Ok, I've waited until we had the exact cause of this before I posted anything because I knew it would turn into a speculation thread. Last thursday afternoon I took my car to a local dealer to have my oil changed. I always use the same place due to a friend of mine that works there that takes special care of my car, plus I bring my own oil and filter everytime. (Castrol GTX and Purolator PL14459)

The next morning I let my car idle a bit to get the heat going (it was quite cold that morning) and I headed to the office. I turned off my street onto a 4 lane highway and gave the ol' S a little stick through first and half of second. I was up to about 50 when I looked into the rear mirror and saw a tremendous cloud of white smoke trailing my car. I immediately put the car into neutral and pulled off at the first place I could. About 50 feet before the car came to a stop I switched the ignition off and noted just before I did that all the cars vitals were fine (no check engine light, no maintenance light, no oil light).

When the car came to a stop smoke immediately started coming up from underneath the front, sides and between the wind screen and hood. I released the hood and opened it expecting to see the dip stick popped out or something equally minor,(remembering back to my DSM days) but that wasn't the case. The entire upper section of the header manifold was burning and clearly covered in oil. I had nothing to put out a fire so I called emergency. They were on scene within minutes of my phone call and put out the fire with a hand held extinguisher leaving a total mess of my engine bay.

Towed the car to one of the area dealers and awaited the diagnosis. Turns out there was a defect in the Purolator oil filter and it failed (not noticeable in the pictures). The oil filter ejected all but about a quart of oil all over the highway. The fire was pretty much contained under the heats shields. Luckily the only damage to the car was the heat sheilds, it needed an oil change again, needed a thorough cleaning (as the pictures show) and had a bruised ego. In total $975 in damages. The car is still at Honda waiting for the parts to come in.


**I know this thread will probably be moved to "under the hood" but I wanted as many people as possible to see this. Be carefull what product you use, even the better ones have problems.

 

oh man, that sucks!

 

Damn that sucks, someone better be paying for all of it, including the tow.. I know I wouldn't pay a cent for that...

 

My insurance is covering all but the oil change and my deductible. I did talk to my attorney about it after I found out what the cause was. His advice was to not pursue it due to the cost of doing so. My deductible is only $250 and I used my personal car trailer to take the car so no cost there as well.

 

Sorry man...that sucks. At least it was contained pretty fast before any serious damages could happen. Just curious though, didn't you ever read the threads that the stock Honda OEM Filter being the best filter to use for our car? Might've saved you this headache. Good luck with all the repairs and change back to the OEM filter IMHO.

 

Sorry to hear that man. ToEnvy, do you ever come to the pooler area? I thought I saw an ap2 silverstone a few weeks ago when I was out for lunch.

 

Just FYI had you used a WIX or NAPA filter. And WIX determined the cause to be the filter, they would cut you a check for all the damages. Not many companies will do that, most will give you a new filter.

 

I would of done a class action law suit but thats just me..

 

I think you need more than one person to have a class action lawsuit....unless you know of plenty others.

 

This happens a lot when oil change places don't use / replace the crush washer and the filter backs out. I know you can keep reusing the washer and not have a problem... but sometimes this happens.

This also has happened when they don't notice the washer is still on and they double them up....