I got this car about 2 months ago. Its a beautiful black, stock 2005 with approx 32k, and since that day i have had nothing but problems with it. Coming from cars like WRX STI and a Lotus Elise, and an Audi TT I was assuming that the S2000 would be the most reliable. Approx 2k miles into ownership, the rear driver's side strut has a horrible clunk. A couple weeks later I had my tire slashed. Now, about 2 months into owning it, I did an oil change, new filter, everything is going along smoothly until I start tightening the oil drain plug. Using a torque wrench set to 40ft pounds, what I thought was the torque wrench indicating that it had reached the set spec, instead the sound turned out to be the oil pan cracking along the drain plug. A new oil pan: $263, and around $300 in labor to install, and no local repair shops will have any until this wednesday. This all fits perfectly with the recession, since I finally have a good job, and have little or no way to get to work to keep it. Has anyone else experienced issues like this over and over again in such a short period of time? From what I heard regarding customer satisfaction, the s2000 is one of the highest rated sports cars, though this hasn't been my experience so far. Am I just having a bad run that will shortly end or is this not uncommon?

 

Lemon = problems with car due to manufacturer defect. All of your problems except for the shock isn't the car's fault.

 

40ft pounds should not crack any pan. Sure, all cars have problems, but coming from an STi with w/hp that never instigated any trouble, and a Lotus Elise which essentially is a hand build kit-car, none of which had any issues in the four years that I was fortunate enough to have either of them. You can't tell me that it isn't a faulty part, cracking at not even 40ft pounds on a rather new vehicle.

 

40lbs seems like a lot of torque for a drain plug. You sure it was ot 40 n-m ?

 

It's Just you. I've read up on some of the problems with the STis, Elises and TTs

Check this link from the fax in this section of the forum. Key Torque and Volume Specs, Feel Free To Add To

I think it states 29 lb-ft for the drain plug

 

Drain plug torque spec is 29 ft lbs/39Nm

 

it seems like most of the problems you were having were not the cars fault like the cracked oil pan and slashed tires

 

don't over torque it and you won't have problems with your oil pan. don't drive like a dick or steal someones girl so they go out of their way to slash your tires... and other common sense items you need help with???

 

That's a 1/3 more torque than spec (29 lb-ft). If you torque any part over spec you are taking responsibility for it's potential failure.

RTFM

 

Also have you checked your torque wrench to see if its calibrated correctly?