in your link, under "OEM compatibility", it compares with 3 other greases, one of which is GM wheel bearing grease.

 

There is NO proof that OEM grease is causing this. I even asked honda master tech and he said this is non sense.

If you have a proof that the grease is what causing this them share it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t continue with stereotype.

 

The OEM grease isn't CAUSING this. The argument is that the OEM grease does not offer the protection to PREVENT this. Obviously, that's a pretty solid theory.

The unknown is whether Redline does a better job of preventing that type of wear.

 

...and lets please not get into a semantics argument here. Of course no grease can prevent all wear. That's not the discussion at hand. Parts eventually wear out. We get that.

The question really is which lubricant provides the best protection against the typical pitting wear pattern seen with these parts.

As an aside, the wear patterns on parts that still last a very reasonable service life on a vehicle that has been out of production for over a decade is not going to be on the top of the list of issues that a Honda Master Tech would be focused on. So its not surprising he isn't informed on this.

 

There is no argument to be made. I am just trying to say changing OEM grease to any grease is not the solution to this problem.

 

It's not any grease, it's Redline CV-2 grease. That's kind of the whole point of this thread. Honda isn't perfect and neither are all their parts and lubes. In the history of this forum only one person has come back and said that after switching to Redline the problem reoccurred. Although as stated earlier it's not possible to conduct an accurate test, there's enough anecdotal, historical and other information provided from long time S2k owners that a benefit can be seen by switching to Redline when they swap their cups. Maybe it's a placebo and every single person who's done this has been fooled, maybe not, statistically I'm going with it has helped since there has been a long history of positive results and not the other way around.

That's cool if you don't believe it, let us know how your pitting turns out after swapping the cups and then reusing the OEM grease.

Also most mechanics, including Honda techs know very little about these cars and unless they specifically work on them every day, I take what they say with a grain of salt. Which is why you will universally hear everyone here say not to take this to a Honda dealer.

 

We do not have even fraction of the data needed to conclude redline protects better than any other. We have enthusiasts, on a forum, many of which beat the living shit out of our cars, with anecdotal evidence with no control data. And I for one had one pit many times SOONER after swtiching to redline. But like I said, I also put mine through a lot of severe use, immediately after said stress is when the pitting occurred so I cant say the Redline was better or worse. They make good products, that we pretty much know, and thus it should be a good grease. But we really do not have any evidence that says it is doing a better/worse job. How much moisture got into these joints? How many people race/hard launch theirs? Maybe I missed the long history, lots of evidence, etc part of this, but from what I have seen it is a handful of people on a few threads on a forum with a lot of unknowns about their usage of the car and anything that could have happened to it. Hardly a convincing amount of "data". I have met a number of people that just baby their S2k around and never track it, drive it hard, etc that have never heard of the CV cups failing. So quite a mix of experiences from what I have gathered, which makes it impossible to know what is really helping and what is not.

Not saying I WONT use Redline. My experience could be the result of just harsh use (And it is crazy to think that is NOT part of it given the circumstances). I have more of it and will use it. My only point is I do not see enough evidence to properly say Redline is protecting better. I think the issue here is in the materials/design of the CV joint itself and we are mostly seeing various failures under different uses.

 

this "argument" (not sure why it's devolved into an argument anyway), can go in circles for as long as we'd like.

we're not scientists here, we're enthusiasts. so the best we can do is offer our observations in order to help other enthusiasts.

i don't think the point was to win an argument, or sell more redline grease. i, for one, used mobil 1 grease after the redline because it was readily available, whereas redline was not on that day.

i have no objective here other than to help others.

visually, the oem grease was watery, and there was pitting damage. flipped the cups, used redline, used the same boot and re-used the clamps, went another 100K, and observed thick pink redline grease come out with NO pitting whatsoever, only an indentation.

if this helps others achieve the same additional protection, then it was worth it. i could care less what the science would prove otherwise. i wouldn't even care if my hypothesis is wrong. but i will continue to offer this advise based on what i observed.

there was a link above to redline site that gives numerical figures based on ASTM testing to quantify the attributes of redline grease. so unless the theory is that oem honda grease can hit these same numbers, i'm going to assume redline offers better protection.

 

Well in a sense, I am a scientist by trade/education lol. So I do try to make decisions with that mindset. And the lack of data showing Honda grease is as good as redline is not even a piece of data, it is just more assumption. The lack of having their data does not mean it is worse. A grease looking more runny also does not mean it is not protecting either. In some cases that is what you want, so the grease moves within the joint vs getting packed away from the area it is protecting. We do not know the design limits and what was needed for this particular joint, so we cannot say for sure which would be better based upon that.

And no, this was not meant to be an argument. I am pointing out that I do not see even a fraction of what one would consider "proof" of which grease works better. You state you had pitting with OEM, then did not with Redline. Mine ran 100,000 miles on OEM grease as far as I know with lots of hard autox launches, I switched to Redline and had pitting the next season. So anecdotal (aka not pointing to any sort of conclusion) at best on both of our accounts.

So while I think redline grease is fine and am happy using it, there simply is not enough data (And with the mileage on these cars there never will be) to say which was "better" with certainty so I am not going to tell people they should switch to redline or not to. I honestly think the many variables involved in usage, part variation, etc prevents us from drawing any real conclusion.

And to re-iterate, debating something like this should be welcomed and not considered an "argument" so to speak. The point is to get everyones input so others reading this can draw their own conclusions from it. I take no offense to you thinking redline is better at preventing this or someone thinking some other brand is better. But people reading should understand that we (enthusiasts) are a tiny fraction of car owners and many of us abuse our cars through hard use (track, autocross, etc) and so the tiny number of incidents we see on here dont add up to a reliable statistic of anything really.

 

Tangentially to the direction of this thread, where does one procure 2-piece CV joint spacers for the S2000 and do they come in different thicknesses?