Nightbane

I just went to the "New Car Client" held by my dealership (Acura of Brookfield) last night. When they took us into the shop and were showing us the cars I got to talking with one of the service guys and he showed me two RSX's that were in for blown engines. The owners (young kids) did the same thing as previously posted, mishifts, one from 2nd back to 2st at 6k+ rpm's and the other a 4th to 2st I think. Needless to say, the engines are toast. I asked Dan (service guy) how long to fix them and he said quite a while because Acura/Honda America is on a national backorder for the RSX engines because so many have been blown across the country. Hmmmmmmm makes me wonder, bad design or bad role-models from Hollywood (aka "The Fast and Furious" and not knowing how to drive).

Just thought this was a little tidbit of information that everyone on this board would like to hear.

Brenden

Fabvsix

Blown from NOT knowing how to manually shift properly ?????? Why isn't that car loaded with computers as our's is........

Nightbane

Can say why it does have a computer, don't know enough about cars to even say. The service guy told me though that the guy was trying shift through the gears as fast as possible and just missed third and put it into first and popped the clutch with WOT! Hmmmmmm I just know thats guaranteed BANG!

spiroh

I think its the way the tranny is made. Its a lot easier to mis a shift on GS-R/RSX trannies. The ECU have a rev limiter, but since the car is stick there is nothing they can do about that.

Spiro

Nightbane

Yeah but a NATIONAL backorder?? That seems like a damn lot of engines. Of course I don't know how many "spares" are kept around for this type of thing. Just seems a bit excessive to me. Like I said...bad design? or bad publicity in a sense from Hollywood with everyone trying to copy F&F and get racers.

RAdams

I'd imagine this is due to the drivers. Remember that the K20A engine has been out in Japan for a little while now.. and there's no manufacturing defects with them there.

I've seen dealers with 3 or 4 GS-R's at a time with bent valves and damaged pistons from people flubbing a shift. GS-R valves don't float until about 9000 RPM on the stock valvetrain... proof that there's plenty of idiot drivers out there.

Infamuz

Too many little kids have been watching Fast and Furious. My cousin has no problems with his RSX-S. It's nice and smooth, plus he don't beat the hell out of the car. People abuse their new cars, and don't let the car properly break in!

moomaster_99

It's overreving...they probably spun a bearing..which if it does enough damage to the inside of the motor..the motor is toast.

JZ

The same thing happened when the Celica GTS came out. I dunno---I drove the RSXS after not driving a stick for awhile and had absolutely no problem with it other than not knowing the optimal way to take advantage of the 6th gear. But, in time that would obviously come to be second nature.

Why doesn't a rev limiter kick in? When I had my 240SX I shoved it into 2nd well past its max. speed and it seems as though a rev limiter kicked in unless that feeling of power shutdown (just like it feels on the CLS) was b/c the motor was screwed and not b/c of a rev limiter. No damage was caused by that action so I guess the car took care of itself.

Acura should install a switch like from Days of Thunder that recaps what the RPMs were at when the engine blows!! (I'm sure that;s probably logged in the computer code, but whatever).

JZ

Can you imagine doing that to the six in the CLS! Damn, I would cry until morning if I blew my CLS engine.

phil2

these mofo's reall need to learn tow to drive cuz i havent had any problems finding gears in this thing.....must just be a complete lack of experience!!!!!

NOMAD

They've probably listened to the hype about getting it into redline all the time. If you mess up a shift but you are not even at redline yet the engine has somewhere to go, if you are in the red, sorry, don't think a rev limiter can help you there, the tranny is engaged and will spin the engine as fast as it can, cutting off the gas to the engine won't help with that. You'd be basically tourque braking in the extreme! People don't become familiar with their cars enough before going allout.

They deserve it, just consider the cost of their engine as an "IDIOT TAX" and we'll call it even!

Scorpius

So what your saying is-buy some shares of Honda?

SSMAN

This is not a design issue, it's customer negligence. All RSX-S catastrophic engine failures have been the result of a forced downshift under full-throttle. The majority of these failures have been in the hands of customers not adept at shifting a manual gearbox. They are slamming the shifter into whatever gate they can force it into.

The car is equipped with a rev limiter, but it takes time to slow an engine that's spinning at 9,000+ rpm.

The moral of the story - learn how to shift before playing John Force. This failure is not covered by the new vehicle limited warranty.

Mike

would floating a valve occur because the valve spring can't keep valve completely open or closed? at that point would you burn a valve and/or bend it?

yo SSMAN, meet me at carlsbad on 8/26!

[ 08-17-2001: Message edited by: Mike ]

acura_service

do you know why they are on backorder?, because stupidy was not anticipated by acura, when a car goes into production, they base engine asm output on acceptable number of engines for replacement and the rest for production, now when kids start blowing them up because they can't shift them, they are not going to stop production to supply engines for those replacement vehicles, they will step up production and any more that are getting produced over the production allowance can be sent out for the cars in need of them, its just acura did not count on people over-reving them and blowing them up - its all about the numbers and business

ChodTheWacko

I wonder how long 'quite a while'. I can imagine with a national backorder, you could be talking a month? or more?

Boy, sure would suck to have your car out for so long, and making car payments, AND also having to pop out the bucks for a new engine. (Which I imagine isn't pocket change)

BBsAcuraRacing

Damn rice burners...LOL :p :p :p :p :p :p :p :p

Nightbane

Chod,

Yeah he was speaking in months. He said it was AT least 3 weeks to get ONE engine in and he had TWO cars there. So...must suck to have to pay for all that. Heh, take a driving course next time and learn how to drive a manual before buying it. He also said the kid even asked if it was covered by warranty, heh...NOPE!

Brenden

CLpower

same shit happened w/ the new celica's

kuwolde

I think Toyota ended up changing them so they wouldn't be as likely to miss shift.

-=SoCalV6=-

I sure do hope this is consumer error (due to I know these are probably the same types that purchased the Si when it first came out and would race anything and everything on the block thinking their 160bhp and 111 ft-lbs could toast a Mustang GT ). I have already heard of RSX race stories where these people are driving extremely aggressive cuttin off people to insight a race to happen, with probably a total of only 50 miles on the car so far. Idiots.

Anyways, hope Honda learned from Toyota in regards the close gates, or they'll have a lot of angry customers if is indeed their fault, like this guy...
http://lemontoyota.0catch.com/

SSMAN

Mike - I'll be vacationing in the Bahamas from 8/25 - 9/2