My Honda Civic's 55,000 km PM Service

Due to increased work commitments in the recent weeks, I've had very little time to do anything else, much less find the time to write. Today, I find myself with time to kill and my trusty laptop by my side, so I figured I'd take the time to "contribute" to my increasingly dormant online memoirs....

It was time for me to bring my Honda Civic FD2 in for routine preventive maintenance at 55,000 km. Of course, it didn't exactly turn out to be *routine*, a bit more on this later below....

As usual, I made a service appointment at the GS Tay Honda Service Center in Muar. As I've mentioned before here, even though this is not the closest service center to my house, the quality of service and friendly staff justifies the need for me to drive the extra distance, all the way to Muar.

I arrived at the service center around 2.30pm. Today's service was a minor one, which basically required only a change in engine oil. My Civic doesn't run on anything exotic, just on Honda's own brand of engine oil (the fully synthetic variant, though). Approximately 5 liters of engine oil are needed for the stock 2.0 liter K20Z2 that sits under the hood. As engine oil comes in either 4 liter or 1 liter containers, 1 of each are used for each service.

During the course of the service, the service advisor recommended a change of wipers for me, as the current ones were already worn out. It was really some time since I last changed them, so I agreed to the change. Also, he pointed out that the valve cover gasket appears to be leaking, and required a change as well. Now, this was something out of the ordinary. Removing the valve cover to replace the gasket was quite labour-intensive, due to the claustrophobic engine compartment and the way they shoe-horned the engine in.

After a long sequence of systematic nut and bolt removal, the valve cover finally came off, and I got to see the two overhead cams for myself. Sure enough, there were two cam profiles at the intake, but only one at the exhaust side. That's essentially the key feature that sets the K20Z2 apart from the K20A....

The gasket was a thin black piece of rubber barely 1 cm thick all around, that lined the joints between the engine block and the valve cover. In removing the old gasket, the tech took great care to inspect all around the engine block for remaining remnants from the old gasket, which would cause a poor seal if not removed prior to the installation of the new gasket.

Finally, after replacing the gasket, then comes the task of re-assembling everything. I counted more than 30 nuts and bolts - I hope our friend does not misplace any of them!

The drive home was not significantly different. The car and engine felt as smooth as it always has been. Then again, the whole idea of "preventive" maintenance is to reduce that chances of something breaking down, not to fix a problem.

Well, another successful service, another satisfied customer. True, today's service took longer than usual, but that's justified because of the extra activities involved in replacing my wiper and valve cover gasket.

A good thing about GS Tay Auto is that a few days later, one of their staff makes a follow-up call to check on things. A good practice in terms of customer after-sales support. They do all makes of Honda vehicles, so if you'd like to try them out, do give them a call at +606 954 8389 to make a service appointment.

Thanks a lot to the staff of GS Tay Auto, see you all again at 60,000 km!