In this video I have a look at an older CRV that has a customer complaint of no power (won't go over 35mph) they also stated that the red brake light and VSA light was on. Are the problems related? Let's find out! -Enjoy!
If an SMA Video has helped you out please consider giving using "Patreon" to help support us. The videos take real time to create and pull us away from real work that pays our bills. CLICK HERE: https://www.patreon.com/southmainauto
CHECK OUT OUR "SMA SWAG" STORE! Go on Teespring and get your very own SMA merch!
https://teespring.com/stores/the-sma-store
If you don't like Patreon feel free to use the "PayPal Me" link: https://www.paypal.me/SouthMainAuto
The South Main Auto Amazon Store:
https://www.amazon.com/shop/southmainautorepairavoca
AES Wave Automotive Diagnostic Tools: https://www.aeswave.com/cart.php?m=affiliate_go&affiliateID=2525b91fc8e906e8215984074c9d9e8f&go=https://www.aeswave.com/Miscellaneous-p9347.html
Thank you for all the continuing support!
--Eric & Vanessa O.
Feel like sending some swag to SMA because you love the videos but don't know where to send it?
Just ship it here:
South Main Auto Repair
47 S. Main St
PO Box 471
Avoca, NY 14809
Disclaimer:
Due to factors beyond the control of South Main Auto Repair, it cannot guarantee against unauthorized modifications of this information, or improper use of this information. South Main Auto Repair assumes no liability for property damage or injury incurred as a result of any of the information contained in this video. South Main Auto Repair recommends safe practices when working with power tools, automotive lifts, lifting tools, jack stands, electrical equipment, blunt instruments, chemicals, lubricants, or any other tools or equipment seen or implied in this video. Due to factors beyond the control of South Main Auto Repair, no information contained in this video shall create any express or implied warranty or guarantee of any particular result. Any injury, damage or loss that may result from improper use of these tools, equipment, or the information contained.

From hondura to honduran, we got double hot today. Today we got this oldie, but a goodie over here this crv, if she's locked up, oh no she's, unlocked apparently apparently they're fans of the raiders. I don't even know what baseball team that is, but apparently this thing won't go over 35 mphs. They said they got lots of lights on a dash.

Apparently this brake light and the bsa light, which are both on a triangle light there. We know it's not this little guy, it's a parking brake, what a great spot for a parking brake fy, i'm just saying if all cars had that that would be awesome. So, let's take it for a little two get the windows rolled up here. Let's go see if what they say is true: 35 mphs.

I don't know how they got it. It must have been a long drive. Hmm, you know what folks you know what my gut's telling me. Well, let's wait till we hit the big road um i mean.

Obviously we're going 30., let her warm up here a little bit before we hit the vtec. You don't want to be ripping vtec on a cold engine. I'll tell you that, oh, let me put my seatbelt on hold on seat belts on no more dinger. As i was saying, i think i'm gon na go with my gut instinct here.

Our brake light and vsa light has nothing to do with the fact that we can't go over 35 mphs, because if we have a close list - and this thing sounds like we're driving an air compressor - i don't know if you guys can hear it. But we have what i would consider excessive back pressure ready, vtec time put the pedal to the plastic. That was not exciting. I got her right to the rug right now, folks, paddled in the plastic 40 miles per hour.

Now, let's do something: let's throw her up into the neutral flat-footed. Oh come on baby! This thing needs some emotion. A.D. Is that what you take for constipation? I'm not certain about that folks uh, but she definitely feels constipated there.

She goes now she's shifted, so you got ta just just baby this throttle, because if you flat foot it oh we're losing speed, baby and she's skipping. So now we got an engine light. So anyhow, two completely separate problems. This should be fun to explain to a customer.

So what's the plan erico? Well, let me tell you, thanks for asking first of all, uh second of all, we're gon na go back, we're gon na see where the exhaust is plugged, because that is quite obvious to me, um and then we will also have to see why the brake light And the vsa light is on. I would be surprised if they're related, perhaps the vsa light is on and the brake lights on, because the engine light had come on. Perhaps so that's plausible, but if it's on for other reasons, for example like uh, you know, let's say it's on for a speed sensor, then you know we'll just diagnose both things i'll give the customer the whole enchilada, even if they don't like enchiladas and let them Decide what to do so? I've got the all till over here doing i'll tell things uh honda's, taking a long time to scan so i'm gon na, let that do that. I've got the carp in the air, so let's have a little gander.
I'm thinking it's probably this little guy right here we got an aftermarket, your classic aftermarket converter, a lot of heat coming off that thing, not a lot of heat. Coming off that thing, this little guy, you probably can't touch them um. We could probably go right in the bung hole right there for the o2, see how much pressure we have there and then possibly maybe do the hokey pokey here at the end of the converter, uh, because it is plausible that the converter could be plugged most reasonable Thing or you could have a plug on down the line. You know the muffler, the classic potato in the tailpipe she's done scanning.

So let's have a little gander here. Gander, that's the second time i've used that word we're not even goose hunting uh! Oh your classic! 420, one and three misfire abs late is on for a brake, fluid load level. So i have to look at that battery voltage. Failure can relation failure.

We'd have to look at that when the 86-1 that is probably likely due to engine light being on, would be my assumption, i'll double check in all that we're not going to get too excited about it at least right now. But let's find out what the d leo is a 420 or a 430. Your catalyst efficiency does not mean that your catalytic converter is plugged so uh. You know we can't just jump right on the it's a cat train, because we don't like riding that train around um.

However, it is most likely, it is the most likely object to be plugged on the vehicle we'll see if we can't get that baby loose. Oh mother of pearl, you know when you crack an oxygen sensor loose and you know it's going to take every single thread with it. When it comes out. You know that feeling that's the feeling i just got got by cracking that one loose oops.

Well, maybe not! Maybe not, i could be wrong. Look at the comment section going crazy because the wires are getting twisted. Don't worry folks, nothing got hurt so now we can get in there. The other thing we can do uh the least invasive portion of it is unhook.

The uh o2 sensor here, assuming we have high pressure here, that's which we should have and it's plugged up in the front half of the converter. That may give us an indication high pressure here. No pressure here got to be a problem here. Jesus took me an hour to find this little sucker, but not an hour.

Let's be honest, it took about 10 minutes, but i didn't know where the little guy was i was like. Where are you at little guy? Ah guys, it doesn't feel quite right. Let's uh, it doesn't feel right, try to get it in there. No better! Not i don't want to ruin my tool, i don't care about the exhaust pipe so much, let's run a thread chaser down that, so that's better.

So all this is uh. This goes right. In the bun, obviously you can see it provides a little nipple on there and then we can hook our little gauge on it uh that way we have some kind of number, not that the number means anything at the point of restriction that we have. I got my boy josh up inside the car.
We're gon na try to stick a rubber hose on here and we're gon na. Stick it on our pressure gauge. Ideally, we should have you know less than a pound uh go ahead and fire it up. Josh full baby, so you can see where uh we had a couple pounds at night, get really all rev up two and up josh.

Oh hey easy! Easy! Do it again, all right, that's good! You shut it off we're just being silly at this point um, like i said, let's pop out this middle one and see what happens there, that one came out nice and easy folks shouldn't need to run a thread check. That's toasty just that quick little bit of molly it's too much. Oh, it's got ta, be quick, quick on that draw like a horse named raw. Let's see what we got here now.

If we have pressure here, that's just because you know it's plugged up in the back here, but if we don't, then we know we're plugged up in front go ahead and fire it up there josh baby rubber up a little you do it again. Do it again. That's good right, shutter down, oh man, blowing all kinds of junk out of there um! Oh, you know what the the reason that we have a lower amount of pressure. There is simply because we've got a big opening in the front hole, so it still doesn't really prove anything.

What we need to do is spin the o2 sensors back in and drill it back here to see if there's pressure at the back of the converter so bear with me folks all right go ahead and fire it up. Josh give her some rev ups a little harder, that's good! Let's try to shut it down. I see the brakes back here relatively new, despite the backing plates being rotted and it is low on brake fluid folks, uh low almost to the empty point. I don't see anything pissing out of that caliper, so we're just going to kind of give it the visual most of these brake lines are all coated.

You know they got the black rubberized coating on them. You know, and typically when you get a brake fluid leak, you know it's pretty obvious. You'll see it drizzling. I think we've got some moisture under here.

I don't know if that, let me smell my doesn't really smell like brake fluid this baby's, pretty rotted brand new pads and orders on the front, no line leakage up there, no line leakage up there. We better go up under the hood and have a look. This thing's just about ready for the scrap heat from the looks of it anyways. In my opinion, it's getting rough, maybe this unit there those lines appear to be high and dry, and i drove the car.

The pedal was nice, you know didn't fade out or anything. So that leaves us with two options: three options: a there's, a brake, fluid thief, going around extracting fluid from people's cars b; somebody put calipers on it; blot them out, never filled the reservoir or c it's leaking into the booster, sucking down the booster hose burning in The engine and rolling the converter - i've spoke with the local authorities and there is no reports of a brake fluid thief in the area. So, let's pop this little guy up, if we can have a look in the hose, wouldn't this be epic that the abs light was really related to the failure. Oh good sucky, i don't see any stuff in the hose smelled it with my big nose.
I don't smell anything: let's stick a zip tie down in there i'll take our zip tie, we'll give it a little bit of a loop. Then we'll go in water to face down there. We go and she's drying a popcorn fart. So that tells me that plan c or uh not really a plan.

I guess our hypothesis c is no good. It would have been great. We found it like that. So, let's stick that back on, so we're gon na go with b uh we're gon na go with the fact that i think somebody just did a four wheelie brake job, probably diyed it and uh forgot to fill that thing up, because there's really.

No other plausible explanation, my boy joshie and i looked it over good. We don't see anything leaking um, so yeah yeah anyhow fixed well, that's pretty much it folks. Uh. All we have to do now is call the customer quiz them a little bit say you know.

Did somebody just do the pads the rotors calipers, you know bleed the brakes, perhaps and just neglect, to fill up on the reservoir, which is my guess. It doesn't take a lot of fluid to take on these hondas to go from the minimum to the maximum mark. So just you know a little bit: we can see that turned off the light, so a little bit of questioning to them there. We probably will get that answer uh in the people's republic of newark new york, the prny i like to call it.

We have to abide by carb laws from the california air research board when it comes to catalytic converters. Therefore, if this is a california emissions car which it is, then we have to have a carb certified converter, a 25 000 dollar. Fine new york state says if we get caught installing a federal emissions converter on a california car, so we have to abide by those laws because that's how that's how it is, if you're diy in it do what you want run a bar through this thing, i Don't care, oh over here in the shop, that's what we have to do. We have to obey the law in gravity, because that's a law too and then we're going to talk to the customer and say hey.

I see this as the third catalytic converter. At least that's been put on this car did the first one get replaced because of an efficiency problem like po420. Did it get replaced because it was plugged power, loss problem or did it get replaced simply because it was rotted out, which is the most likely situation? Given the climate we live in and looking at the bottomless car she's pretty rotted for having 90 some k on it, um if it was plugged, i would have to start talking to them. Like you know, this thing burning tons of oil.
You know you're going through a quarter, oil every you know thousand miles or a couple quarts between oil changes. You know. Have you had problems with misfires? You know the engine light been coming on and flashing. You know all those things that can ruin a converter, uh and i guess we'd have to cross that bridge when we get there, there's no sense checking engine efficiency.

Uh. Currently, you know fuel trims and you know: is it running stoichiometric, because that thing's, you know tighter than tight, so every reading we get is redundant. You know it's or it's irrelevant, rather simply because that converter is plucked. Anyhow enough talking comment sections the questions, the comments, the ansi, the facebook just remember, viewers.

I can do it, you can do it thanks for watching.

By EricO

13 thoughts on “Honda CRV: No Power, VSA & Red Brake Light On”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars rsx123 says:

    Wow. You guys have more rust than us in Canada… I would have looked underneath and told that customer I'm just gonna chop off the cat for you don't bring this car back ever again.

    That subframe is barely there you didn't even blink an eye lmfao (Figuratively obviously)

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Alicia N says:

    To promote doing something outside the law is not ideal. You may not like the law but we all need to abide by what the masses voted on. Like it or not. I may not like a law you care for.

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Alicia N says:

    Option #2 is not an option. Brake fluid does not disappear. It’s a tell tell sign of brake pad wear. Once you replace brake pads, push caliper pistons back in, outside of the wear the calipers took, you should have close to full of brake fluid. As rotors wear, your fluid drops, but not by much.

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Joe Turnip says:

    That level of rust grosses me out. I crawled under my son's 78 Ford Pickup last week here in California and it was practically without rust. My condolences to you New Yorkers.

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars jorge fernandez says:

    You crack me up! I like the way you did that diagnosis.That car is great from the door handles up. It's in only when you go to get in and your foot goes to thru the floor that you have to worry. That happened to my mom's Toyota years ago. We had a floor mat floor until she got a new car.

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Anthony Ravenwood says:

    Even being from Cleveland, it still amazes me how so many of the cars that come in look EXACTLY like the footage of the Titanic after being underwater for almost a century.

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars C.O.G. Forevermore says:

    Can I come by and get my blinker fluid checked? I need to have the uballs and the muffler bearings greased also. Oh and change the air in the tires from summer to winter air. Another thing is I connected a test light to the shock absorbers but I didn't get any shock. Is that normal for them to absorb all the shock? Someone told me that I need to have my tires rotated, but they rotate every time I drive it. When I put the car in R for race, it goes backwards. Also the belt is squealing. I tried to tighten it but I couldn't find the belt buckle. It will take me awhile to get there because I'm on the other side of the world. I'm currently building a raft.

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars GeneralDicktits says:

    Hey Eric! Maybe you and the community can help me real quick. I’m in a pinch and needing to figure out a problem on my ‘99 f150 4.6L triton. The long term fuel trim on both banks is reading 35+ and it’s randomly shutting off at idle. I put techron injector cleaner in it and it started running smoother, and now shuts off without warning. It still has the factory aluminum intake manifold, and runs great, all but that. It’s throwing P0171 and P0174. What would you folks do in my shoes? Any help is GREATLY appreciated!

    Update: I replaced the pcv valve and hose running to the intake. Made a slight difference, but the fuel trim remains the same. Spraying brake cleaner/ether around the manifold made no difference and did not affect the fuel trims.

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars B Souza says:

    So, Mr Eric O, did you replace the CAT 🐈 to give them back the POWER or what happened? Thank you 🙏 for all the great VIDs. Btw, do your SMA t-shirts have a pocket? It doesn’t look like they do. Also, do you sell SMA pocket screwdrivers?

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars J Kaehler says:

    Well you did have a code for a random misfire and the engine light did pop on. So maybe it is not efficient and clogging the cat. Would be interesting to know the outcome instead of just the diagnosis.

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Teslarawks! says:

    The right thing to do would be to tell the customer to drive it to junkyard and get what they will pay them for it. I imagine when you see a wreck where you live there is a huge cloud of red dust when the cars disintegrate after the car hits a old man on a electric scooter in the Walmart parking lot.

  12. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Chavi Siegel says:

    its pretty awesome you were so confindent the issue was the cat that you drilled a hole in it. say you werent so confident, how would you check the pressure? also, ive never seen that thread cleaner before. looks neat!

  13. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Donald Painter says:

    I had a 1995 Camaro come in the other day doing that no power but that's all no codes nothing the digital thermometer showed a little difference so I hooked up the back pressure gauge on the driver side and it pegged out just turning the engine

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.