New guy, question about oil in cylinders
 

Ok, not my car but a buddy of mine has a late 90's 4cyl accord. He complained to me she has been hesitating, no power off the line or when accelerating, and it vibrates like crazy. My first thought was "misfire!"
Well I pulled his plug leads, and the cylinder (not sure the numbering) as you look at it on the far right had about half a cup of oil in it when i pulled it. looked like a horror movie in there. the next one over was almost as bad, the third was pretty full, and the far left had some, but not like the swimming pool the right had turned into.

He is looking for some advice as apparently his 18 yr old kid bro has been using it for a while and rags it pretty hard.

Car has 100,000 or so well-used miles on it. He wants to know whether its even worth fixing. Anyone done this and have a ballpark price figure?

As soon as i pulled it, it was that mythbusters moment of "well there's your problem!"

And yeah, I know its my first post so sorry about that.

year?

In most cases its $25-$50 worth of parts for the valve cover seal and associated seals for the spark plug wells. I just did mine it took me about a hour to do it. Some accords have another seal in the spark plug wells that require you to remove the valves assembly which is more involved need to know the year.

You may just clean up the spark plug wells and see how long it takes to fill back up again.

heck yes you can fix it vs. letting go of car.
common experience, not critical.

EDIT: It's oil in the spark plug tubes, not oil in the cylinders - if you talk to service guy about problem...


for price quote from dealer just ask them to quote a new valve cover gasket, with o-ring seals for spark plugs wells.
wild guess guess: $50 parts - plus $150 labor

Ahhhhh, ok thats good news. I was worried the oil was either blowing in from the bottom, or at least leaking down around the plug itself, and getting in the cylinders. It is burning oil, so that is worth looking into.

Seems a fairly common problem, so i guess I will give it a go.

Search youtube for wYU8qtPzQOY. It's an excellent Eric the Car Guy video for just this problem.

I had this fixed by my mechanic...$130 in labor + $60 in parts (gaskets and new plugs)...with the tax included it was $213 out the door. Tell your buddy to stop letting his kid bro beat on his car unless the kid wants to be responsible for repair costs.