Rears - about 12K
Fronts - about 25K (that was before neg camber)
All highway miles (in case you were wondering)

 

First replacement on my OEM SO2's was at 20K. It is a daily driver. Second set still good at 33K (only 13K on the second set). I am fairly attentive to allignment and tire pressure.

 

My 02 will be getting a fresh set of rear SO 2's in April. I currenly have appx 9600 miles and though they are not as worn as Presidete's, I don't know if they'll pass inspection. Also the new rears will give me peace of mind. The fronts look like they should make 20k. Good Luck.

 

I didn't answer the poll because it is usually different for the fronts and the rears. My rear tires lasted 17k miles after which the tread was at an "illegal" thickness. Likely this means it should have been changed a few K sooner. My car now has 36k miles on it and I still have the replaced 17k rears and the original fronts. Likely both need to be changed, but I haven't had any problems either.

 

If their only evidence is the tires and the exhaust they have no case. You can find multitudes of threads on this site to document that even with all sorts of diverse driving styles the rears only last 10-15k and the fronts 15-20k. If they jerk you around do what I did - pay them and then sue them in small claims court. Their stance is ridiculous, especially considering they just fixed the tranny 1.5 months ago. In fact, don't the previous repairs come with a warranty of their own? Shouldn't they be bound to fix this because they fixed it the first time? Oh, and do a search on tranny problems. They're becoming more common on cars with some miles on them. I have serious concerns about the normal lifespan of the tranny, especially on the earlier cars.

 

I had 9K on my rears when one of them picked up a nail. They still had ample tread left, and was about 0.5mm from what apears to be a wear bar along the outside edge of the tire. I replaced both of them. It's now 3-4K miles later, and the replacements look like new. The fronts are getting to look like my rears did at 9K. I'm betting I gotta do all 4 of them at the next tire change.

No clutch drops, and occasional drives in the canyons.

 

Good news and bad news.

Good news:

Honda agreed to repair the transmition. But they only agreed to pay for the parts. The parts alone are over $1000.

Bad news:

I have to pay a little over $600 for labor. This is better than me forking out all of it. BUt I'm not done. I'll pay right now, but I'm still fighting it for a refund.

The service guy said he was totally on my side. He asked them for their reasoning of how it is driver abuse. He told me they said it wasn't the tires, it wasn't the exhaust, and it wasn't the lowering either. They said that the photos of the innards of the transmition show driver abuse.

The transmition has two shafts inside it. On one shaft, you have 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th gears. On the other shaft, you have 1st and reverse. They replaced 2nd, 3rd, and 4th and all involved synchros last month. This time, the other shaft is what failed. First gear failed first, and this in turn caused reverse to fail. He said something about the collars are all chewed up and first gear is completely chewed up where it engages. He also agreed that there almost no way that I could have abused the car so much that it caused these gears to fail within 2000 miles. There's just no way at the stock horsepower levels.


Here is my theory. The new 2004 has a stiffened transmition case.
WHY?
Could it be that the case flexes causing the internal gears to not line up right? And then over time, this will cause the gears to fail? That's my best guess. Why did my 1st gear jerk violently out of gear only when I let off the clutch and the engine and transmition was put under a torque load?

If it was driver abuse, then why pay for the parts at all?

Thanks Honda. Guess what, Audi and BMW are getting my money in the future. You have just lost a 10 year loyal customer. Congratulations.

 

When companies offer to split the difference it's to minimize the risk of a lawsuit but it suggests that they know they're on shaky ground. Take what they offer and then sue them for the rest. You've got an exceptional case. Remember this is a simple contract case. The burden of proof is on them to show that you abused the car. The fact that they fixed it a month prior means that they acknowledge that you had not abused the car as of the time of the first repair. Therefore, they're saying you abused it within a month. You'd have to REALLY abuse the car for parts in the tranny to go that quickly and the evidence of that abuse should be obvious. Good luck but I'd be really surprised if you didn't prevail.

 

Oh! I almost forgot! The most infuriating thing that he told me.

After he said that their reasoning for not paying in full was not for the tires, the lowering, or the exhaust. I then asked him, "Then what is their reasoning?"

Are you ready?

He said their reasoning for deciding that it had to be driver abuse was the model of the car.

He told me point blank that if it were an Oddesey, or an Accord, they would have paid for all of it. But since it is a sports car, it must be driver abuse. Of course he said that was a load of crap, but it's out of his hands since it's Honda Care and not Honda.

 

Big Ben,

Wow, that sucks! I'm getting the feeling that I'm going to get a similar response when I take my broken tranny in. Every dealer I've spoken to has given me subtle indications that these kinds of warranty claims are often turned down. They have all mentioned up front, before looking at the car at all, that warranty claims are denied if the car has been abused. To me, it really feels like they're trying to set my expectations low right off the bat. I take my car in in just a few days, so I'll let you know that they say...

I have some serious doubts about the long term reliability and durability of the S2000 tranny as well. I don't blame you for saying screw Honda; I think I'm going to get rid of my car after my tranny is fixed. I'm going to hate to see it go, but I don't have the time or will to deal with an iffy tranmission and unsubstantiated claims of abuse. I'm somewhat curious as to what kind of tranny issues we'll see arise as more cars rack up the mileage. For now, it's too early so say, since there are only a handful of S2000's with higher mileage, but it would be very alarming if we continue to see more tranny failures. I hope this isn't a repeat of the NSX's 1991/1992 snap ring issues.

Hope you get it sorted out. Please keep us posted on the matter, since others like myself are in similar situations and have an interest in how this turns out.