I am wondering if there are any other S2K owners who have had a problem with what seems to be the #4 Cylinder failure.

Driving my car it suddenly developed a tap tap noise in the engine. This got louder. The oil light did not come on. The temperature guage was normal. I had the car towed to the service centre. The oil was drained and only 1 litre was found. Representing 20% of the capacity. The oil was checked 4 days prior when filling the engine. Honda are avoiding a warranty claim saying the engine was low in oil and a service missed.

What point is an oil warning light that fails to warn you of catastrophic engine failure.

If any other Aussie owners know any information that could help my impending battle please let me know.

I have found many cases ocuring in the USA and some in Spain. I would like to know of any insidents occuring on our great shores.

Regards Garry the dead Honda owner.

 

although i dont own an S2000, i can relate to you, i had something similar happen to me with my R... but this was on the track. The oil light did not come on for me either and we found out later that there was no oil in the engine, why it didnt light up it beats me. What you should have done was pour a few litres of oil back in there then bring it to Honda lol thats wat i did and they had to honour their warranty. They were trying to dispute the claim by saying i was using the wrong grade oil etc etc (which was baloney btw, i was using Mobil1 10w30), but at the end they had had no choice but to fix it under warranty.

 

There have been several cases of this. Whether the low oil is the cause or the result is debatable but I suspect the latter.

I'll put you in conatct with JTR (he had this happen to him) and he can give you some pointers.

 

The oil light is dummy light. It will activate when oil pressure is below a certain threshold. It will NOT indicate a impending low oil situation. So basically if you don't check the oil level you can be screwed.

I reckon Honda are bastards for denying that warranty claim. Obviously there was a problem to cause such low oil level leading to engine failure. I would get a lawyer.

 

I don't think 1L of oil in the sump is "impending low oil", it's "frighteningly already much too low thank you very much". Not one of the reports of oil this low has failed to mention that the oil light did not come on (but then they would say that wouldn't they?) which makes you wonder when the light will come on.

 

You are so right. Aparently the oil light didn't come on until the engine was completely drained. Now thats real low. Thank you for your reply, Garry.

 

see when it comes to warranty claims for the engine its a very grey area... how does Honda know that you didnt purposely drain the oil out just so you can get a new engine from Honda... so Honda is very careful on warranty work when it comes to the engine because if they were to value all the claims on the low oil... they would be replacing a lot of engines.

 

I'd be pushing this one real hard.

I'm writing an article for the HSCC newsletter this month about some technical issues such as the various diff problems, clutch problems and definitely about the #4 cylinder problem.

 

Given that Honda Australia is more than a little friendly with the club, what political consequences might this have?

 

Aren't we the ones who lament the media pandering to the advertisers?

I'll write it factually and politely and even diplomatically (had to look up the spelling). Have you ever known me to be any other way (don't answer that Naishou).