Barry in Wyoming

BEWARE!!! This thread was started in February 2001 and was brought back to life by Pete two years later. There is more up to date info in my Short Block Replacement thread which you can find from my link. Barry 2/23/03.


So far, from this board, I know of seven late year MY2000 or MY2001 S2000s that have had to get a new short block due to piston/cylinder failure. The lowest mileage is mine at 650 miles. The highest mileage is Rowland's at 6,600 miles. All but AutoxEx's begain with a tap tap tap sound that sounded like a misadjusted valve but turned out to be piston slap with cylinder scoring. Three of the seven are documented to be scoring of the #4 cylinder. Three more sound very much like #4 cylinder, but what went wrong is not really documented. One of the seven, AutoxEx's, was a more catastrophic failure that might or might not be related to the other six.

Honda has blamed owner error such as low oil, improper break-in, after market mods, racing, but I doubt that any of these is the cause for any of the failures. The low oil issue might well be a "chicken and egg" problem where the defective cylinder caused low oil rather than low oil causing the cylinder to disintegrate. In any case, at least one, MINE, had none of the theoretical causes Honda has listed and AHM knows it.

Here's the summary so far.

(1) Jason Saini, 2,200 miles at failure
(2) Barry in Wyoming, 650 miles at failure. never low on oil.
(3) AutoxEx, 2,800 miles at failure
(4) a gal Jason knows 1200 miles at failure
(5) kizneda, 2,900 miles at failure
(6) Rowland in New Hampshire MY2000 #8250 6,600 miles at failure
(7) Elund, 2,000 miles at failure.

Rowland is the only MY2000. The rest are all MY2001.

Three are already documented to be #4 cylinder (1,2,4,)

Three more sound likely to be #4 (same "valve train like tapping sound requiring short block replacement) (5,6,7).

Only AutoxEx's engine had a more catastrophic failure sound. His might or might not have been #4 cylinder failure, but it certainly was a major engine failure.

The first six have already received new short blocks (without break-in oil.)

HONDA NEEDS OUR HELP.

This problem just doesn't seem like a basic design error because it didn't start to show up until December, 2000 more than 15 months into the world wide distribution. So far, all the cars we know about are U.S.A. cars, but that might be due to the fact that http://www.s2000online.com has mostly U.S.A. members.

If we can track this problem and identify production dates, mileage at problem development, frequency of problems, freedom of older engines from this problem, perhaps someone at AHM will discover what the cause is.

Seven IS A LOT from just one small board of perhaps 1,000 owners. I wonder how many owners are on the board with production dates during or after August, 2000?

I'm sure Honda is listening. I hope pretty soon they will be talking, telling us what went wrong and telling us how they will protect us from the problem.

What can you do to prevent it? Nothing, until we really know what the cause is. To be prudent, follow the owner's manual recommendations on break-in. Follow the owner's manual recommendation to check your oil level at every gasoline fill-up. Drive the car like it was designed to be driven.

This is a GREAT CAR and a GREAT engine. Once Honda has a cause for this cluster of failures, they should put the problem behind them. In the mean time, lets get them all the data we can.

kizneda

And check your oil regularly so that if a problem happens to your S2K, you can rule out low oil.

Rick Hesel

Barry,

You know how I feel about this. I don't like to jump to conclusions until we know the actual frquency of failure across the entire production run. 7 may be a lot, but compared to what? We first need to know what the normal, expected failure rate is with a high performance engine like this. 7 out of 1,000 is less than 1 percent. I don't know whether that failure rate is good or bad for any manufacturer.

As one who does much very disciplined research for a living, I need to see the comparative numbers before I would even consider drawing a conclusion from this very anecdotal evidence. But I also sympathize with your concern, and I hope your post helps us find a member who knows something about comparative engine failure rates for different manufacturers.

That having been said, I like your idea of helping Honda with this one, although I have to imagine they are watching it closely.

Does anybody out there know what the normal failure rates are for engines in production cars?

Barry in Wyoming

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rick Hesel
[B]Barry,

I don't like to jump to conclusions until we know the actual frquency of failure across the entire production run.

txst

Hey Guys.

As someone who is awaiting the arival of a silver/black S2000, I have been trying to follow what is going on with the #4 piston/cylinder failures. I am also a mechanical engineer who's background is automobile design, but who is now working for one of the largest airconditioning manufacturers (long story as to how I got to where I am in my career). Anyway, I have undergone what is known as "Six Sigma" training, which is used extensively in the manufacturing and design world - most notably at Toyota and Honda. Basically, Six Sima is a design and manufacturing philosophy in which every part or system that is produced falls within 6 standard deviations (+/- 3 standard deviations) of the population produced. If you crunch the numbers, that comes out to a defect rate of 3.4 parts per BILLION. A pretty incredible number. Looking at the small population of S2000 owners on this board, 7 failures in about 1000 cars seems very high.

Please keep everyone on this board posted as to what you find out from Honda.

jschmidt

I've noticed a trend with Honda warrenty stuff over the years. I've known several (non car lover) people who walked away from major warrenty work by Honda believing that they were the only one with the problem. I think it is an ongoing marketing strategy to make everyone with major failures think that they are the only one. They do this on purpose.

gregstevens

Barry et al who wish to inform Honda of this failure rate...whatever it may be...just DID! AHM is a loyal lurker of this board. How do I know this? Trust me, I know. They don't post, but they keep a VERY close eye on what is going on here...

And I also agree with Rick's well stated post. There definitely seems to be SOMETHING going on with #4, but at this point it is pretty anecdotal evidence and even that rate seems to be pretty miniscule. Then again, I am not a statistician...so who knows?!

But if you want to do do anything further to inform AHM of ANY problem, you don't need to...posting here has already accomplished that!

Hi there Mr/Mrs AHM Lurker, how are you doing this fine Sunday?!

Sondra S2K

When you consider that the failure numbers have been narrowed to MY2001 and only late MY2000, the ratio of enigne failures to total production numbers becomes much, much larger and as such, a much larger issue. I agree that Honda needs to step up to the plate and do some research to find out what went wrong here.

Rick Hesel

txst,

I assume that failure rate is for each part. When you consider the number of parts in an engine, the odds that any single part of the system will fail and cause a problem rise substantially.

dlq04

Barry,

With a MY2001 currently nesting in it's heated garage with 23 miles on it, I'm keeping all my fingers crossed and count the days till spring. I appreciate what your trying to do. I don't think any of us owners want to draw the wrong conclusions. Your effort to organize and centralize the data is working in the right direction.

Dave