Wife was driving on highway oil light came on and she pulled over. Oil was pouring out from the engine. Had it towed to a local mechanic. Consumer was told that counter balance shaft seal. Had popped out.
1996 Honda Odyssey engine complaints
Page 2 of 2: complaints 11 to 12 of 12, newest first, as owners wrote them.
The counter balance shaft seal on the engine "popped out". This drained all of the engine oil out of the crankcase. In researching this on the federal safety agency web site I have seen a lot of honda accords with the same problem (same 4 cylinder engine). When I called the local honda dealer over the phone with the symptoms he correctly diagnosed the problem (they fixed the popped out seal, belts, labor etc) over the phone as he had seen this several times. He goes so far as to recommend that this $5 seal be changed on a routine maintenance checkup. This was a catastrophic failure and this could have been much worse in property damage and personal injury damage. The counterbalance shaft was added to stabilize the four cylinder vibration but the fix is much more of a problem. This engine is not a good design. I tried to get honda to answer how often this should occur as I know that some failures will occur. They would not let me talk with an engineer and I merely talked with a customer service rep. They do not feel like this is a problem but from what I can find on the net it is happening much more than honda will admit. Please follow up with honda on this for me. Thanks.
VIN decoder
See the problems and recalls for an exact car
Buying a used 1996 Honda Odyssey?
Check the exact car before you pay: accidents, salvage or flood titles, odometer readings and previous owners.
Check its history