Taking a corner Sunday I heard this grinding noise which sounded like it was coming from the LSD, i straightened the car out and about 3 seconds later I felt this hard jolt from the passenger side. At first, I thought I ran over something, but there was nothing to run over. So i pull over and look under my car, oil was dripping out, very very black oil. My first conclusion was that it was the transmission. The oil was leaking between where the trans. bolts up to the motor. So I get back in the car, start it up and try to see if the clutch will engage so I could get it out of the middle of the road. There was a very loud grind noise but the clutch seemed to engage fine. I quickly cut the car off and called a tow truck. When the yow truck gets there and proceeds to put my car on the bed, he managed to crack my front lip.
The next day Sutton Acura calls and says that they found that it was the rear main seal to the motor. WTF! I explained to them that if it was the rear main seal then there would be no grinding noise and that i had checked my motor oil the day before and it was far from being black. They said they would double check and call me back. 4 hours later they called back and told me that it was the rear main seal and that they could not find a 'grinding noise' (lying bastards) and that the oil had been contaminated b/c it was outside of the motor. What do you guys think about this?

 

It's pretty clear whan a rear main goes...there usually isn't any doubt and they'd be idiots to be wrong about it.

How many miles on your car?

How frequently did you change the oil?

What kind of oil were you using, and what viscosity?

I understand why you're incredulous, because most of us do something else to the car before we blow a main seal, and the main seals are usually only replaced as part of a buildout that was occasioned by another type of failure. However, it's not unheard of.

In my case, I burned a piston at Summit Point at 79,000 miles.

 

well i change the oil every 3k and i am using Quaker State 5w-30. I have just over 87k on the clock

 

If you're really driving the car, that's around the mileage that some of us start having problems.

Your main seal was just a fluke...the first thing to go.

I only just now got my car back from a rebuild. At around 80,000 miles, it burned a piston at the last track event of last season.

I don't think I'd worry too much. You know, unless they think that other damage was done, you could get your car back on the road fairly cheaply if all you did was blow a main seal and get the car off the road right away.

You first posted this on the 25th. Maybe your car's already back on the road!