I was driving normally a few day ago, when suddenly the engine just stopped pulling (WOT, ~4000rpm), to the tune of some horrible metallic grinding noises. RPMS immediately dropped to 0, and that was the last noise the engine has made.

Long story short, cylinder #3 got all sorts of messed up. The tip of the spark plug looks like it went through a meat grinder, and when we put the dipstick in to feel the piston...well, we didn't feel the piston. We felt the oil pan.

It's a 2002 S2000, with about 100,000 miles. I've had it for 2 years myself. Just now I started hearing about some spark plug recalls, but I would imagine the previous owner would have gotten that done. Apparently he usually got it serviced at the dealer.

For a few weeks before this failure, the engine ran kind of weird sometimes. When at WOT, the power would sometimes suddenly dip and rise on its way to redline. Then it would stop doing this for the rest of the day. Next day, it would do the same thing on the first or second trip to redline, and then it would be ok again until the end of the day. Then it wouldn't do it at all for a whole week.

And then this.

Anybody have any insight? Should I even bother taking an 8 year old car to the dealer and try to get them to cover the damages?

 

i wud search for a new engine, i wud call the dealer and get some kind of quote and see what they say but no way will it be free

 

sounds like you dropped a valve. buy a new motor

 

The shop also said that a valve was ground up (although I didn't see anything by looking). Why would it do that though? Your response makes it sound like this is a routine everyday occurence, like getting a flat tire.

Maybe I'm not one to talk, but if I was designing an engine, I would probably design it so that a valves DON'T drop. I kind of doubt Honda would let that mistake slip, too.

In the close to 3 years I've had it, I never ovverreved it, by the way. I learned how to shift after I overreved a GSR back in the day...

 

Maybe you shouldn't have driven it for weeks while it was "running weird...."

When was the last time you checked your oil level?

That's the thing about buying a used car, you never know what kind of damage the car could have sustained prior to your use. A cracked retainer can "let go" some time in the future....

 

But then you'd have a Camry. That's the thing about pushing the envelope of engineering (at least in 1999), some things may fail. They updated a few things like valve guides and retainers for the AP2 for this very reason. But the inciting event is still most likely human error. Maybe prior to your purchase.

 

pull the valve cover, it will be easy to spot what happened. if a retainer cracked you will have a spring and retainer with no valve. if you bent a valve then you will have a retainer with part of the valve stem in it.

its not common, its just easy to spot when it does happen and it typically the only thing that can cause that type of damage

 

if the dipstick went to the pan he did more than drop a valve


probbly at the least chopped the head of a valve off and its floating around inside the motor somewhere.

id be interested to see pics

 

Put a camera down there. And see for yourself. A lot of shops have them now.

 

thats what dropping a valve is.

90% of the time when they drop they break and destroy everything