New Elysion on the South Coast

[Ike]

Hi All
Just joined the forum, even though I was lurking here before buying. 

We bought our Elysion from a private owner near Leeds at the beginning of September. We are based in Brighton&Hove area.

It's a white 3.0 VX with Modulo kit on it. When I was buying it was one of 6 in the country for sale, and one of 3 with j30a which I wanted. 
I am saying hi only now, as for the best part of the first two months of ownership we had a troublesome relationship. Currently, I have only one issue that needs attention, and I plan to solve it at the beginning of the new year. 
I invite you to ask me anything about the car and obviously get in touch if you want to meet up, or I could help with anything.

Cheers
 

[PTR200S]

Welcome to the H6nda club,  you have the correct engine in there !!

I am surprised that you have had problems which sound like an awful lot. ???  !!!

We're they serious ?  How did you solve them ? Telling the story may help others .

What is the outstanding issue?   

You can't keep us in suspense !!!!!

[Ike]

Hah, thanks  
It sounds horrible and was frustrating, but a lot of this time was just me waiting for the availability of a recommended garage. 

So the initial problem was an old battery, which caused 3 a4 pages of faults. 
When replaced, two faults left.

One was related to transmission, the solenoids were stuck. I replaced two of them, but two days later the other two (yes, there is 4 of them in total) developed a similar issue. Instead of buying another pair, we cleaned the old pair and replaced the faulty ones.

For the sake of others, in the first run, Elysion could barely start to drive from fully stopped. When it was driving, it was…'fine'.
In the second run of this issue the car was starting fine but didn't want to engage gears 3,4 and 5. As you can imagine, that was fun.

From today's perspective, I believe I didn't have to replace them. They were getting stuck and not stopped working completely. I think that, because when the same problem appeared for the 3rd time (lucky me, right?), I read that one thing to try is to go through all the gears before driving. Literally, start the engine and go on every step of the gearbox 2 times and then D and off you go – believe me or not, but it did help and hadn't had this problem since.

The outstanding issue is the VSA control light on the dashboard, as it appears after a minute or two of driving, breaking isn't affected I expect it to be a sensor of some sort. Additionally, I was informed on the MOT that one of the engine mounts are going off slowly. I plan to resolve those issues in the beginning of the new year.

I hope I describe it clearly enough, but happy to make clarifications. English is not my first language, and I am aware that sometimes my writing can be convoluted – sorry for that

[PTR200S]

Wow !

A few issues there !! Well done for working your way through them.....battery is always the first port of call for me when loads of faults / fault lights jump on. 

(Jaguars R us !!) 

Did you clean out the gearbox filter whilst you were in there?? 

VSA lights are a pain...start with all the abs connections you can find .

 

"English is not my first language " ....you have got to be kidding us !!

You write better than some English first language people I know can speak it !! Brilliant , keep it coming !!!

[Ike]

Oh thank you, you're very kind

Nope, I didn't clean the oil nor the filter as I was told that looking at how the gearbox is working, it's not necessary. I didn't want to argue, but I will do it soon as I don't want to mistreat my first auto box

Great advice with the VSA, will have a look!

I decided to fight through them (using garages as I don't own tools, skills and place to do it myself) as it was clearly the same thing that was misidentified. I don't know if I would be so persistent if the issues would be scattered or the list getting longer. So far so good

[PTR200S]

10 minutes ago, Ike said:

Nope, I didn't clean the oil nor the filter as I was told that looking at how the gearbox is working, it's not necessary. I didn't want to argue, but I will do it soon as I don't want to mistreat my first auto box

First port of call, get that filter out and replaced, and of course, the partial change of gearbox oil as soon as practical. 

Have a look here for a bit of help. Interestingly someone else had similar problems at the end of this thread...

 

 

[Ike]

Thanks for the link to the oil thread. Yes, deep service is next on my list. I don't know when the oil and filters were changed as well, so I plan to change everything at once and keep the intervals from that point on. I do drive quite a bit, so I don't want to risk it. As a long-term owner of Japanese vehicles, I can vouch for the importance of timely maintenance.

[Cryistic]

Welcome to the group Ike,

 

I'd suggest a Magnefine filter in the ATF return line from the ATF cooler as well as a gearbox filter replacement, the magnefine will be a a 6 month, yearly easily replaced filter for your transmission.

Stu fitted me a magnafine filter in my old Coupe with the J30 and auto box and it caught a lot of fine particles and some fine metal particles as well, I replaced it once myself, which took about 15 min, most of which was removing the battery.

[Ike]

Thanks for the tip @Cryistic. I will remember that on the next maintenance run

[hughezee]

Welcome to the club, sorry to hear of the niggles but like @PTR200S AKA Pete already said, glad to hear you are working your way through them. 👍

[Laird_Scooby]

Welcome aboard! A lot of your troubles sound suspiciously like lack of regular use - once sorted and in regular use with regular maintenance, i'd say you should have a (relatively) trouble free life with it.

The Elysion, being an import only model, is a bit of a specialist but several members have them and we now have a very good knowledge base on the forum.

[Ike]

Thanks @hughezee, @Laird_Scooby - much appreciated:)

Well guessed Scooby, it wasn't used a lot last year—less than 3k miles based on its MOT. It was also confirmed by the previous owner, they bought Jazz for a daily and neglected the Elysion. Let's hope it will behave like over the last few weeks, as when it is working it is a pure pleasure to own. :)