My car is a 2004 Honda Civic LX Coupe 5sp purchased in December 2003. In November 2005, with 20K miles, I changed the oil and filter on schedule using Castrol Syntec 5W-20. At this particular oil change, though, I noted that there were a few drops of oil on the bottom of the engine. Not enough to really get concerned about, I was just a bit miffed that a Honda only two years old would already be leaking oil.

A week later we took off on a one-week , 1000-mile vacation over the Thanksgiving holidays. On the very last day of the trip, only about 30 miles from home, I depressed the clutch pedal when slowing for a turn, and the engine stopped. First time that's ever happened. It started right back up, but it didn't sound good -- lotsa rattling under the hood. My first thought: that small oil leak has suddenly become a LARGE oil leak and my engine is out of oil! So I pulled right off the side of the road and checked the oil. It was still full. In fact, there seemed to be no more oil on the bottom of the engine than there had been at the oil change.

No denying the racket, though. Stuck in the boonies on a Sunday in the dark with a car that was still under warranty, I fired the sucker up and drove it the 30 miles home at reduced speed. The following day I drove it to the Honda dealer at reduced speed and told them to fix it.

A couple of days later, I was rudely accused of mistreating the car somehow -- running it without oil or some such. After clarifying that I had run only synthetic oil since the first oil change, could prove it with records and receipts, and asking exactly why I would deliberately run the car without oil -- since there's no way it should happen accidentally, is there? -- they told me they had never seen a failure like this and were at a loss to explain it unless I had run the car without oil. After some more discussion, they told me that Honda had agreed to repair it "as a goodwill gesture". Yeah, right; if they hadn't fixed it, they would have been in for a lawsuit.

They had to install a new head. Honda demanded that the old head be shipped back to them for analysis, but I managed to get a brief look at it before it got boxed up. The cam bearing closest to the timing belt sprocket had apparently run dry and got real hot and wiped out. It had run so hot that the sprocket itself was blue around the center, fading to regular metal color at the outer edge. The heat had wiped out the oil seal there, which is what had resulted in the few drops of oil on the bottom of the engine. And that confirms that the failure didn't occur suddenly but had been going on for some time before it manifested itself as noise.

The only explanation I can offer is that an oil passage to that bearing either was never drilled correctly or was plugged with swarf or some such. It's perhaps impressive that it lasted 21K miles with a problem that was most likely a manufacturing defect.

The good news: while the warranty on the car remains unaltered, the service manager confided that, in all probability, if this particular engine ever has a problem like this again, Honda will probably fix it for free, even if it's ten years from now. Now THAT would be a goodwill gesture!

I can also report that, since the repair, the car seems to get about 2 mpg better than it did before. It was getting about 35 on average before, about 37 now. Of course, with mileage that good and a repair as significant as a replacement of an entire head, there's all sorts of things that could account for a relatively minor change in fuel economy like that. But it also might indicate that the condition of that bearing was causing internal friction and/or a loss of efficiency, and everything is better now.

Oh, one other interesting note: when I got the car back after the repair, it had quite a bit too much oil in the crankcase. It was waaaay over the full mark. I took the car back to the dealer and pointed to the warning in the owner's handbook to NEVER overfill the oil, and they hoisted it back on the lift and drained some. When they were done it STILL was a bit over the full mark, but not much.

The service manager also 'fessed up that they don't use synthetic, so if I choose to I might wanna drain the oil they put in and refill. I decided that I'd leave the stuff they put in until the next scheduled change. That way, if there are any further problems, I can blame them.

 

thats crazy stuff,u were lucky that all went well, im surre that what they did would have 1000's of dollars if you would have to pay for it.though i have heard that once u start using synthetic oil, u cant be changing back and from regular to synthetic!

 

This is a myth, do your part by not continuing to spread it

 

i did specifically said that i was told that, i did not stated that for sure u cant change back and forth.just because i say something u just dont take it for granted u know!!!