Diagnose Honda Odyssey 2008 with VXDIAG HDS

 

Vehicle Model:

Honda Odyssey 2008 Touring

 

Purpose:

Fix poor acceleration issue

 

 

Problem and symptom:

a whole year of poor acceleration

The poor acceleration problem started with temperatures over 100+ F, Basically the engine wont pickup in power till its passed 2.5-3k rpm then it would feel normal to drive once its up in gears at highway speeds. This issue wont happen on a cold engine, it gets worse as the engine heats up and the weather gets hotter.

I will go down a list of things I suspected and changed,

1) Fall ’16, Replaced original factory sparkplugs with oem units, they had 110k on them, problem wasn’t solved.

2) Fall ’16, Replaced EGR after a false positive diagnostic on my part. Problem wasnt solved.

3) Winter ’17, Replaced fuel pump since it was cracked per recall, I said maybe its was a lazy fuel pump. Problem wasnt solved.

) Spring ’17, This VCM engine consumed oil since it was new, we all know what happened there with honda. I was lead to belive that the front catalytic converter was pluged up, I inserted a tube camera through the front cat top oxygen sensor hole, sure enough it looked plugged up and ready to be replaced, I replaced it along with a brand new oem alternator that smoked in the past but didnt fail. Upon driving the car it felt much better but not 100 % resolved. Summer ’17 kicked in with the heat and the problem showed it ugly face again!

5) Summer ’17, I decided to gut out the rear cat since the front cat replacement showed progress…..it didn’t work and the problem after one year is still the same with dead end solutions.

Updated:

6) Summer ’17, I started to suspect the Torque Converter, that’s when l remembered that honda updated the software on my car to resolve the shuddering problem in the past. I wanted a way to get into the ECM to see what’s up. I previously bought a device that runs the Honda HDS software, I couldn’t get it to work, till Now!, As soon as I figured things out, I found a throttle body calibration option, I cleaned the Throttle out of the engine, finished the calibration, drove it for a while, car felt different but problem wasnt solved. Again.

7) Summer ’17, I decided to dig into the HDS software, after looking up all the old DTC codes, I cleared all the old DTC codes that you couldn’t see with a generic obd2 reader. Moved on and found engine ecu reset, reset the ecu and took it for a drive, nothing, reset the transmission ecu and took for a drive, nothing changed.

8) Summer ’17, waiting for the car to build up mileage since the rest, nothing changed after 100 miles, give up and let it go for a while. At around 500-700 miles after the ecu’s reset the car changed!!! WoW,,,,I couldn’t believe it!!! A simple ecu rest and relearning, and the car felt like new or even better!, even the mpg went to levels that I havn’t seen since the car was new!….Acceleration felt mighty strong.

FINALLY, LONG YEAR problem resolved.

 

Device to use:

This is the tool i used to run the Honda software on my win7 laptop,

VXDiag Multi Diag Tool 3 in 1 for Toyota Honda and JLR

The Honda HDS software is what your local dealer use to get into your car brain. You will need a win7 laptop and the obd2 interference device. Since its not an official way to get into the car computer, i would say it does %90 of what the dealer can do…use at your own risk and only proceed if you understand whats happening, otherwise damage may occur.