I have recently picked up a 2001 Indy Yellow S2000 in just amazing condition, and had a blast at the end of the season. Everything is great on it....except....(always an exception!)....when ever I accelerate the car pulls to the right. The allignment has been done recently, and that did not corect the problem. When the car is gliding, or accelerating slowly (which doesn't happen often!), it rides as straight as an arrow. Any ideas?? A couple things I had thought of were tires or shocks??....Let me know....as the s2k season is approaching quickly!

 

Hey boarderkris WELCOME!!

I don't know what your problem is ..... maybe posting in Under The Hood will give you more advice regarding this.

But I did want to welcome you and hopefully you can make some of our outtings this year.

Also, your car is actually SPA Yellow, I believe Indy yellow is the name used in Australia as well as for the '04 S2000's. If your '01 is yellow it should be SPA. And you would make for the 4th yellow in our club!

I just thought of something..... and I really hope this is not true... Your VIN is not:JHMAP11461T800145 is it?

 

Yeah, hope it's not that VIN.

If you checked your alignment already, also check your tire air pressures. This would cause pulling when acclerating or braking. Sometimes is hard to tell low pressure on performance tires.

If that doesn't help try swapping the wheels left to right just to see if the pulling goes to the other side. It's OK to reverse the directionality of the tires in dry conditions. If it pulls to the other side it has something to due to wheels or tires, bent, unbalanced, broken belt ... something.

Check the wear pattern on the tire. Inside, outside, uneven wear?

 

Hey thanks for the tips Fongu. I will definitly be checking tire pressure first, as I did notice the rear left tire was a little low.

Now you guys have me worried about the VIN number!....I don't have the papers on me at this exact moment so I'm not sure the VIN number, but I will be checking them later on today! What is the story behind that VIN number?!

 

Kris, the story behind that VIN # is that the car was totalled in Toronto. It was bought by a shop here in Ottawa and repaired. I went to look at it and was told only the bumper and fender were damaged, when I know for a fact it was totalled (saw it with my own 2 eyes).

The fact you said it was in amazing condition leads me to believe this isn't the same car, but if it is we need to know. If it is you may want to contact the gov of ontario, as the dealer was not disclosing the history properly on the vehicle.

Let us know!

Did you get a hard top?

 

Well, I can't believe this....I just had my roommate's gf look it up for me....and obviously that's my VIN number....

I did know it was in an accident, in Toronto, and told the same thing as you had mentioned above about the bumper and the fender. As well he mentioned that the frame was perfect, as it was just a small collision. The dealer here in Ottawa even showed me the pictures, that he was sent when he purchased the car, and everything looked A1, except the front bumper had been removed. I even had the Honda dealership do an inspection for me, and they found a couple things that had to be done, but just very minor, minor repairs.

I'm now confused as to what was done to the car, as the car is currently in immaculate condition (except for a couple minor stone chips). I put a coat of Mother's wax on it back in November and it is now shining as if it was just driven off the lot! My father and Uncle (who are both crazy about keeping their cars in show room condition)....both mentioned, how amazing the condition of the car is.

If you did want to see the car in it's current state, I'd be happy to give you a tour, as I do love showing it off!...lol

 

welcome to the boards boarderkris that makes 4 yellows in our Ottawa S2k club now!

 

that sucks about the VIN thing.....

can you get access to a full vehicle history? take that back to the dealer and see what he does...

 

I contacted the MTO on this car back in September I believe.

It was salvage title and stamped back as reconditioned, it was not a minor accident, both Fongu, Donb and myself saw this car in the ditch. Is the softtop still bent?

I will give you confirmation the engine is brand new in that car, with actually only a few 1000 KM on it, the odometer said 36k ish when you picked it up, but it is not the original engine.

The dealer did not give full disclosure. I'll check my records on whom I called for this information last year. I remember the guy told me to have the purchaser call him back if I ever found out who bought it, I wrote the info on a scrap piece of paper thinking, the chances were slim, I guess not!

This is a very serious offence, they must disclose fully that the car was totalled and rebuilt, it's up to you if you want to deal with this or not, obviously you would get your full refund if they were found guilty but you would be out a car, which IMO I wouldn't want anyways, but this is your decision.

I am not sure how easy/hard it is to prove you were never told the truth. When I saw the car back in Sept, IMO it was not in great shape the panels didn't fit properly, the soft top latch was way off and it drove poorly, it pulled you around, which seems like what you are noticeing now.

EDIT: Also if I remember correctly the entire rear suspension was repaired, the dealer did mention this to me after I pried further.

I'll dig up past discussions on this car.

 

Kris,
Check out this thread

And this one Looks like I remembered the KM's wrong 44k not 36k

Quotes from the previous owner:

from the damage i saw and my friend who's the manager at the formula honda collision center also told me there was frame damage. after the accident, i couldn't latch the soft top and there was a huge upwelt in the passenger side floor. the impact was quite extreme and the car literally violently bounced 2-3 times on dirt, tree trunks and stones before stopping.

if the autobody shop passed the structural tests and rebranded it should be ok. i guess the Used Car association is questioning their sales practices... haha.

lift up the passenger side carpeting if you can and i bet you it'll have tons of hammer marks