RUSS H

Grammer is grammar..

fluffyninja

yeah, yeah speak to the hand...............

Nelly

Update. Just spoke to the dealer, who put a warranty claim in for a new diff yesterday. The warranty company want to strip the diff and inspect it themselves. They're sending an engineer on Thursday. I forsee no new diff for my car.

As a contingency, went to drive a 350Z roadster on Saturday and was very, very impressed. If I get messed about by the dealer or Honda on this repair, I definitely forsee a return trip to the Nissan dealer with my Visa card. Could save myself a grand on an extended warranty for my Honda and a couple of hundred quid for the new back tyres it will need shortly.

Ric

@Nelly:

Sorry to resurrect an old thread - but reading this is like deja vu. I had what sounds like the exact same problem with my S about a year ago. My diff was replaced 3 times - so it had 4 diffs (complete units) from new. Honda's solution - don't work out why it went wrong - just replace it with a new unit. When the 4th one started to make the same noises and vibrations (exact same conditions as you - pulling away from a standstill with the front wheels turned), and after battling with HondaUK for as long as I could stand, I bit the bullet and sold it. I'm astonished that Honda can't get their act together and figure this one out. The problem was not to do with oil - I extensively researched and probed them about that, and we established that it was probably an allignment issue - even though there was no damage to the car. The worst thing that ever happened to the car was driving over a speed bump at 15 mph.

I remember speaking directly over the phone to a guy at honda technical division - who apparently had worked on the F1 team - he first enquired as to whether I had taken it to a track - although he then said that even if I took it to the track daily, it shouldn't get through that many diffs. If I remember correctly, and I'm not a techie so I may have got this muddled, I think they said that the 'crown and pinion bearings' (?) had worn, producing metal fragments to be dipersed into the diff oil, which acted as an abrasive to the diff gears, causing a visious cycle of grinding. The metal fragments would settle if the car was left standing for about three hours, meaning that the problem seemed to go away when it was cold. After running the car up to temperature, the fragments again became suspended in the oil, giving the impression that it was temperature related, even though it wasn't.

I was told that they were taking it seriously and were going to get to the bottom of it - but after months of waiting and finding myself hitting a brick wall with them, I decided to sell it before the warranty ran out. My dealer's advice, in his words, were to 'sell it at the other end of the country before the problem gets any worse'. Much as I resented that, it turned out to be exactly what I did - just hope nobody here was unlucky enough to have bought it.

I did enjoy my S2000 days - apart from the diff problems it was an awesome car in both looks and performance. But HondaUK really let me down - so my money now goes towards helping the German economy. I bought a BMW - it's not quite as fast, but it does have heated seats.

GTFCTIM

mikdys

Out of interest, what did the oil analysis report say?

www.indy2000.co.uk

Could be wrong but i don't see how a slight alinement issue could cause that damage so quick, You have to bear in mind that the diff itself is solid so as long as the casings were machined right the problem doesn't lie there, then the prop and both driveshafts have cv joints, if the prop was mating to the diff at an angle the cv joint would ensure that the prop/diff spun correctly without any loading on the crown wheel/pinion or bearings. The same goes for each driveshaft, if you had to have all 3 shafts in perfect line with the diff to stop wear problems then you would have no rear suspension, every time your suspesion moves so does the alignment between your hub and diff.
As for the metal filings in the oil that is totally feasible but i'd be very concearned why it happened 3 times.

Chris

mikdys

I'd put good odds on the dealer having continued to fill the diff with the wrong oil (some of them should stick to saddling horses)!