FYI, I was denied warranty coverage on my catalytic converter (car is '03 with <24,000 miles, 27 months old and stock engine and exhaust). The service manager said both she and the DSPM (district manager?) independently checked the internet and found my Willow Springs video ... . Damn Google!

Just thought I should let people know. I had heard that Mitsubishi does this, but hadn't heard of Honda.

 

if the car had a stock engine/exhaust it seems hard to say that tracking the car would cause the cat to fail.

 

Do you run the cat at the track? If you only run a TP then they can't possibly claim that the cat failure is due to track work. Hell if even if you did run it you can claim you don't. The behavior has to CAUSE the failure. You CANNOT be denied a warrenty just because you track. The tracking must cause the problem. If you run a TP on the track(or just say you do) they will be hard pressed to prove that the track behavior caused a cat failure. Afterall the cat wasn't on the car during the so called abuse.

 

You could try appealing higher up.

How did the cat fail? In what way could the track use have caused it to fail? My car has almost 30 track days on it now, 47K total miles, and my cat is fine.

 

they could claim leaded gas or octane boosters that could prematurely damage the cat. Probably not what happened but they do have a viable track related explanation.

 

Richard, the catalytic is under a federally mandated warranty as an emissions item. That warranty runs for 80,000 miles. California might even have better protection for emissions equipment. I suggest a little research and prodding of the dealer as merely tracking the car isn't reason for the emissions system to fail. You're probably in better shape since it's a potentially a federal thing as opposed to blowing a tranny or rear diff

 

Thanks for the advice in case I appeal.

But the main message was that they investigated me on the internet to determine coverage. Now it doesn't take a genius to look at my rollbar, suspension and trailer hitch to suspect that the car was tracked, but the fact remains that they did do a search even though engine and exhaust were stock.

Mike, I had a CEL, vibrating sounds in exhaust, code reader said secondary O2 sensor, removed it to check and saw that it was all dented. I've been told from others here that when the core breaks up it then damages the sensor, even shears it off sometimes. Honda said they've never heard of that happening.

 

Well if they do deny your claim and you do replace the cat, I hope you cut that puppy apart and see what happened. In fact, that might be evidence you can use to get a refund.

As for investigating us on the internet -- well surely we all knew that was possible, right? Still, there is a rather questionable line between what is reasonable to expect a company to warranty and what is not reasonable. Especially for a sports car. Misshifts, crash damage, blown diffs are one thing, but if the engine has remained stock and the proper gas was used, you have a pretty good argument that that cat should still be covered.

This whole issue is one of the major reasons why I didn't buy an extended warranty for my car. I figured any claim I was likely to make would be denied anyway.

 

Actually they could make a claim that the driving habits of track driving put a considerably greater amount of stress on the cat. Think about it. What is the average CFM that the cat sees during average driving. Compare that with the average CFM that the cat will see with track driving. That increase in sustained CFM out the exhaust, will likely increase the stress on the components of the cat, shorting it's lifespan. Simply the increased average pressure of running in continuous VTEC will increase the stress.

 

No matter how hard or where you drive, a stock motor should never be able to destroy part of the emissions system. I agree with JP (shudder) that the feds wouldn't be happy to hear about this attempt to disallow warranty on an emissions part.