Porous block?

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 04/12/2016 at 16:42 • Filed to: None

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The Family Truckster at White Sands back in 2013

Apparently, that’s a thing. I was worried that my ‘03 Odyssey had a leaking head gasket. But that repair is so rare in this engine that it turns out that the head gasket isn’t really leaking. It has a porous block instead. It seems that porous blocks were an issue with some of these 6-cylinder engines back in the early 2000's. Air bubbles left behind in the casting process “pop” and allow the oil to leak out through the block. According to my Honda service rep, and the Honda mechanic, this is no big deal. And to be honest, I had taken it in because of a reported leak back in 2014 that we had never addressed, and there have been no noticeable leaks on the ground, and it doesn’t seem to be losing oil at anything approaching an alarming rate. It’s really no more than a tiny trickle. And they said there’s no reason to expect it to worsen. I’m glad I took it to Honda, because the independent shop I took it to last week wanted to charge me north of $3000 to replace the head gasket. I’m not saying they were trying to sell me an unnecessary repair, because it certainly presents itself as a HG leak. But the Honda dealer had the experience to know it’s a rare fault, and to look deeper. Now I can afford to fix all the other things that are wrong with the Oddy....

Anybody else have any experience with this issue?

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ttyymmnn 04/12/2016 at 16:52

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HammerheadFistpunch > ttyymmnn 04/12/2016 at 16:54

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Ah. the porous block, which is designed to gradually allow the horsepower to leave the engine. If its done all at once its no good.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 04/12/2016 at 16:55

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I’ve heard of porous casting leaks before - not necessarily on Honda minivans, but as a general problem. Uncommon, but definitely a thing. There’s a particularly bad version that shows up on Rover aluminum V8s and presents as another kind of head gasket failure - the loss of compression and failure to water jacket kind. You can also sometimes see porous casting leaks on a transmission, since trans castings are a very rough kind of cast at the best of times and transmission fluid is very thin.

ttyymmnn > HammerheadFistpunch 04/12/2016 at 16:55

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If its done all at once its no good.

What do you mean?

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 04/12/2016 at 16:56

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The Honda service rep did say that he has seen porous transmissions as well. Interesting. It’s the first I’ve ever heard of it.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ttyymmnn 04/12/2016 at 16:57

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non-catastrophic porosity

HammerheadFistpunch > ttyymmnn 04/12/2016 at 16:58

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Well, if the horsepower leaves all at once, you’ve got a problem on your hands. Probably a bad horsepower gate, not to mention no more horsepowers.

ttyymmnn > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 04/12/2016 at 17:02

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The best kind, one would suppose.

crowmolly > HammerheadFistpunch 04/12/2016 at 17:04

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The kool aid man stops by

Sneaky Pete > ttyymmnn 04/12/2016 at 17:36

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Supposedly this was also an issue with early Viper oil pans.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > ttyymmnn 04/12/2016 at 21:41

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Not on Honda’s, though I have almost zero experience with them. I have encountered it on a few other things. Sometimes it’s quite aggressive, sometimes it just sort of sweats. If you haven’t noticed an issue of drops on the ground or diminishing level I wouldn’t worry about it.

ttyymmnn > AMGtech - now with more recalls! 04/12/2016 at 21:43

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Now that I am aware of it, I will keep a closer eye on the oil level in hopes of getting some idea of how fast it’s leaking. But I think I’m in the “sweating” category, which is a good thing.