First time posting on this site. I was looking for advice or support on how to get Acura to honor my power train warranty. They are telling me that a piston punched through my engine block and punctured the oil pan. They are saying this is due to the engine being over revved. I own a 2012 TSX SE 6 Speed manual transmission. It was preowned and i am the 2nd owner. It currently has 54,000 miles on the engine. I have all of the service records since I took over ownership. i have never redlined the vehicle and they cannot give me time or duration for the supposed red line occurred. Please advise if anyone has suggestions.

 

hi!

right now, it seems like a lot of "he said she said" bull shit.
you need cold hard facts in order to back up your claims..........

this means, if Acura is telling you that the pistons punched a hole through the block, the ECU will have recorded this. the ECU also records over-rev conditions....


an over-rev condition is where you go past the red line via the money shift....going from 4th to 2nd is the common one.

on up shifts, the computer protects the engine. so, you cannot hurt the engine from UP SHIFTING! so, when they said you redlined, this is false. because the car is MEANT TO REDLINE!!!!!!!!!!

it is not meant to be over-revved, however.


you need facts via pictures of engine damage, ecu logs that record said money shift, etc.
without these cold hard facts, its a game of he said she said...and she(acura) is winning.

 

p.s. the over-rev condition usually hurts the heads and valves on top!

if piston punched a hole through bottom block into oil pan, SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENED!


you need pics and ECU logs to tell you exactly what happened, without these....welp, you better start looking for a used engine.....
K24s are cheap and can be found for as little as $500

 

ahhh, i missed the part where you said it was pre-owned.

the previous owner may have over-revved the vehicle. this will be in the ECU logs as it is stored.

 

Nobody else has driven the car since you bought it? How long have you had it?

Did the engine make any unusual noises when you bought it?

 

@justnspace I've requested time stamps for when the engine was over revved. They could not give me anything concrete just that it happened. I will request the ECU log for more concrete evidence.

@Roland_Bluntz I'm the only driver of the vehicle since I took ownership. I've had it since August of 2014. No the engine didn't make any strange noises or knocking sounds or even shutter. Thats another concern of mine. I'm not 100% sure but I'd imagine the cpu that runs the engine would notify me if the engine needed service. I get a notification for just about everything else. Am I wrong in assuming that a sensor should have notified me to a potential engine failure?

 

So, were you driving it when it happened?

I'm guessing you didn't buy it from an Acura dealer either, and thus it obviously isn't CPO, right?

I'd say it couldn't hurt to escalate the issue a level. If they're already saying "no", the worst they can do is continue to say "no". Maybe another dealer would be more receptive to helping you out? Or perhaps contacting Acura Corp. would get some response.

Or do what seems to be the norm these days... Hit twitter and instagram and snapchat and whateverthehell the kids are doing now and start blasting Acura with your situation and how disappointed you are.

Don't forget a gofundme account. Everyone needs a crowd-funding account for every minor discretion.

Good luck. Sorry to hear about your holey block.

 

Yeah I was driving when it happened. In traffic but not bumper to bumper. It was purchased through Carmax not Acura. So its a CPO but not through Acura I guess. I've escalated the issue to customer relations and I have a case manager on it, we haven't had a chance to speak yet but we are playing phone tag.

I'm trying to remain optimistic that customer relations will help me find a resolution but I wanted to go in with as much useful information as possible.

 

The ECU is not privy to any mechanical faults that don't affect the emissions or management systems. So...if you had a hairline fracture in a rod, for example, as long as it didn't change the timing or other things that the ECU senses...the ECU would never know.

But if you bought it 1.5 years ago, I doubt that there was pre-existing damage. There were no indications of anything being wrong at all? No knocking noises before this happened? Or maybe the radio was up and you didn't hear them?

 

Thank you for the clarification around the ECU.

No there were no audible signs or warnings that I was aware of. I id have my radio on though. I'm not sure if it was loud enough to mask the sound of engine knocking so its a possibility.

I've been researching the "Money Shift" and from what i've read that usually has instant results. Unfortunately I'm a noob when it comes to this so I'm not sure if thats how it actually works. I do know at the time of Failure I was in 5th gear going around 70mph.

 

A money shift that resulted in a blown up bottom end would need to be monumental. Usually, a money shift results in piston to valve contact...and in bad cases, a dropped valve into the bottom end. Actually throwing a rod happens at a higher RPM than that. Any bottom end damage is virtually almost immediate, and is virtually always followed by a noise.

Its very strange that you heard or sensed absolutely nothing before the engine let go.

But....if the over rev resulted in a cracked retainer, it could take a year or so to finally let go. Valve drops into the chamber, and punches holes in everything. At which point, the root cause may mistakenly be diagnosed as a piston failure.

 

Who told you to go pound sand? Was it the local acura dealer? Carmax? Acura corporate or who?

How many miles were on the car when you bought it?
Were you cruising , upshifting, downshifting or what?

 

The dealership is telling me that they are denying warranty service because they found evidence of the car redlining. They said it hit upwards of 7600rpms. This was after they said I didn't have any oil in the car. I gave them receipts showing all the work that had been done and that the oil had been changed less than a month before the incident. Then they said the oil in the car appeared to be "too new".

After some back one fourth with the dealership and a few people from the corporate office I now have a case manager on it.
Everyone in this thread has been awesome with giving me information that I can take to the case manager.

 

Car had 38000 miles on it. Now has 54000 give or take. I was cruising.

 

Lol 7600RPM isn't near enough to damage the engine. Upwards of 7600 could mean anything, though, I suppose.

You said you were cruising in 5th at 70mph? That's peculiar...but wouldn't have caused damage.

How do they know how much oil was in the car if there are holes in the block and oil pan? And how can they tell the oil looks too new? Is it not full of metal and coolant?

These are all questions I'd ask them in order to find out how they made their assumptions that this was your fault rather than some sort of engine defect or resulting damage from a previous owner?

If you did not have any failure indicator lights or sounds before all this happened, then the theory about a cracked valve or retainer than was pre-existing would hold some water.

 

Yeah that's the argument I was making about the oil. That's when they lost credibility with me.
I don't have the exact numbers for what speed I was going but I know I was in 5th and definitely wasn't red lining. No indicators or lights until after it failed then everything lit up!