Removing Engine to Replace hoses?

I had all my hoses replaced last year (after having to flatbed my NSX to the mechanic when one of the big hoses split) and he said several of the smaller hoses where very brittle. It was definitely past time to have it done.

Yeah, a 95 with how many miles? Slight difference from a 05 with 21000 miles. Seems like the timing belt police and the hose police are drinking the same kool aid!
 
Still more bad advice coming from the Atlantic provinces - from the same clown who tells you not to change your timing belt. :rolleyes: At least with the timing belt there's a substantial expense involved in replacing it. The radiator hoses are inexpensive; if you do just the larger ones, and do it at the same time as you're flushing coolant (such as when smart owners change their timing belt and water pump), the additional expense is only a few hundred dollars. That's downright cheap for something that can prevent your NSX from breaking down at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere (or engine damage if you continue driving on it when a hose fails).

Hoses can, and do, commonly fail, as a function of time as well as mileage. It's your car, and if you want to take that risk, in order to save just a few dollars, be my guest. And please, please come back and post if you do bust a hose. (Unfortunately, most of the fools who decide not to take care of their cars, and then find that they regret doing so because their car breaks down, have a habit of not coming back to post to admit that they were wrong.)
 
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I think this is the worst advice that's been posted here in quite a while.

On any car, not just the NSX, driving around with 23-year-old hoses :eek: means a serious risk of having a hose fail, and getting stranded, undoubtedly at an inconvenient place and time. Plus, the cost of replacing the hoses with new ones is relatively minor. Just do it!

nsxtasy, you should know me better by now, I'm the cautious type mechanically and would certainly never suggest letting hoses get that old as good practice. But I am saying replacing at 8 years is overkill.
As for "just do it" it's really not that simple, depending how you count there are 23 hoses and some are a real pain to get at, and rthen pull off when they are old. e.g. the ones on the big coolant pipes in the tunnel under the gear stick, or thoise that feed from the oil filter at back of engine. For what it's worth I've attached my list of the hoses that come in the kit from SoS that others may find useful. (with a few differences for RH drive cars like mine).

View attachment SoS NSX small hose kit (C).pdf

Lastly, I'll bet there are many 1990 NSX driving around today with original hoses. Now that deserves an :eek:
 
Yeah, a 95 with how many miles? Slight difference from a 05 with 21000 miles. Seems like the timing belt police and the hose police are drinking the same kool aid!

Well, I wasn't aiming to directly compare my 10 years older car with the 05, but instead adding another anecdote to the pile. One thing I would note, however, is that some of my hoses were clearly several years and many, many miles overdue for the service. How much, I don't know, but I'm very fortunate that when a hose did pop, it popped close to home. That low mileage 05 might be okay for now, but don't be overconfident. Time and miles go flying by and before you know it...
 
Unlike the timing belt, there is no set time or mileage interval for coolant hoses. Nsxtasy are you an accountant? You seem to automatically assume that I'm too cheap to maintain my car. In 20 plus years of servicing all kinds of Hondas ( and Acuras for that matter) I could probably count on one hand the number of failed coolant hoses at our shop. We just retired a 99 CRV that we used for a service vehicle. It still had the original coolant hoses at 500000 kms. My bodyshop guy has an 03 Accord coupe with almost 400000 kms. Same thing. To the best of my knowledge the young fellow who now has my 79 Accord has not changed the coolant hoses. One of the best mechanics I know ran a 88 Accord for 800000 kms. Same hoses as far as I know.

It's too bad you guys don't live around here and allow us to service your cars. We have enough trouble trying to get alot of people to keep decent tires and brakes on their vehicles. If I do blow up my car because of the belt or hoses, I probably won't publicly proclaim it on here. I will send nsxtasy a private message though, so he can feel good about himself!
 
Unlike the timing belt, there is no set time or mileage interval for coolant hoses ...
In 20 plus years of servicing all kinds of Hondas ( and Acuras for that matter) I could probably count on one hand the number of failed coolant hoses at our shop. We just retired a 99 CRV that we used for a service vehicle. It still had the original coolant hoses at 500000 kms. My bodyshop guy has an 03 Accord coupe with almost 400000 kms. Same thing. To the best of my knowledge the young fellow who now has my 79 Accord has not changed the coolant hoses. One of the best mechanics I know ran a 88 Accord for 800000 kms. Same hoses as far as I know.
...

Exactly, you could not have said it better or clearer ... The King is king ! :cool:

in short, the risks are being overstated by nsxtasy, potentially convincing others to waste time & money changing hoses on younger NSX's when there are many other more important maintenance items to be focussed on.
 
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I called and spoke with Robert. He sent me a list of what parts will cost. He and I are going to coordinate a weekend for him to do the work. I'll post the results. Thanks to everyone who posted and helped me with this. I expect the job will be done right and save me well over $3K. Thanks again.

Aside from the debate of when to do or not do TB/WP/Hose service...

if you are doing brake fluid, have them put on stainless steel brake lines, you will def notice the difference in pedal feel and feedback
its a good cheap upgrade that adds to the driving/braking experience of your nice NSX

This kind of post is what Primers helping Primers is about, saved you some cash ...which means beers are on you :biggrin:
 
I changed my own hoses when I did the T-Belt/water pump since I was already gonna have most of the coolant out I figured why not change them. I do have to somewhat agree with The King when cars come into the dealer I work at that are around the 20yr mark the coolant hoses are original. The only ones I have seen blow are the heater hoses that connect up to the cylinder head under the distributor on "D" motor civics because the customers do not replace a distributor seal which allows oil to leak onto the hoses destroying it.
 
Billy. I have had all my NSX work done at Westlake Independent in Westlake. They have two very skilled techs there and I trust them completely. They also did belts and hoses without removing the engine.
 
Sorry, but I agree that there should be no reason to replace all the coolant hoses in a low mileage 8 year old NSX.


No way I'd do it either and I will openly admit I over due maintenance on my motorcycles and cars. My 2004 s2k has ~40k miles and it's hard to detect any wear and tear under the hood. While there are risks associated with timing belts that make 'over doing it' justifiable, I wouldn't go so far as to replace all the hoses on a 2005 NSX with low miles unless I was extremely wealthy and about to go on a 10k mile road trip.
 
Thanks to everyone for the advice. FYI I did have the the work done by Robert. He's the fellow mentioned in this section. He came out to my house and replaced the Timing belt, water pump, thermostat, spark plugs, alternator belt, A/C compressor belt all hoses, coolant and brake fluid and clutch fluid. Everyone was right about the hoses. They were all in still very good condition, as were the timing belt and drive belts. The only thing that appeared to be in need of changing was the clutch fluid. Having Robert do the work was very good and a little bad. The bad part was getting Robert to show up on time. He was always late. 7:30 AM sharp was actually Noon. But once he arrived he did great work and really knew his way around an NSX. He also set it up for me to get the parts at 20% off from a dealer. My local dealer wanted $6K for that work. (He later called me offering me 10% off that.) I could have taken the car to Huntington Beach and had the work done for around $4K. With Robert it cost me $2300 and I got to see it done and done right. I liked being able to see that the work was done. I won't get this stuff done again for about ten more years (maybe 12), I will have the brake/clutch fluid changed and the coolant every three years. If you are in Southern California and want an expert to work on your NSX, call Robert (626) 264-7977. be patient. He'll probably be late but once he gets there and gets started, he does first rate work.
 
in short, the risks are being overstated by nsxtasy, potentially convincing others to waste time & money changing hoses on younger NSX's when there are many other more important maintenance items to be focussed on.
Wow. You've got a real attitude there. :rolleyes:

I really don't care whether people change their hoses or not. It's a good idea to do so, and it's CHEAP (even cheaper if you do it when you're doing the timing belt, water pump, and coolant anyway). Don't want to do it? Then don't. How you take care of your car has no consequences for me, only for you. You might bust a hose one of these days, or you might not. If you do, it will likely happen at an inconvenient place and time. And when it does, if you don't shut the car down right away, you could overheat the engine, which is a good way to destroy it. It could be an expensive lesson to learn. Of course, the blowhards who decide to cheap out on maintenance and then find themselves confronted with an inconvenient or expensive, preventable repair never come back here to say so. (I know of several.)

Also, anyone who claims that old radiator hoses don't commonly fail (on all cars, not just the NSX), is either lying, or doesn't know much about cars.

if you are doing brake fluid, have them put on stainless steel brake lines, you will def notice the difference in pedal feel and feedback
Not true. Don't waste your money on stainless steel brake lines. The stock brake lines work just fine. I replaced mine on the NSX with new stock lines after 18 years as a preventive, but that was probably unnecessary; in any case, even after eighteen years and lots of track miles, they had a nice firm pedal and feedback, none of the spongy feel that people claim is the reason for stainless lines.
 
I'd go too as for saying if you're still on a stock radiator I'd replace that if you have an older car... I had mine spring a leak a few years ago. Lucky that it wasn't huge and I was at work so replaced it with a Koyo, but EVERY car or truck I've owned I've had to replace the radiator so in the future if I ever have a car around 70k miles or so I'm replacing the radiator for preventive maintenance since I have bad luck with them.

Just food for thought, only speaking from personal experience with radiators.
 
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I'd go too as for saying if you're still on a stock radiator I'd replace that if you have an older car... I had mine spring a leak a few years ago. Lucky that it wasn't huge and I was at work so replaced it with a Koyo, but EVERY car or truck I've owned I've had to replace the radiator so in the future if I ever have a car around 70k miles or so I'm replacing the radiator for preventive maintenance since I have bad luck with them.

Just food for thought, only speaking from personal experience with radiators.

My radiator failed a couple years ago (around 140,000 miles). It split a seam and dumped all the coolant pretty quickly. Luckily, I was paying attention and stopped and my mechanic came and rescued me.

I replaced mine with a stock unit. For better or worse, that's what I could get at the time. It was a $900 adventure.
 
Wow. You've got a real attitude there. :rolleyes:

I really don't care whether people change their hoses or not. It's a good idea to do so, and it's CHEAP (even cheaper if you do it when you're doing the timing belt, water pump, and coolant anyway). Don't want to do it? Then don't. How you take care of your car has no consequences for me, only for you. You might bust a hose one of these days, or you might not. If you do, it will likely happen at an inconvenient place and time. And when it does, if you don't shut the car down right away, you could overheat the engine, which is a good way to destroy it. It could be an expensive lesson to learn. Of course, the blowhards who decide to cheap out on maintenance and then find themselves confronted with an inconvenient or expensive, preventable repair never come back here to say so. (I know of several.)

Also, anyone who claims that old radiator hoses don't commonly fail (on all cars, not just the NSX), is either lying, or doesn't know much about cars.


Not true. Don't waste your money on stainless steel brake lines. The stock brake lines work just fine. I replaced mine on the NSX with new stock lines after 18 years as a preventive, but that was probably unnecessary; in any case, even after eighteen years and lots of track miles, they had a nice firm pedal and feedback, none of the spongy feel that people claim is the reason for stainless lines.

Whatever
 
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