iam7head

sue them, most of the time when you did overrev, the valve and piston surface will mostly be damage.

the tech probably playing the odd that you do not know about car enough to make a good fight to the manager.

Kyushin

rofl lemme guess, Honda care? man i have heard story after story how they try the "you over-reved" the car bs line, id definitely contact american honda so an investigation can take place

Johnny Sack

cant they scan the ecu and get the last highest RPMs and speed and all the jazz? i know we used this when i worked for Acura on RSXs that had been overreved.

andrewboro

Dealership ran a compression test and concluded from the low compression on cylinder two that I had a bent valve and had bent my valve from over revving the engine.

Independent mechanic ran a compression test and found low compression. He then ran a leak down test and heard air going out the exhaust and narrowed it down to one of the two exhaust valves on cylinder two. He then measured the valve clearances and found one of the exhaust valves was extremely tight, while the rest were in tolerance, hinting that it could be a burned valve.

So I paid $85 to the dealership and they ran one test which narrowed the scope of problems to half a dozen or so things then picked the one that would have been my fault and ran with it.

I paid another $85 to an independent mechanic who ran a compression test, a leak down test, and measured valve clearances and had narrowed the problem down to one valve which may have been bent (not covered under warranty) or burned (covered under warranty).

I called my warranty representative and before getting a word in they inform me my claim has been denied. The dealership had filed a report with them based on the compression test and prematurely and incorrectly concluded that I had bent a valve by over revving my engine.

Fast forward to Wednesday (yesterday) I spent 4 hours in the morning going back and forth between the independent mechanic and the dealership, thankfully they are only two blocks apart. The independent mechanic's story, "I think you have a burned exhaust valve, we won't know until we pull the head." The dealership's story, "every s2000 we have seen in our shop with compression problems had bent valves, we will prove it to you when we pull the head"

Here is my dilemma - have the dealership pull the head or have the independent mechanic pull the head?

If either one pulls the head and finds one bent valve the repair will not be covered under warranty. If the dealer pulls my head and finds a burned valve it will be covered under warranty. If the independent mechanic pulls the head and finds the same thing it may void my warranty because I did not have the work performed by a honda dealership.

At this point I decide I need more information. I go back to the dealership and ask them how they concluded without conclusive evidence that there was a bent valve. They fall back on their "every time an s2000 has been in our shop with compression problems it was due to a bent valve/ over rev." At this point one of my cylinders has a compression problem the other three do not.

I know from my independent mechanic that one of the valves is not sealing properly however the other 15 are sealing properly. My engine performance has not changed since the check engine light came on. I keep records of my fuel consumption, that has not changed either. My car idles normal, and I see three bars on my oil temp.

I am not convinced there is anything majorly wrong with my engine. The dealership quotes the repairs at a week and $3000 to replace all the valves, head gasket, thermostat, and to reshape the piston heads.

The dealership's service manager pull the techs notes and shows me the results of the compression test. I ask him why they did not run a leak down test, he tells me it doesn't make a difference, they won't be able to see anything until they pull the head off. Pulling the head off will take 4 hours of labor at $88 an hour and another 4 hrs to re-assemble.

I then ask what engine codes the tech found when he took the car in. He shows me the tech pulled 5 engine codes: cylinder 1 misfire, cylinder 2 misfire, cylinder 3 misfire, cylinder 4 misfire, and loose gas cap. I ask him if the tech pulled an over rev code, he tells me no, the tech did not find an over rev code.

So again who do you have pull the head? The independent auto mechanic who has run a compression test, a leak down test, and pinpointed the leaking seal or The dealership who has not found an over rev code, has run one inconclusive diagnostic test and as a result contacted your warranty person and attempted to void your warranty after spending an hour diagnosing the problem and before actually pulling the head.

At this point the dealership manager has me convinced that when I pull the head I will find bent valves. He sees more s2000's in his shop than any other shop in SD and tells me this is rather common.

I figure what the hell, if I am going to lose this battle I might as well take it to the guy who isn't advocating the replacement of 15 perfectly fine valves with brand new ones. He has already demonstrated he's better at pin pointing problems than the dealership and my car is already at his shop. I authorize the indpendent mechanic to pull the head fully expecting him to find that one valve is bent. After all the dealership sees more s2000 than anyone else in SD and he says its the most likely scenario.

ridestrt

That is a very tough call. Although from my experience if you over rev'd you would have bent more then one valve. And it wouldn't have been just a little hit the rev limiter for a second type of thing, you would have had to straight up put it in the wrong gear and substantially over revd it. This of course is just my opinion. I say take it to Honda, when they pull it if it's burnt then they will cover it.

s2k4spk

I am actually in the very same scenario right now. Sporadic cylinder misfires...turns out I was seeing about 100PSI on cyl 3 and the other cylinders were OK. Ended up going with a dealer teardown to find out I had bent exhaust valves on cyl 3. I have NEVER achieved a mechanical over-rev by mis-shift or anything like that. Looking at about $2.5k in labor/materials and ~3 weeks without my car. Hope your news is better than mine.