Thrown rod on a HCH? Honda was no help.
 

So I was a little slow to sign up for this site, but I'm glad I finally found it. I'm looking for some insight, pun intended, on what the heck happened to my poor 05' Civic Hybrid. Sorry it's a little long, I promise shorter future posts :shade:

I bought it from a Honda dealer, "certified", with 49k on it. I was weary of the battery and IMA drive so I footed to the bill for the wrap-around extended warranty as well. I loved it, drove it everywhere for a year and half and put another 35k on it. One evening driving I-95 just outside of Richmond, VA, I heard a faint tapping noise (while I was in hour 4 of a 5 hour drive). I slowed down but kept rolling, no lights came on, temp gauge never moved from normal range. A minute or so later the tapping got louder, and before I could pull over to the shoulder, I felt and heard a huge bang, then felt what seemed to be me driving over a huge box of nuts and bolts. The engine immediately shut off, all the lights came on, and I drifted the rest of the way to the shoulder. I got out and saw the carnage all over the road; oil, coolant, and bits of metal everywhere. After being towed to the same dealer that had been servicing it for the past year, I was told the engine threw a rod, that they didn't know why and that they were going to replace it under warranty. I thought ok, huge WTF, but ok, fine. I got a call the next day, Honda was sending an inspector to check out the vehicle. A few days later, the so called "third-party inspector" apparently noted some oily residue in the water jacket and concluded that some sort of "stop leak" component must have been added to the coolant. Low and behold, any type of contaminated fluids would, of course, void any warranty coverage with Honda Care. Honestly, I never even so much as looked at the coolant cap of that car in the year and half that I drove it, I always went to dealer for oil changes and they topped everything off. My first thought was that even if the original owner would have done something like that the Honda "certification" process at the dealer should have included a coolant flush. Secondly, I never fully grasped how the coolant could have caused the damage that occurred if the engine didn't overheat. I fought the battle for about 6 months and never got anywhere. Honda said they wanted to help, but that Honda Care had closed the claim so I was just out of luck, and an engine. Anyone with a little more knowledge than I make any sense from the pictures?

And why are the 5-spds are rated for 5w20, but yet my replacement engine must have came from an CVT as it's oil cap states 0w20? kinda odd, maybe the synthetic oil would have helped...

These pictures may be too graphic for some.

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Holy crap. That makes me want to never buy a used car ever again. And I just bought a used HCH 04 two weeks ago. I am also convinced even though it was a certified used car that they really didn't inspect it that well- it took me a week to even get them to send me the 150 point inspection sheet. I am going to confirm that they flushed the coolant since they checked that box on the inspection sheet along with the other fluids they checked should be changed. They didn't even notice the interior dome light didn't work because the switch in the door was broken (and other electrical reasons). The service guy said they should have caught that. The alignment was off, too. And the door leaked when it rained, and the start clutch had to be replaced, and they machined the rear rotors... all right after I bought it & brought it in to be fixed. Doesn't give me much faith in the certified inspection process. But glad to have the certified warranty!

Re: Thrown rod on a HCH? Honda was no help.
 

05HCH5SPD,

I assume there several thousand $$$ at stake here not to mention the effect on your livelihood without a set of working wheels. So it sounds like it is worth a fight. I would advise you take your warranty, photos, and purchase documentation, especially any materials discussing the used car certification program, to a lawyer for a consultation. It will probably cost you a couple hundred bucks, but you may be able to recover it if he thinks you have a case.

He may advise you that you absolutely are in the right and could effectively resolve the matter in small claims (without his further assistance). He may also tell you that you might be screwed. Either way, you can bet the last thing Honda or the dealer wants is a lawsuit that will certainly cost them more money then repairing the car. It's likely that once they know you have a lawyer working on the matter, things will sort themselves out in your favor.

From the information you provided I see several factors in your favor:
- you had an extended warranty
- the car was a honda certified used car
- there was no warning light prior to the failure indicating a problem (low oil and over heating would have likely warnings)
- the dealer initially said it would be covered
- it seems unlikely that leak stop could lead to such as failure without many other things going wrong first - but i understand it may still void the warranty.

Let us know how it turns out!

-dan

Re: Thrown rod on a HCH? Honda was no help.
 

Wow, that's painful to see.
I'm with dantheman. I call BS.
In my humble opinion, Stop-Leak didn't cause that, not unless you drove it for an hour with it overheating on you. With a coolant-line blockage (say caused by Stop-Leak), it might cause a warped head or a blown head gasket, and engine overheating and coolant leakage; not a thrown rod. And, you'd get overheating warnings. Could the "TEMP" idiot light be out, or you didn't notice it overheating for (quite) a while? If not, I don't see Stop-Leak as the culprit.

Re: Thrown rod on a HCH? Honda was no help.
 

Yeah, this whole thing has been heartbreaking to say the least. After a month or two of not getting anywhere with Honda, then Honda Care, the Honda again, I did call lawyers. But none wanted anything to do with bringing a suit against a huge company like Honda. I did find one who was familiar with lemon law cases and recall suits, but after the initial $200 worth of investigation time, it didn't go anywhere. The dealer had the car the whole time, I tried to get another mechanic in to inspect the car while it was still in the possession of the dealership, and then they wouldn't let anyone in their property to tear down the engine again. Yes, I said that correctly, they reassembled the clearly non-working engine. I offered to pay out of pocket for a chemical analysis of the what was left of the coolant to see if there really was anything foreign in it. Honda said it wouldn't matter as the claim was closed after their "third party inspector" came out and made his report. I even contacted local TV stations around the area where the dealership was, but no one seemed like they had time of day for me.

That was about 6 months ago when gas still $4 gallon, and of course my back up vehicle was an SUV. Since then I've changed jobs and moved a little further south. I even towed my shell of a hybrid 5 hours south with me. I found a used engine with 33k on it for around $1200 with a warranty (even though those mean absolutely nothing to me now). I went to local dealer here in NC, told the service manager my horror story, and he said he would do the install at cost. Which still meant I was going to get charged another $2000 for the install and reconditioning. So I got a new timing belt and made them put in a new clutch (even though it didn't really need it yet). I kept the old engine with the hopes of one day proving to Honda that they do occasionally make lemons.

I still love my car. It'll only take me a couple years in gas savings to pay for the new engine. But now I'm seeing all these battery issue postings on here and thinking, I hope that's not next. I've got 95k on mine and it's still running strong. I did go from an average of 42-43 MPG to an average of 46 with this newer engine. So if anyone says that the full synthetic doesn't make a difference, I've got a case for them.

Re: Thrown rod on a HCH? Honda was no help.
 

I did question the overheating thing myself. Doesn't the car's computer store that type of info? Couldn't the dealership pull that data? Or rather did they, realize that it didn't overheat, and that they were going to have to pay for a new engine...

Re: Thrown rod on a HCH? Honda was no help.