In June we bought our son Mike, a college student the first serious car of his life. He spent months looking to find the right make and model and took the 2003 si with only 32K and mint condition. It had been in a small fender bender and repairs were nearly flawless and not major in nature. The car was owned by the daughter of a mechanic and flawlessly maintained. We have no reason to doubt him.
We continued by doing more than the required fluid maintenance and checking under the hood routinely. 2 months ago returning from college the car started to run rough and was dying at the stop, having just gone over 50K miles. He pulled it into a local service place who quickly diagnosed as a probable head gasket. At over $90/hr we opted for the lower priced dealership. It took weeks to get to the final determination that the entire engine was shot!
The initial shock continued to grow when we found no rebuilt or new complete engines were available from the Honda Dealership. We would have to piecemeal the engine together, head, valves, lower block etc. And the price was climbing to and beyond $9,000! At this point I insisted a factory warranty person consider covering all or part of this catastrophe. Service advised us the factory rep looked at the situation and, I think even to the service employee surpise declined to cover any of the parts or labor.
We were forced by the situation to by a used engine from down south, sight unseen for over $3,000. Thank God the guy was honest and the mechanic who knew his VTEC's did a great job. Well Over $5000 later Im still burned by Honda not covering part of this. Mike could have had a new Yaris but thought the superior Honda quality would make it a good deal! Honda quality is Not what so much as who they seem to be. Thoughtless, spineless to such a screw job. 50,000 the famous VTEC implodes! Ida thought theyd knock themselves over to get this engine and see what happened. Naive!
They abandoned us and demystified the brand to my young, soon to be college graduate. Soon to be kinda uy who will probably get a new car every year for years and years. Short sighted people... The GM of tommorrow.
Mikesnightmare
Eureka, California
U.S.A.
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