All,

Just want to give something back after spending the past 3 weeks troubleshooting my 99 Accord V6 Coupe w/ 210K miles... waaaahhhh!!! I have done the two recalls from Honda back in 2002. Hope my stuff here can be helpful to folks with similar problem. So here I go!

I started getting P0420 and P0401 over a year ago. I ignored it because it is mostle related to emission stuff... at least that's what I was told initially. But lately my car has been stalling while driving on the freeway without any warning whatsoever. The engine just dies but I still have steering and braking capabilities. It started to freak me out. I did quite a bit of research and found various good and conflicting responses (like getting a new Cat Conv) from people out there. A honda dealer wanted to charge $250 just to replace the EGR valve. Rather than spending the money and not knowing if it is going to sovlve the problem... which I have seen alot people saying, I decided to do one thing at a time thinking that solving one issue may remove another. This is what I did:

1. Thinking it might be the fuel pump (or maybe the juel injection), I had my local machenic ($40) do that work for me. They injected so cleaner into the fuel tank (I think) to help burn out the craps that were in there. Well, this didn't help as I was still experiencing the same problem.

2. I than proceeded to replace the ignition harness. This is the part right behind the ignition switch. I got this from my cousin for free cause he sells parts. That didn't help either.

3. I replace (DIY) the EGR valve with a brand new one for $50. Hey, that removed the P0420 code. But the P0401 remains and the car continue to stall.

4) I than found information about EGR Port clog issue on the net. This is a know issue and Honda had announce it at one point. The title is "Accord Warranty Extension: EGR Port Clogging". If you want to do this yourself, you can do a search for ATB 21179-23317 on Google. Honda charge your a few 100 bugs for this. If you have not done this and your warranty is out, you will need to buy the kit as described in that document. Since my car already has it done before, all I need to do is do another EGR Port cleanup. This is basically to remove carbon from the clogged port. MAN! more than 2/3 of the port was all blocked out with carbons. We gave it a good cleanup. I also replaced the main relay wit a brand new one ($40). Finally, I clear the ECM.

If I knew it earlier, I think I should have only performed step 3 and 4. So far, I have driven it more than 110 miles and things seems to be okay. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Hope this helps.

Ultra

 

Nice follow up man! I hope this helps people (including me) in the future = )

 

No need to google search;
http://members.troublecodes.net/hondadude/sb99085.gif