so what are the final thoughts on your warranty company?

 

I didn't talk about the warranty company because the claim was initially denied. A real WTF! moment.

First, they made the dealership fax _every_ _single_ _service_ _invoice_ from the day we bought the car to prove proper maintenance. You ever try to fax a flimsy invoice? You ever try to get a Honda service rep to do it for you? Give them credit, they did get it done. Over several days.

All that had to happen before they'd give the dealership authorization to break open the engine and diagnose the problem. Then, they called in an independent adjuster to look at the car and make his recommendation. He took a lot of pictures and recommended a replacement short block.

Then, I got the call telling me the claim was denied and, obviously, I asked why. Two reasons:

The engine has been modified with a cold air intake so, no coverage.

The tires are out of spec and therefore the warranty is void.

Ok, one by one. The intake on this car is stock. In fact, the whole engine is bone stock. It took about ten minutes to convince the guy to go look at the manual for the car. He came back and admitted the picture from the adjuster was of a stock exhaust. The airbox had been open and the cone filter threw him off. He just assumed it was a mod.

Still, those tires are out of spec. We allow a 4% difference from manufacturer's spec and the fronts are within spec but the rears are 7% out. _Really_? TireRack say's they're in spec for the car. Well, they're not. So, tell me, how could this possibly cause the failure? It's not that, it's that they will cause the odometer to be wrong and we can't properly gauge the millage left on your warranty. <sigh> Ok, so what if I can prove to you that the tires were on the care _less_ than 24 hours before the failure. Well, you can present it to the claims committee.

So, did that, provided all the paperwork, invoice from TireRack, UPS delivery confirmation with time of delivery, THP paperwork from the call for the Wrecker, less than 24 hours later.

The claims rep worked with the claims board, involved one of their VP's and called the insurance underwriter. It took a couple of days, but I finally got a call.

"Mr McCoy, I owe you an apology." Is this a good thing or a bad thing? What's he going to tell me. Well, first, he tells me that the claim has now been approved and the whole engine will be replaced. Then, he says, when I was filing the paperwork I saw that the adjuster had written down the wrong tire size for the rear tires and the ones installed _are_ in spec. Sh%t.

So, two reasons the claim was initially denied and both were mistakes by the warranty company. But, in the end, they did make it right.

Lessons learned:

Be sure you know _exactly_ what exclusions are in your warranty so you know what you can do to your car without voiding it.

Be sure that you_never_ skip a scheduled service and that you keep all of the records.

Be prepared with documentation if your claim is denied and to work through the system.

Investigate their claims. If I had asked what size tires he thought I had I could and corrected them I could have saved about a week. It never crossed my mind that they could make such a simple mistake.

In any case, know that processing a third-party claim will take far longer than a factory extended warranty and you will not always get the same service. If we'd had a factory warranty when Sheila's valves burned they would have just replaced the head with a new one instead of trying to repair the old one. Something they proved incapable of doing.

 

I'd bet the crankshaft and/or the the big end of the #4 rod will be damaged. Everything else will likely be fine, except for the head that was already suspect. If the head is salvageable, I think you have reasonable spare that could be rebuilt if necessary.

 

Meh... RED is an attention-whore's dream color.

<--I love this guy!

 

thank you for the write up. thank god i have a 100K+ and don't even get the consider a warranty (and all the headache). i have a friend the bought a carI he really thinks needs a warranty (Ford product). I will pass the lessons learned along to him. Sounds to me that a factory warranty is about the only way to go.

One thing I wonder about...


Lets say you buy a used car out of warranty and decide to go after market. More than likely you do not have any of the records. Would you warranty be VOID right out of the gate?



Oh, and one last question... what do you call that... the dots ... the 3 dots i so love to use... does it have a name?

...
...
...
...
...
dot dot dot!

 

I don't know if there is an official name...but I use the hell out of them... !!!

 

an ellipsis ...

 

You'd want to read the fine print of the contract and, better yet, call the warranty company and ask about records requirements. My experience is that they'll make it as hard as they can to make a claim but will honor the letter of the contract.

That means finding the actual warranty company to call. My warranty is with a company called "Auto Claims," but we bought it through AAA. It was not at all clear that they were selling a third-party warranty. We thought, "sure, AAA will stand behind their warranty." They had nothing to do with it after making the sale and taking their commission.

You got your answer about ellipses but, informally, you can actually use "dot dot dot," so you had a right answer already. If you're hanging out with grammar snobs (I hate those guys) you'll fit in better if you call them points of ellipsis, a suspension point or periods of ellipsis. You can also use an M-dash instead of the full stops for variety. If you use it at the end of a sentence, add the period for a total of four full stops. There are other rules according to which style book you use.

Yours in more fundamentally useless knowledge,

 

Yeah, those were my thoughts too.

Here's a clue to the state of the rod and crank journals:




My questions is, do you think the crank is repairable? I've put oversize bearings in a rebuild before to account for wear but I've never had to deal with a damaged crankshaft.

 

Ron, I had a similar problem with my TR3 many years ago.
If the crank is not scored too badly, you could do what I did and have it turned maybe .0010 oversized and match with bearings that would "float" That way, you would get much quicker throttle response. Only problem I had was a loss of oil pressure.














Or maybe not