little Chris

My GF's mum owns a Civic type R on an 05 plate. She brought the car from a honda dealer and twice she has had the engine warning light come on relating to problems with a piston. Honda have checked it over and said they can not see any thing wrong

The same Piston that the engine light related to decided to snap and has finally killed the engine.

Honda are saying the reason the engine has blown is down to bad driving, 'supposedly' she changed down to 2nd at 70mph which I think is .

Honda have said she needs to pay up

little Chris

One last point,

They informed my GF's mum last week that the piston had broken, then this week said they checked the ECU and said its down to bad driving.

Am I wrong in thinking they should of check the ECU first prior to taking the head off and looking inside the engine?

Nick Graves

They should, but they tend to do things in any order.

If they've disconnected the battery, it's probably cleared the over-rev history.

It sounds fishy to me. Possibly an earlier over-rev slightly bent a valve, but you cannot simply jump to a convenient conclusion!

Saxo Boy

As an aside, such a 'fluffed' change is frighteningly easy to do in both the CTR and the S2000. Great for swapping cogs when you want to but a problem if you are dozing a little as you drive!

little Chris

Thanks chaps, agreed Saxoboy but shes adermant she didn't do it.

she was doing 70 mph and then she hurd the clunk and slowed to 65, she never changed gear!

I'll post up more once they are back from the garage and had a look at the ECU report

rallycol

They're talking cr*p just trying to worm out of a warranty claim stick to your guns ,I'm sure they are trying it on about the download info off the ECU.

GSi

If they're trying to get out of the warranty its down to them to prove it was 'bad driving'. Something which is highly subjective and going to be virtually impossible to prove. My guess is that if your girlfriends mum sticks by her guns and you've got some proof that the car has been in a couple of times for them to investigate a related problem, then it'll turn out ok.

little Chris

And its from a well respected Honda garage London, I wont say who they are untill I know the final out come.

Boab01

Wonder if it would be worth investing in one of those code reader wossnames just to prove that you didn't over rev.

little Chris

??

Do you mean find out what code the ECU is reading then refer to the Honda code guide thingy-ma-jig