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Comments and Feedback all welcome please!

Honda S2000 - 2008 Model - 52k miles - I bought the car from new in April 2009

F20C2 1080715: Bearing broke and caused engine to fail.

Bearing broke whilst driving along, I took the car back to the Honda Dealership and this is what they said.

Honda Dealership Report:

"Suspect engine trouble maybe bottom end/bearings/shells. Contacted Honda as no known issues with the product, they suggested the
removal of the sump for inspection. Removed oil sump and located debris in the pan and on the lift pump, suspect the debris
is a broken bearing. Submitted images and end float measurements (0.32mm) to Honda UK, and their diagnosis as we suspected is failure through oil starvation not a manufacturing defect."

I have never starved the engine of oil. I have always used the recommended type as stated in the owners manual. I have checked and topped up the oil regularly.

Dealership have refused to acknowledge any responsibility for the problem and have quoted in the region of £6,000 for repair.

Images of the Broken bearing

http://www.flickr.com/photos/98040095@N05/9144175347/http://www.flickr.com/photos/98040095@N05/9144175167/

 

Did the engine lock up? It just turned off while driving?
Similar thing happened to my buddy's 2008 s2k with 48,000 miles.

 

Is the car currently under warranty ? Do you have oil change or oil purchase receipts ? Try to get in contact with whoever is in charge of the dealerships in your region. Here it would be Honda north America.

Similar thing happened to my friends turbo on his new Subaru Wrx with 30k miles. They told him no it was starvation issues (his fault) so he provided oil receipts for correct time interval and parts & labor was covered under warranty

 

I vaguely recall similar problems wih UK models. Check or ask in the UK section.

 

Engine didn't lock up, it continued to keep going with the knocking sound.

 

The Honda dealership car warranty is 3 years or 90,000 miles which ever comes first. The car is 4 years & 2 months old from beginning of use so no warranty. It was registered in August 2008 but not used until April 2009 when I bought it new with only 12 miles on the clock.

I have a dealership service book that has stamps showing oil changes. Thanks for the advise, I will find receipts and who is in charge of the dealerships.

Thanks

 

As s2000maniac, I am going through the same thing you are. My car is a 2008 and I bought mine brand new. This happen when the car just hit 44,555 miles. I was driving along taking the same right turn I had taken a thousand times and all of sudden no power.

I took the car to where I normally have my car serviced and they were quite perplex on what was the issue. After calling Honda, they found out my car falls under the 5 year or 60,000 powertrain warranty. So I had the dealership take a look at. The were confused as well. They informed that it would cost $750 to have the motor taken out and torn down to find the issue only if it was a mechanical issue. So I agreed. After only taking off the valve cover and removing the oil pan, the dealership accused me of committing fraud because of they said the oil was too new for something like this to happen and I must have been running the engine without any oil for quite some time. And they stated that since I cause the oil starvation issue, that the motor was not covered under warranty.

I complained to Honda corporate. I told them I have my service records and receipts form where I have my car serviced. But they did not want any of that info. What they did do is send a specialist to look at my engine.

The specialist from the Honda factory take a look at what happened. And he said that the exhaust cam was starving for oil and that is what cause the engine to seize. But it is not covered under warranty.

Well long story short, after taking the motor to a machine specialist, it was determined that the thrust washer disintegrated, thus destroying the thrust bearing. Which in turn caused the connecting rods to bend and score the cylinder sleeves and crack the block. You can see some of the damage in the tear down:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.534350113262736.117088.182761758421575&type=1
If the dealership would have actually done what they said they were going to do, then they would have seen that.

The part that the Honda specialist claimed to be cause of the issue, the cams. I had those re polished and they work find in the engine rebuild.

I am currently in the process of taking the dealership and Honda corporate through the litigation process over this. Everyone I talked to on the forums said that they never hear of this oil starvation issue. So I thought I was the only one that had this problem. But after reading your post, it sound like that there is a bigger issue going on.

 

oil starvation is a major issue with many f20c's, and to some extent F22's as well. Oil starvation will kill these engines in due time, sometimes it takes a while for the symptoms to show up as failed bearings. The million dollar question with each engine is how the oil starvation occurs - running low on oil, deteriorated oil pumps, blockages in the oiling system from other failed parts , etc....

 

This post looks a lot like this one:
https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/102...found-in-sump/

 

That looks like several different bearings if I am not mistaken. I can see if it was one bearing that failed due to a manufacture defect, but if it is multiple bearings I would lean more toward oil starvation. Unless you drove it banging away for a while.