately not taken it back in to have any software updates or technical service bulletin's updated. Car runs great and has never had a single issue (knock on wood).

 

hows the valve train clatter doing on yours?

I went ahead and did the 100K tune up at 60K on my civic (harsh weather extremes here, no way the plugs were going to make it to 100K). My civic and developed a bunch of valve train clatter progressively over time, and clattered even when the engine was warm. I went ahead and adjusted the valves lash and put that back to specifications, they were pretty far out. Even then in spec, they still clatter some when the engine is cold, but now when its warm it's nice a quite.

My wife's 01 accord that she had similar and I had to adjust the valves at around 65K on it.

 

Thanks for sharing your story Nick. I really like my 2006 HCH2 and hope to have it for many years. It sounds like you have had very good luck with yours. I only have about 30,000 miles on mine so I have a way to go to catch you. Thanks again, H

 

Did you check your valve clearance?

 

Oh yea, have a set of various thin metal strip fealers that are measured out that I bought for this purpose. The strip that was for spec (dont' remember thickness off the top of my head) moved very freely between the rocker arm and valve before I adjusted when each piston was at TDC. Adjusted them per the 07 hch service manuals specs, much quieter now when the motor is warm.

 

I'm curious: did you remove the lower windshield trim piece and the metal cowl directly below it, to get at the back row of valves? I did our valves, around 50,000km, and found it almost necessity for access:

http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17946

 

No I didn't have to, I used two shorter maybe 3" long locking 3/8 extensions and linked and delinked them together as I fed them in and out on the back plugs to get the ratchet in and out without striking the cowl...it was tight but I was able to get in and out.

What really got me was I wanted to change all the seals when I was in there, but the spark plug hole seals were like 8+ USD a piece! Forget that, i reused them and only changed the valve cover seal in the process.

 

Honda small bits are always incredibly expensive.

Hmm, I'm still puzzled though: you can reach the back row of spark plugs ok without removing the cowl, but were you able to reach the back row of valve adjustment nuts?

 

yea, got in there and adjusted the exhaust valves without removing cowl...i have angled feelers, not sure if that helped or not,but it was tight. Have new e3 plugs all around as well.

 

Jason, now it's time to drain your excess motor oil, bump up your tire pressures, and run a tankful of gas to see what the net improvement may be for your fuel economy!