Was under the impression that the plugs had to come out as part of valve adjustment. Have been corrected. No one has touched the plugs to my knowledge.

I've seen reports of plugs loosening themselves with other Hondas. The service manager also mentioned that, but that they hadn't seen it happen with s2000's very much.

This whole things just left a bad taste. My 3rd Honda and was expecting much more life from it. If $2400 + the ~1000 I spent on other mechanics/tow is a reasonable cost and they didn't do anything improper with the valve adjustment then I guess it is what it is, as they say. I mean, I guess I'm getting a new engine on the cheap, but this really seems like something that shouldn't happen.

 

Loose plugs from the factory has been haunting Honda since about 2003 from what I've seen.
I work primarily on Hondas and Toyotas in an independent shop, I don't see many S2000s though.

Hondas I've found with dangerously loose and blown out plugs:

Fit, 1.5, can be any plug. They seem to loosen around 80k to 90k, the coils are weak on the early ones, so the intermittent misfires caused by the heating of the coil from the loose plug(s) is the first clue.

Accord J30A4/5, mostly cylinder 2 and 5.

Pilot 3.5 2003-2008, cylinder 2, many back out and freeze solid. Had a 2006 with number 5 blown out, trashed head and piston, Honda goodwilled the shortblock and head at 95k.

Various models with VCM V6, besides the ring rotation, oil consumption and plug fouling issue, cylinders 1-4 can loosen.

I have yet to see a K engine with loose plugs.

Makes me wonder who isn't properly torquing them from the get go at the factory or is there an automated machine to do it?

 

What he said...take 75% and run!

 

The hard part of having sympathy for car troubles with Hondas is that you can go on the forums for whatever car you own and just about find every problem you will have in a sticky or with light searching. Within two weeks of owning my S2k, I had my work cut out for me on stuff to check.

Now...

Go buy a GM. At any given time, any given thing could fail. You can check everything you want to check but it just isn't possible to predict what is going to fail.

With our cars, at least you can head off 90% of problems with some basic maintenance and reading; Billman has a thread for 80% of the problems you will encounter.

 

Spoke with the next level up guy at the dealer and I feel pretty confident that I've got what I can out of this. I'm not entirely sure they did anything wrong, esp now that I've got independent confirmation of what the valve adjustment entails.

Going to take the new engine and run.

 

Oh and thanks everyone for the info, extremely helpful. Hopefully I'll be back in the drivers seat by the middle of next week.

 

Some people pull the plugs during valve adjustments as it is easier to turn the engine without compression. good luck with things however they end up.