I was on a vacation. Engine light went on. Engine started sputtering a lot at idle. Still ran so I could get it off the road. It turned out to be a cylinder 3 misfire (P0303). I was at about 96,000 miles at the time.

Brought it to a local garage, and the guy replaced the spark plugs and it ran fine from there. When I went to pick it up, he showed me a horribly fouled plug.

I had also been noticing that my oil consumption had increased...

It turned out that we addressed one of the symptoms of a bigger problems. Here is the full story as of 2025. This was when I learned that this problem ran deeper.

After owning multiple Hondas over 30+ years: a Civic, a Pilot, and a 2009 Accord EX-L V6, I’ve reached the end of the road with the brand, and I want to share my experience in case it helps others.

My Accord has the J35Z2 V6 engine with VCM, and at around 96,000 miles, I began getting a cylinder 3 misfire (P0303). The plug was badly fouled, and over time I noticed rising oil consumption (~1.5 quarts per 1,000–1,500 miles). Despite replacing plugs and coils, the misfire returned. In May 2025, with ~121,000 miles on the car, I discovered online that this problem is well known to 2008-2012 Honda Accord V6 3.5L VCM engines.

Honda issued a service bulletin (TSB 13-078) after a class action lawsuit was brought against them (Soto v. Honda), which Honda fought and lost. There was a design flaw that caused excessive ring wear, leading to excessive oil getting into the cylinder. Eventually the plugs would foul and the engine light would come on. Most often this happened with cylinder three.

I brought it to my mechanic who looked at the car and did a compression test, verifying the ring issue. He didn't charge me anything for the diagnosis. I wrote to Honda America, and they told me I had to bring it to my local dealership service department. They diagnosed it, charged me $190 for the pleasure, to tell me what I already knew... It's a ring issue, all consistent with TSB 13-078.

The class action forced Honda to extend the warranty to 8 years past the delivery date or 125,000 miles. Since it wasn't a recall, I wasn’t notified. Because I don't put heavy miles on my care, the first time the misfire due to plug fouling occurred was at 96,000 miles, in 2021. Out of the warranty period. It recurred a few times between then and early 2025. That's when I finally found out this was a known issue.

I asked Honda for goodwill assistance, since this is clearly a latent design defect, not normal wear and tear. I was told no, first by the call center, then again after a formal written appeal to their New England Zone Manager. The response? Denied again, routed back to the original case manager.

Their reasons:

The car is 16 years old.

It has 121,000 miles (apparently that’s considered “a lot” for a Honda V6?).

I didn’t service the car at Honda dealerships.

That last one really ticked me off. I’ve used reputable independent mechanics for years. I’ve always maintained the car properly. But to Honda, that’s apparently a reason to deny help, even when it’s their own engineering that failed.

Honestly, Honda may be off the hook legally, but ethically, their refusal to help a long-time loyal customer with a well-documented defect is deeply disappointing.

This car never lived up to expectations. It’s been noisy since day one, the driver door vibrated enough to wear out the seal, I've had an unusually number of problems with the rear break calipers, and now the engine has issues that Honda admitted to, but won’t take responsibility for unless you're lucky enough to break down inside a warranty window, which nobody is at that point. Meanwhile, owners like me are left to deal with spark plug fouling, rough running, oil consumption, and no recourse.

I used to be a Honda fan, and encouraged my kids to stick with them. That’s over now.

This is my first of 4 incidents were the car has had cylinders misfire.

The fact of the matter of having extended warranties does not cover the towing, the close calls driving in the NJ Turnpike and trailers just want to run you over when your car slows down. This issue is down right a slap on the face to all who used to love Honda vehicles, it is cheaper for me to bring it to my mechanic than to lose days and amount of hours at the dealerships and wait for them to tell me that the oil consumption is normal and that there is a laundry list of things the car needs when they have no clue on how to fix the problem.

The worst thing of all is that I own two vehicles that are on this black list Accord and Odyssey....my Wife had a close call with the kids and I had one with them as well................just put me out of my misery...If I had the money to through away as the Honda Corporation think we do, I would burn those 2 vehicles to the ground.

And Honda sees nothing wrong with it....Amazing!!!!!!

While driving on the freeway, check engine light turned on, then seconds later it starts flashing continously. The VSM light turn on. When the car came to a stop, its struggled to stay running while it idles. Acceleration was poor; like your running on 2-3 cyclinder.

Took it into a dealership for diagnostic; they said cyclinder number 3 missfired due to foul spark plug. My emission waranty last over 100K and the plugs were guarantee to last upto 100K. At 65K, I was covered. It was still a major inconvience since I work 30 miles away and this is my only car.

Almost home from work, and the car began to shudder and engine light began flashing. Called the dealership and convinced them to stay open for me until I could turn around and get the car to them. The diagnosed it as a Cylinder #3 misfire. They told me the car was running too lean, which was causing increased corrosion on the spark plugs - they updated the computer with a recent Honda release that allows a little more fuel to be injected, and replaced all the spark plugs.

Now I get bad gas mileage (Prior to repair I averaged 22 mpg with mostly stop and go driving) and now I barely get to 19 mpg on a tank. Very unhappy with this performance and am seriously considering selling early and getting a Nissan