I completely agree with SECRET AP1. I would be one pissed off owner if it were me. I can't believe they are giving you the run around even though it is a WELL documented problem that Honda already know's about. I say grab your balls and tell Honda to cover the repair costs and to shove that $8000 bill straight up the A@#!. Screw all this buying a used engine and putting it in your self(no offense cthree, I know your just trying to help). I'm all for starting a petition!!! Let me know if there is any thing I can do for you.

 

WERD!!!

 

Make sure they don't switch the plugs in your car. You may need to prove the old ones were the cause.

 

someone should call the dealer or Honda on his behalf and negotiate for him.

 

I think you need to at least pursue this to the point where your DSM from American Honda flat out denies Honda's responsibility before you even consider footing the bill yourself.

Even though the factory warranty has run out, I think you may have a decent chance of getting AHM to do a goodwill fix or something along those lines, maybe splitting the cost with you or something. That's assuming there is no real evidence of abuse. From your description, it sounds like they are saying it happened from cruising at high RPM, not from a missed shift as they first expected. Is that right?

 

while we're at it, no more s2000r threads.

 

If you think about it, isn't this just one more spark plug thread???

 

Try to deal directly with Honda and ask that a DSM come out to inspect your car. I think that you don't have too much ground to stand on since (1) your car was purchased "used" and you may not cruise in high RPM's or over-revved your engine, but you don't know if the previous owner mistreated it and (2) your used car is out of factory warranty. I know it sucks to be held responsible for what could be the prior owner's negilance, but its the risk involved when buying an used car. Its worth a shot, the worse that could happen is that Honda saids No and you'll be at the same point you are now. Consider calling the CarMax dealer. Again, they will most likely say No, but worth a shot nevertheless.

I think this case should be viewed as a lesson to everyone looking to buy an used S2000. Try to buy new if possible. Its a few grand more and could save you thousands in repair costs and many headaches in the future. If you can't, then have it throughly inspected by a trained tech, run it through CarFax (and continue to run it 6 months after taking delivery, stuff doesn't always show right away), look up maintenance records at a Honda dealer (a good indication how well the car was kept) and buy the extended warranty!

 

I'm going to the dealer tomorrow to inspect and document the damage myself. I will also be asking them to show and explain to me in detail the cruising at high rpms damage, I'm very curious to understand how they determine this.

To all those explaining the dangers of used cars and the importance of extended warranties, you are absolutely right. At the time it seemed like a calculated risk that was worth taking... I had a friend that drove an older civic for four years without ever changing the oil. He just added more when it got low. I figured that the s2k was Honda's flagship, it was designed to be raced, what could the previous owner possibly have done to it, that would hurt it (other than the mis-shifting of course)? Obviously I didn't have all the facts because I had no idea that anything like this could happen. I was thinking I may end up paying a grand or two out of pocket, but this is ridiculous. Even now, I can't believe that an engine that was running perfectly, could have such underlying problems waiting to emerge (as i have been told, this remains to be seen). It seems to me like this was a one-time catastrophic event, not a slow mechanical decay. There was definitely no perceivable warning.

In my defense, I did have it inspected at a honda dealer before I bought it, they gave it a clean bill of health. I also asked them to pull all the service records, but they told me that they would only have records if it had been taken to that specific dealer, they said individual dealers were not connected to any type of nationwide network.

Yeah, first they mentioned something about over-revving, the final assessment was extended driving in the high rpm range, the damage occurring slowly over a long period of time.

 

Yeah, the bit about "cruising at high RPM" leading to a spark plug shattering is just about rediculous. Spark plugs don't do that.

Nothing happened at all when the car died? A loud noise? A shudder? Anything? Are you saying you were just driving down the interstate as usual, and the engine just died?

- Warren