My 2007 Honda Civic SI started making a noise in the engine compartment a few weeks ago. It was related to the engine RPM. This car is the Civic body, but with a 200HP, twin-cam engine with 9,000 RPM red line, a 6-speed transmission, "summer" tires, gas struts, and of course "Fire Engine Red," paint. A sleeper as it's called.
Took it to our local Honda repair shop (not the dealer). The mechanic and I had a nice talk about the SI's. This was the first year for the 4 doors.
The diagnosis of the problem had an interesting outcome. Open the hood, listen for the noise. Go get a long screwdriver, use it as a stethoscope to isolate one of three pulleys the drive belt runs over. It can only be one of the three. The noise seems to be coming from the top idler, but maybe the one below.
Then go to the shop office and call Honda. Ask which of the three pulleys has the largest replacement rate. That's the one. That's the one that breaks most often. Order it.
Project Management Impacts
- What are the common cause failure modes for your project work?
- Which things go wrong most often?
- If you have a suspicion that something is going to go wrong, what is it likely to be? The thing that most often goes wrong.
- The "most likely" cause of problems.
The process of Root Cause Analysis focuses on finding and fixing the most common things that go wrong first and eliminating them from the process. Think about the future work in the project. What can go wrong? What can you do with the project team to eliminate problems before they are problems?
