Hi all,

I recently purchased a MY 2001 s2000 with 57k. This is my first s2000.

To start off with I'll give a bit of a back story to why I'm paranoid. When I bought the car I had it inspected by a mechanic that I trusted. He told me the car was in excellent condition and was a good buy.

Fast forward to 5 days and ~150 miles of driving later. I get around to start taking care of some maintenance. I noticed the oil level was low (approximately .7 of a quart below "L"). I immediately top off the oil and change it out that same day. Since changing the oil I haven't noticed any severe oil consumption. Which concerns me as to how long the car had been driven low for.

So now I'm really concerned about the health of the engine. There is a faint knocking noise that the engine is making which is more audible from the bottom of the car which concerns me the most.

I have recorded a sound clip of the engine here:

https://youtu.be/r2rR1C_gx0w

I appreciate any input you guys have.

Thanks,
Nick

 

Worst case. A slight rod knock can be fixed. It involves dropping the pan, pulling rod caps, and polishing crank journals. Then replace rod bearings. Not crazy expensive. But requires someone that knows what they're doing. Also, these cars use multiple different possible size bearings. So you have to make sure to use the correct size for your car.

The windage tray almost touches the dipstick. So it can drip oil onto it, causing a false high reading. Probably the mechanic fell victim to this. It helps to reinsert and wipe the dipstick a couple of times before taking a reading. This cleans off enough of the windage tray oil. Also, always check both sides of dipstick, and take lower reading.

But these engines are notoriously noisy. So maybe its nothing.

If it is a rod knock, its only going to get worse, quickly. You don't want it to get bad, else it could go from easy fix to no fix.

Where are you located?

 

Sounds fine to me. Don't worry. You may want to consider doing a preemptive strike and replacing the TCT with one from Billman here on the forum. Sooner or later the OEM will fail. I did not hear any TCT noise on your video.

Oil consumption for your year car is well known and discussed. It is very important to check the oil frequently (both sides of the dipstick); you don't want to damage the engine from oil starvation.

There are a ton of threads what to do with your car from banjo bolts to re-tighten the rear axle nuts to making sure the top mechanism is smooth and won't contribute to premature wear of the soft top.

Great color of car! Have fun! Its a Honda!

 

So...it was a total of 1.7qts low from full?

You still had almost 3 quarts in there. I wouldn't worry that much. Its probably not knocking. Check for metal flakes in the oil.

Are you sure you checked it on level ground? Not in a driveway?

 

This mechanic didn't even check oil level? Did he do a compression test? You may want to do one, just to confirm the compression on the cylinders is ok.

Good luck with your new car!

 

I'm located in Cincinnati.

The noise has not gotten worse yet. I have been keeping an eye on it though in case it does. I would like to find someone locally who knows these cars and get their opinion.

 

I confirmed the oil level after I drained it when changing the oil. I had 4.25 qts after adding a quart.

 

Apparently he did not. And no he didn't do a compression test. I'm beginning to wonder what I payed him for..

And thanks! Hopefully the noise is nothing and I can get back to enjoying it!

 

Get a sound clip of the knocking noise from under the car.

From the video you provided, it sounds normal to me.

 

To get all the oil out, you would need to have first gotten the oil hot enough to pour out easily (this part is pretty basic).

Then, you'd need to have the car level (it won't all drain out if only the front wheels are up).

You'd need to give it several hours to drain.

Then you'd have to account for the oil in the filter.

Did you do all that?

Even if you did....even after all that, if you only got 4.25qt out after adding a quart...the engine still had 3.25 quarts. As long as you hadn't starved it via high RPM use along with slosh...you're fine.


You're almost surely fine.

If you were to drain the oil absolutely fully and completely, you'd need to add like 6 quarts to refill the engine.