Hi all. This is my first post on this forum. From what I've seen here so far, it appears that this forum contains some fairly knowledgeable people so I hope someone will be able to help with some questions I have.

But first a little about me and my vehicles. As you can see by my nickname, I'm an old time Honda owner. I ride a 1973 Honda CB500Four motorcycle that I bought new (and probably will never part with) and I thought itwould make a good nickname here. I'm on my second Accord which is a '98 EX model that my daughter drives and will be the subject of my questions. The first Accord I ever owned wasa '94. I drive a 2003 Chrysler 300M Special and my wife drives a 2004 Nissan Murano.

On to my questions.
1. Recently my daughter has been complaining that after she has been driving her '98 and arrives at her destination, when she opens the door she noticesa faint gasoline smell. I took the car to a local dealer, I've dealt with them before and feel I can trust them, and they checked it out but could find nothing wrong. I drove the car and did notice the smell but I had to really search for it. It was very faint. The car has 141k miles on it and I'll admit she hasn't exactly pampered the car. In fact, I wouldn't post a picture of it because of the way she's let it go. Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone else has encountered this type of problem and could suggest something to look for that the dealer might not have tried. For a time it had a CEL but that turned out to be due to the battery going south. I replaced the battery and CEL hasn't been back.

2. She told me the horn doesn't work. When I was troubleshooting in the driveway I tried it and it worked. When we road tested for the gas smell I tried the horn again while driving and no horn. Not sure where to start looking on this one.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

For the gas, I'd check the hoses around the evaporator can. For the horns I'd look at the grounding first.

Welcome to HAF. We tend to joke around a bit, but it's all in good fun. Pretty soon I'm sure you will get a better answer than mine by one of the techs on here. HAF has many techs, master techs and various people that are just knowledgable about cars. So far, I haven't seen a problem that HondaDude or Deserthonda haven't tackled already. DH has a ton of great DIY's, you should check them out. Even if there isn't one for your specific problems, it's just good to know what is covered there.

 

Welcome to the site. The suggestions above are a great starting point to help solve your problem.

 

Hi and Welcome to the HAf..The DIY sections have a world of knowledge in them, so look to them 1st for some of your questions answers>

WheelBrokerAng [sm=americanasmiley.gif]

 

The EVAP canister is under the car, pretty much beneath the left-rear seat. Just inboard from the rocker panel ahead of the left-rear seat.

Also check out the fuel lines under the car. Road salt or rust where you live?? Theres 5 steel tubes in a tray running under the left side of the car. (2 brakes & 3 fuel.) Look for corrosion to make the fuel lines seep a tiny bit of fuel?

 

Thanks for the suggestions. As soon as the daughter is home long enough to allow me to get a good look I'll check out those lines. Yes, Indy is part of the 'rust belt'.

 

Ok, I'm finally able to put this problem to rest. After some 'daughter drama' that I won't bore you with here except to say that said daughter has decided to move away from home to live with her dorky boyfriend sonow the Accord has come back to stay with good ol' dad and become his daily driver.

Anyway, even after trying some of your suggestions, it became clear to me that I wasn't going to solve this problem myself so off to the dealer it went. After they performed a smoke test on the evap & gas tank system they determined that the evap 2-way valve was faulty and needed to be replaced. Presto! No more gas smell. Two trips to the dealer and $230 later problem is solved.

The next project is the clunking noise from the rear of the car when going over some bumps. I think it's the sway bar end links because I can feel movement when I pull on the end of the sway bar. I'll start a new thread for this if I can't find anything on this in the DIY section.

Thanks again for all the suggestions.

 

Pinpoint the location of the movement, thats the first thing to do. Then post in the General Tech area...