My S2K Experience... (awful :-()
10-22-2002, 03:00 PM
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My S2K Experience... (awful :-()
Hello guys,
I am an early buyer and was quite enthusiastic when I first got the car at the end of 1999 (I waited the spring of 2000 before putting her on the street). Here's the baby, number 1056
http://www.datarescue.com/life/car.html
The first 3000 miles were great, no hard driving of any kind, just a smooth burn-in. Then, one day, I had the bad idea of downshifting from 4th to 3rd and landed into 3 at around 6000 RPM. The gearbow growled and vibrated very noisily for a couple of miles and then kind of settled back. From time to time, it would growl or simply refuse to shift. At that time, there was quite a bit of talks about the gearbox on the net and I waited for the expected recall. Got a flat rear tire and carefully stopped to avoid damaging the differential. A bit of a pain, but ok... Honda swapped my gearbox, after a couple of days without the car, I got a nice and crisp new one.
Then one day, on a bump - not even a bad bump - the roof popped open. Apparently, the hooks were a bit loose. Popping on one side loosened the other side a bit and soon it was popping out spontaneously relatively often. I felt slightly uneasy, not that I was afraid to damage my rear plastic window (after all it had lost all transparency after 8000 miles or so) but because the wind was beginning to get in. It seems that there was no mean to tighten the hooks again. Honda eventually changed the hooks. I got my second flat tire. Hmmmmm - are cars supposed stick to every piece of metal they hit on the road?
The roof noise had a big advantage. It masked the clutch noise. Only when the vibrations became strong enough to prevent downshifting did that become a significant problem. Honda did change the clutch and that made a world of difference. The mechanic told me that the screws on the old one were loose and that the new one was redesigned. It almost does feel like a normal car now. Should I mention that I lost another tire?
Another surprise was the distinct rear toc-toc sound when starting, parking or turning. Almost like a clock. That one was hard to diagnose - shocks? Differential? Loose brakes? Two cardans were eventually replaced and the noise is _almost_ gone now.
Surprise, I switched to Potenza S-03 and am still waiting for my next flat tire... One morning, I found that one of my headlights was completely fogged. Add that to the tally... I wonder how much these things cost?
And the engine, what about the engine? Well, it worked fine until about 25.000 miles. I never raced the car, not even street race, and had hit the limiter only once, in third on the highway because I couldn't hear the engine because of the wind / clutch noise. The baby had always been fed with Mobil 1, every 3000 miles (!). That's why it was quite a surprise when it hiccupped. I attributed that to the fact that I had just changed gasoline brand and returned to my usual exxon/esso. Then, on a couple of occasions, it simply refused to accelerate - drive at 65mph on the highway, in fifth or sixth, push on the gas, no reaction. Floor the pedal, hiccups, no reaction - a surreal experience. The computer was changed and so was a coil. There was a service bulletin about loose sparks, sure enough, I had one (I am still wondering how I didn't have more given the constant vibrations I had experienced). All these changes improved the situation somewhat, but I had also noticed my inability to keep up with a BMW 320i (yes, a 320, not a 330) on the highway. A new factory recall to check, apparently, the oil injectors led to a close inspection of the engine and its oil: pieces of metal, looking a bit like copper, some of them the size of matches, most of them the size of grain of rices, were conspicuously "floating" around. Honda is, as I write this, swapping my engine.
I am not even sure I don't forget something. Without any doubts, the S2000 is by far the worst car that I have ever owned - take that from someone who drove an early X 1/9.
This being said, and to be honest, I have no complaints about the dealership and at no time did I ever have the impression that Honda was trying to escape its responsabilities. At 35000 miles, I will basically end up with a car that has a new clutch, a new engine, a revised gearbox, a couple of fresh cardans and new hooks for my roof. Not too bad if the root causes are fixed. If....
Still I regret buying the car and even the outstanding road handling driving experience it provides isn't enough to compensate for all the trouble.
Thanks for reading. My intention isn't to troll. I don't wish what happened to me to my worst enemy... but I had to vent my frustration.
I am an early buyer and was quite enthusiastic when I first got the car at the end of 1999 (I waited the spring of 2000 before putting her on the street). Here's the baby, number 1056
http://www.datarescue.com/life/car.html
The first 3000 miles were great, no hard driving of any kind, just a smooth burn-in. Then, one day, I had the bad idea of downshifting from 4th to 3rd and landed into 3 at around 6000 RPM. The gearbow growled and vibrated very noisily for a couple of miles and then kind of settled back. From time to time, it would growl or simply refuse to shift. At that time, there was quite a bit of talks about the gearbox on the net and I waited for the expected recall. Got a flat rear tire and carefully stopped to avoid damaging the differential. A bit of a pain, but ok... Honda swapped my gearbox, after a couple of days without the car, I got a nice and crisp new one.
Then one day, on a bump - not even a bad bump - the roof popped open. Apparently, the hooks were a bit loose. Popping on one side loosened the other side a bit and soon it was popping out spontaneously relatively often. I felt slightly uneasy, not that I was afraid to damage my rear plastic window (after all it had lost all transparency after 8000 miles or so) but because the wind was beginning to get in. It seems that there was no mean to tighten the hooks again. Honda eventually changed the hooks. I got my second flat tire. Hmmmmm - are cars supposed stick to every piece of metal they hit on the road?
The roof noise had a big advantage. It masked the clutch noise. Only when the vibrations became strong enough to prevent downshifting did that become a significant problem. Honda did change the clutch and that made a world of difference. The mechanic told me that the screws on the old one were loose and that the new one was redesigned. It almost does feel like a normal car now. Should I mention that I lost another tire?
Another surprise was the distinct rear toc-toc sound when starting, parking or turning. Almost like a clock. That one was hard to diagnose - shocks? Differential? Loose brakes? Two cardans were eventually replaced and the noise is _almost_ gone now.
Surprise, I switched to Potenza S-03 and am still waiting for my next flat tire... One morning, I found that one of my headlights was completely fogged. Add that to the tally... I wonder how much these things cost?
And the engine, what about the engine? Well, it worked fine until about 25.000 miles. I never raced the car, not even street race, and had hit the limiter only once, in third on the highway because I couldn't hear the engine because of the wind / clutch noise. The baby had always been fed with Mobil 1, every 3000 miles (!). That's why it was quite a surprise when it hiccupped. I attributed that to the fact that I had just changed gasoline brand and returned to my usual exxon/esso. Then, on a couple of occasions, it simply refused to accelerate - drive at 65mph on the highway, in fifth or sixth, push on the gas, no reaction. Floor the pedal, hiccups, no reaction - a surreal experience. The computer was changed and so was a coil. There was a service bulletin about loose sparks, sure enough, I had one (I am still wondering how I didn't have more given the constant vibrations I had experienced). All these changes improved the situation somewhat, but I had also noticed my inability to keep up with a BMW 320i (yes, a 320, not a 330) on the highway. A new factory recall to check, apparently, the oil injectors led to a close inspection of the engine and its oil: pieces of metal, looking a bit like copper, some of them the size of matches, most of them the size of grain of rices, were conspicuously "floating" around. Honda is, as I write this, swapping my engine.
I am not even sure I don't forget something. Without any doubts, the S2000 is by far the worst car that I have ever owned - take that from someone who drove an early X 1/9.
This being said, and to be honest, I have no complaints about the dealership and at no time did I ever have the impression that Honda was trying to escape its responsabilities. At 35000 miles, I will basically end up with a car that has a new clutch, a new engine, a revised gearbox, a couple of fresh cardans and new hooks for my roof. Not too bad if the root causes are fixed. If....
Still I regret buying the car and even the outstanding road handling driving experience it provides isn't enough to compensate for all the trouble.
Thanks for reading. My intention isn't to troll. I don't wish what happened to me to my worst enemy... but I had to vent my frustration.
10-22-2002, 03:11 PM
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I'm sorry to hear that, and I understand your frustration. I'm a Honda nut for the simple reason that all the Hondas that I have owed including my S2K have given me years of trouble free driving, even under hard driving and racing. However I would be terribly discouraged if I were in your shoes too. I hope everything works out for you in the end, and maybe after some time with your newly revised S2k, you'll grow to have the lost nostalgia for the car that you once had. 
Good luck!
Good luck!
10-22-2002, 05:15 PM
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People tend top come to the board to either ask or vent about their S2000 issues, and that is a good thing. I am sorry to hear that everything that can go wrong seemed to do so on your car. being an early unit probably did not help, but despite your frustration and regret, you seem very calm in your narrative. I am glad that Honda has tried to take care of everything in your case and hope that no one else experiences even half of the issues you've run across.
I suppose the only thing worse than this would be to ...uhh...never mind, I won't make things worse. Good luck.
I suppose the only thing worse than this would be to ...uhh...never mind, I won't make things worse. Good luck.
10-22-2002, 05:22 PM
#6
PierreV
I also had an early Fiat X 1/9. It is hard to imagine any car being as bad as that one. Your S must have been near the limit for you to mention it in the same paragraph as the X 1/9.
I do feel for you. At least Honda and the dealership stood behind you as they should. I hope your problems are now behind you and you can work on changing your opinion of the S.
I also had an early Fiat X 1/9. It is hard to imagine any car being as bad as that one. Your S must have been near the limit for you to mention it in the same paragraph as the X 1/9.
I do feel for you. At least Honda and the dealership stood behind you as they should. I hope your problems are now behind you and you can work on changing your opinion of the S.
10-23-2002, 08:52 AM
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Thanks guy for your moral support!
Yu, i followed and participated a bit in the early boards, but progressively lost interest, not in the board themselves. but in the car - the braads are indeed a great source of information and the S2K community is remarkable in the sense that there is much less bickering and fighting than on some other boards (read on for a hint ;-)). I've now gone through a lot of messages here, to catch up, and I think I almost hit everything that could go wrong. That's a partial relief. Almost everything...
Even if I sound calm, I am deeply frustrated. When I bought that car, I enjoyed a relatively wide freedom of choice and picked the S2K because of the rave reviews it was getting and mostly because of Honda's reliability reputation. What frustrates me is the time I lost on that thing and the fact that I decided against buying a Lotus Esprit (my dream car) on reliability concerns... Oh well. I am pulling a Z28 out of storage and will be using that this winter. I'll give the S a second chance in spring...
Ah, the X 1/9 - glad to see I wasn't and still am not alone! I had a small problem each day with it. I can't remember completing a 100 miles trip without at least having to restart the car once. The good points were that nothing major ever broke and that no one lost time trying to fix things as they were deemed unfixable from the start ;-)
Yu, i followed and participated a bit in the early boards, but progressively lost interest, not in the board themselves. but in the car - the braads are indeed a great source of information and the S2K community is remarkable in the sense that there is much less bickering and fighting than on some other boards (read on for a hint ;-)). I've now gone through a lot of messages here, to catch up, and I think I almost hit everything that could go wrong. That's a partial relief. Almost everything...
Even if I sound calm, I am deeply frustrated. When I bought that car, I enjoyed a relatively wide freedom of choice and picked the S2K because of the rave reviews it was getting and mostly because of Honda's reliability reputation. What frustrates me is the time I lost on that thing and the fact that I decided against buying a Lotus Esprit (my dream car) on reliability concerns... Oh well. I am pulling a Z28 out of storage and will be using that this winter. I'll give the S a second chance in spring...
Ah, the X 1/9 - glad to see I wasn't and still am not alone! I had a small problem each day with it. I can't remember completing a 100 miles trip without at least having to restart the car once. The good points were that nothing major ever broke and that no one lost time trying to fix things as they were deemed unfixable from the start ;-)
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10-23-2002, 10:40 AM
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I think this posts proves that no car maker on Earth is immune to putting out a bad build. Clearly the issues you are experiencing put you in a very small class of people who got very unlucky. I doubt that makes you feel better, however, unless you truly are the most unlucky person on the planet, a trade to another S2K should yield the car most others are driving. Of course no one would blame you if you decided to purchase something else.
Best of luck.
Best of luck.
10-23-2002, 11:54 AM
#9
Your situation is most regrettable and you have demonstrated incredible maturity in your post. You might have one of those few "lemons". I'm glad that Honda is doing right by you. If it were me, once the car is fixed, I would sell it as I would always be wondering what will go wrong next.
Good luck with your next acquisition.
This just goes to show that not all threads will blow sunshine up our butts about our car. Nothing wrong with that, it's just life.
Good luck with your next acquisition.
This just goes to show that not all threads will blow sunshine up our butts about our car. Nothing wrong with that, it's just life.
10-23-2002, 01:56 PM
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Best of luck to you in the future, sorry about all your troubles
Are you just a bad luck person with cars, or is this the only one to give you all these troubles.
Are you just a bad luck person with cars, or is this the only one to give you all these troubles.