have 2020 RDX bought used with 40,000 from non Acura dealer with limited service records-put another 32,000 with no problems until skipping diagnosed with blown head gasket and then needs new motor-dealer in Asheville says no help since over 70,000 mile warranty and limited service records-non Acura really good mechanic has looked for used motor for several months unsuccessfully as told all going to Acura dealers as this is well known problem-appears a rebuild would be $12,000-15,000-sent corporate email with problem asking for assistance/advice-told they are not engineers and anything would have to come from dealer even though we have had 2 Legends, 2 TLs, TSX and RDX-everything else in good shape but has sat for 3 months-even if find used motor how do we know the problem will occur again since that part number has been changed? saw that a class action suit has been filed in California but doesn't include NC- anyone have a suggestion on how to get it running again with reasonable repair cost? Thanks for any advice

 

Why do you need new motor and not just a head-gasket change?
You dont know the history of the car, was it modded/abused ?

Usually people get head gasket replacement without needing new motor, something else is going on with your car


your best option getting used engine and installed outside the dealer

 

took off head gaskets and said metal shavings all in bottom of engine-said it looked like a ton of glitter

 

What is the specific trim level of your RDX???

 

Advance SH-AWD

 

There are 2 whole pages of engines in N. Carolina alone on the below website.
Searching nationally, you'll fine 18 pages for the AWD 2020 RDX engine.

 

thanks-think our mechanic is worried he'll find motor without new gasket part # and it will fail again-looking to find when new head gasket was changed and maybe get 2021 engine

 

That was the longest run on sentence ever LOLOL!

Zeta, you don't need trim, all same motors. But awesome of you to check on that for OP.

You don't necessarily need a new engine but NEED to figure out where the metal came from, could just need a rebuild(Bearing failure with some machine work), or a new piston, etc, someone needs to actually diag the issue.

 

great point-that's our next move with different mechanic
Thanks

 

still need engine replacement/rebuild
talked with several Acura specialty shops that said there was so much trouble with this motor, their sources would not rebuild
almost to point of selling as-is and taking the hit
any other advice?

 

What exactly is this trouble, ask them to elaborate?

At the end of the day, it's a motor, it's rebuildable.

 

buying used engine might be cheaper than rebuilding it. There are not many places left that do rebuilds for modern engines.

 

have talked with several in Asheville area and all so far all have said will not rebuild this turbo 4 cylinder because of history of failing (head gasket with class action lawsuit pending)
used motor from reputable source very difficult to find and unknown if it would have same blown head gasket problem

 

they can not use Accord 2.0T engine? I would think there should be some around. Why would they car about rebuilding engine with history of head-gasket failures? They can rebuild it and make it better by using ARP head bolts. They are exaggerating that its such a big issue, its not a very high number of failures.

 

Any good shop will do the job, $$ is $$. Rebuild, swap, etc all jobs shops will do to earn money.

At the end of the day, this is a K20, get the head checked and possibly machined, check block deck and slap a HG on it and all set, or just throw a motor in it, the Accord motor should be a perfect swap, just not sure how many are laying around in junk yards but again, a good shop will have access to getting a motor.
You guys are making this sound like it's some fancy Bugatti engine.

Yup, I agree, it's def not some mass issue like what was seen with Kia/Hyundai where dealers couldn't even keep up with how many cars needed motors due to, I think, bearing issues on a mass scale.

 

I could see them not wanting to rebuild it because they have to provide 12 month/ 12k miles warranty. But if they are thinking that head-gasket issue is so bad that its likely to fail again in 12k miles, then they are definitely giving you BS reason because the odds of this happening in 12k miles (assuming rebuilt is good) are close to zero.
I think general trend that no one wants to rebuild engine anymore, machine shops are disappearing, and they simply might not have qualified people to do it. So instead of saying we dont have people to do it, they pull BS excuses.

 

I mean, I'm at 155k, tons of other users here are likely around 100k , have only seen 1,2 posts on this, HGs fail for many many reasons, so who knows.

Machine shops are plentiful here, just spent 1k getting the motor for my Integra taken care of last year since the shop who pressed the sleeves in, did a shit job!

I think OP just needs to find a competent shop in his area to get the right answer. Which is to just fix it......... Way easier than throwing in another motor, which you don't even know the state of