KeithD

Am I the only person in the world who was taught to follow the gear pattern down when downshifting. Kinda prevents overrevs.

andrewewing

Ahha! Now we know what the cause was but one thing confuses me. If the engine is seriously overreved due to an inadvertent downshift it's always (in my experience) the valve train that is damaged, bent valves, broken valves, etc. THis may lead to piston and cylinder damage and eventually rod damage but it all starts with the valvetrain. If a car "throws a rod" it's usually because of a defect such as metal failure, or lack of lubrication and of course if it's metal failure then it should be under warranty.

Anyway, it's pretty easy to inspect the damage and see if it's an overrev situation (valve damage) or not. If it's an overrev situation then I agree that it's the owner's responsibility.

CrazyRay S2K

Last place you want to post that is on here, Honda moniters this board

dennislanglais

How could such a common problem be the owner

JohnnyCat

Dennis, consult a lawyer man. It can't hurt. Though it sounds like you mis-shifted, there may be a way to get around this (my thinking is that the rev limiter should have stopped MAJOR damage, but I'm a layman).

I believe there are a few auto claim specialist lawyers in the San Diego yellow pages.

Take a day off from work and talk to these guys!

andrewewing

You say Honda "knows of this problem". What problem? Is it a problem that it's possible to downshift directly from 5th to 2nd? If so, that's a "problem" on my Miata and any other stick shift car. Granted the shift gates are close together on the S2000 but that's what you would want in this type of car and adds to the driving fun.

When I worked for a dealership in 1968 I was riding with a customer on a test drive in a Corvette and he missed a shift and blew the engine. There's nothing new about blown engines due to missed shifts. Happens all the time in lots of cars. You can't make cars completely idiot proof (i'm not calling you an idiot). Drivers spin out and wreck the car, it's drivers fault, not car's. Driver's miss shift, it's driver's fault. I feel your pain and sympathize but I's sorry, that's the way I see it.

andrewewing

JohnnyCat there's NO way rev limiter can help. Rev limiter is an ignition cutout that prevents the engine from driving ITSELF above a certain RPM. When you downshift, the CAR is driving the engine, not the other way around and the engine is FORCED to match the engine speed to the CAR speed for that particular gear.

Ludedude

[QUOTE]Originally posted by dennislanglais
[B]How could such a common problem be the owner

Scott M

I recently read about the same thing in my BMW roundel mag. An M coupe driver shifted from 5th to 2nd, blew up, and was asking if this was a defect in tranny design as his ford Mustang would not go from 5th to 2nd. The answer was from one of there more knowledgable techies:

The reason the tranny will go from 5th to second is the incredible precision by which the trannies are manufactured. From the double cone syncros to the gear cuts of the BMW vs the Mustang tranny which is mass produced with much looser tolerances and very little percision.

The article mentioned percision and production practices for the BMW numerous times where as mass production and low tolerances were mentioned for other cars.

To sum it up our trannys are much more technology refined than many on the market therefore making it eaiser to make the mistake of misshifting.

hope that sums it up

dennislanglais

Thanks Jonny Cat! I will look further into this. I have been driving the car like this and never knew it was such a big problem. yes the car has just a miss fire so you would not expect it to be this big of a deal.