CityHunter

Hi, I'm a newbie here and I need some help with my 2002 S2000. I've had 25000miles on it, and just last week, the CEL came on for the first time. Took it to the dealer, they fixed it by "updating the spark plug". About 100miles later, CEL came up again, took it to dealer for service and they said the spark plug was loose and needed to retorque it. As I was driving out of the parking lot, CEL came up again. Computer code said cylinder #3 misfired.

Left the car there for 2 days, then got a call back from them saying that I might have a bent valve, caused by a bad downshift or kept the engine RPM too high. They said that my cylinder #3 only has 120psi, when other cylinders have 175/225psi. This is not covered under warranty, and will cost me around $2200+tax (I'm in California)

But it could also be a loose or weak spring, which will be covered under warranty.

I would like to know if anyone had similar problems before? Like a loose spring? I am pretty sure I did not do any bad downshift or over rev the engine. I barely went over 6000RPM for the past 5000miles.

ruexp67

I find it unlikely that you only bent one valve. If you overreved I would expect that more valves would have been bent. Sounds like they are setting the stage to screw you over.

S2KenC

CityHunter, I noticed that you're in Chino Hills. Which dealership did you take it to? I had a good experience at Hardin Honda in Anaheim when a CEL popped up. Since you only have 25k miles, you might want to try another dealership.

2004S2000

I would be on the phone with Honda and the State Govt. They have to prove that you caused a failure before they deny warranty coverage.

CityHunter

Thank you all for replying. S2KenC, I got the car from Norm Reeves at West Covina, and that's where I brought the car for service. They seemed to have good service, but I'll probably take it to Hardin Honda for a second opinion.

I've gone through the Honda warranty information booklet, and can't find any mentioning of engine parts warranties. Should I just go ahead and have it fixed first, and worry about the warranty coverage later? According to them, it would take them 7.5 hours to take it apart to see what the problem really is, and 7.5 hours to put it back. That labour charge is the majority of the cost. It would also take a week to fix this problem, if it's covered under warranty, should they also provide a free rental car?

S2KenC

[QUOTE]Originally posted by CityHunter
Thank you all for replying.

nastinupe1

What is a warranty? When I was younger, I thought that it was something that you got to cover anything that happened to your car while under a certain mileage. However, later I realized that a warranty is only a money making scheme drafted within the cold and cruel minds of car companies to rape us of an extra few thousand dollars.

rworne

[QUOTE]Originally posted by nastinupe1
What is a warranty?

jsalicru

hmmm... I find it hard to believe that they would need that much time just to diagnose it...

I will add that I have also met some pretty incompetent techs at Honda... One in particular works on one of my neighbor's cars (a 00 Jackson Racing SCed Prelude) and he blew it up with advancing timing while "tuning", not to mention the wiring job he did wiring up the supercharger electronics... wow... its impressive to see how badly someone can wire something.

Anyways, its interesting that I see this, because I just checked out an S2000 this weekend for something awfully similar. The owner STATES that he just hit the rev limited while going UP the gears... he let off and a CEL came on... later on he could hear a valve ticking.

He is telling me this while we are swaping intakes (nobody jumped on his free AEM intake offer but me!), So I tell him that I might be able to help him.

Now, I did not check for compression as I was not at my house and had no access to any compression tester or leakdown tester... but the most interesting thing was found... and I really can't explain what exactly it is since I can't do a compression test and all that. There was NO CLEARANCE on one of the valves on the intake side of the combustion chamber... now I checked the ones on the No.1 cylinder and the other one on the No. 3 cylinder and they all had clearance... SO... break out the feeler guage and the valve adjustment tool! Adjust them... guess what... you CAN'T get clearance... it is always TOUCHING and this is backed up by the fact that there are grooves on the cam lobe and on the roller rocker (they are not HORRIBLE, but enough to make me want to replace them.) I pressed against the valve next to it, a good one, and I had to push down hard with both hands while on the other one I could push it down by pressing it with ONE hand...

SO the facts are:
less valve spring tension than all other valves
grooves on the cam and rocker assembly
no adjustment available on the valve adjustment.
an intermittent ticking from the valvetrain
There is no visible damage to the spring in any way.

anyways... I wanted to mention this because it might be similar to what you have... I am quite curious to know..

We want to measure the valve stem height because we thing that either the valve stretched or the valve seat is messed up.

Hockey

[QUOTE]Originally posted by rworne