got a friend that drives a brand new 2001 prelude that only has 6000 mileso on it.

he was driving to work today and said he was in 3rd gear going about 70mph went to shift to 4th gear, missed it and nailed 2nd gear, rpms went past redline, car jurked a little. he took it out of 2nd and went to 5th i think he said, check engine light flashed a few times and then about another half a mile the car just dies on him. car does not start normally you gotta hold your foot down on the gas to make it do anything, and it runs rough as hell, engines knocks around everywhere.. what is broken inside the engine that we cant see from something like this?? honda is lookin at the car tomarrow and will fix it cause he bought the warranty w/ it also..

 

Bent valves maybe?

 

Oops, I did that too one time.. luckily it didn't do any damage! I was shifting from 5th to 4th to pass at high speed, and hit 2n'd... luckily I got the clutch in before anything happened!!

 

check intake and exhaust valves also the rods. there goes the piston too., it might be cheaper if you get a new head on there.

 

He definitely bent some, if not all, valves. The knocking sound is not a good sound. It could be pinging due to the valves being f'ed... Or he could have dropped one or more valves into the cylinder - which could result in any combination of scored cylinder walls, damaged pistons, valves fused to pistons, and additional severe head damage.

The car should have been shut off immediately after the misshift in order to prevent more severe engine damage. Do not try to start the car again. It must be flatbedded to the dealer.

Most dealers will not cover an obvious misssift under warranty, but your friend might get lucky if the service manager is in a good mood...

Andrew

 

****.. well he had no idea what was wrong w/ it so he had to get it to a parking lot and off the road so it was drivin even after the mis shift cause he didnt know anything was wrong till the car stalled out..

im thinking the dealer needs to cover something like this.. it is a totally stock prelude except for the coilovers we installed last week.. he was not planning on doing any engine stuff to the car b/c his parents would be mad cause it would void the $2000 warranty they bought w/ the car.. im thinking spend $2000 on a warranty they better fix the thing cause the car only has 6000 miles on and it and bullshit if they dont fix it..

 

I definately agree w/ everyone here, bent valves, I also doubt the dealer will cover it under warranty, when you do take it to the dealer dont tell them that your friend miss shift, warranty covers defects like if the car breaks down due to a defective part, not for driver mistakes. When I first got my car I had a bad 5th gear synchro and the dealer tried to tell me that it was due to me racing, i argued w/ them and showed them printouts of how some preludes had defective synchros, they covered but after a week of arguing. Well good luck and let us know what happened!!

 

yea your buddies head is toasted as well as the other things people mentioned. DO NOT TELL honda he missed a shift! Actually, i would let his parents take the car up there and tell honda that the dad was driving it or something. Honda wont think that the kids dad is taking a car out racing people left and right. If they see your friend just come in, make up a B.S. story why his car is broke, and see the car lowered, they will put 2 and 2 together and automatically assume he was racing the car when he ruined his head. Good luck!!!

 

your friend is pretty much S.O.L. unless the dealer is an idiot. I've come close to doing the same thing in my sol, luckily i didnt damage anything. as far as warranty covering it, if the mechanic knows 'anything' about the internals of the motor, they'll know it was over-revved if more than one valve has come in contact with a piston. wish him good luck though, maybe the mechanic will play stupid and cover it anyway.

 

One of my friends did a 4th redline to third, bent the valves and screwed up the engine. The dealer is replacing the engine, he lucked out. Say you were driving normally or something and the engine light came on, BS your way out of it if you can.

 

You may as well have your friend replace the valves and whatever else he F'd up with aftermarket parts. With any luck he'll have a fully built engine after this. I'm curious as to what the dealer will do.

 

Jeez, how fast is a Prelude going at redline in 4th gear? 115-130mph? I'm surprised that he didn't loose control of the car stuffing it into 3rd at that speed...

Andrew

 

I nailed 2nd gear @ 90 mph. the speedo on my 4th gen went from redline to 25 mph

the clutch blew up, but no damage to the motor. the guy I was racing even gave me a ride home - 2 days later and a free clutch from ACT, I was back in business

 

well the dealer is looking at it today.. hopefully everything will be covered. i havent talked to my friend yet but as soon as i do ill let everyone know whats the deal and what got fucked up.. i told him that if they dont cover this under the extended warranty w/ an egnine that only has 6k miles on it to demand the money back from the warranty and tell honda to **** themselves.. and i think he did say to honda he mis shifted i dont know yet.. well see

 

Well, the warranty he paid for was an extended warranty - most likely the Honda Care extended warranty. That warranty is useless now until his factory warranty on the car expires at 3yrs 36,000 mi anyway. The factory warranty is more comprehensive than the extended warranty. So if they deny the claim under Honda factory warranty, it definitely would have also been denied under the extended warranty too...

Did you say he paid $2000 for the extended warranty? Sounds awefully steep to me... I bought the 7yr/100,000 mi extended Honda Care warranty for $800 when I bought my 2000 Prelude...

Andrew

 

Dude!!!

1) The warranty is there for your protection against a failure due to a manufacturing flaw. Not because you miss a gear. I think everyone who has driven the hell out of their car has at some point mis-shifted. I know I have...but I jam the clutch back in as soon as I hear the RPMs going up instead of down.

2) The stock clutch isn't going to instanty engage to peg the tach, and even if it did the redline for 2nd is like 65mph (actual # in the manual). I think the time it would take to bring the clutch up to speed would be enough to scrub 5mph.

It sounds to me like he was doing more like 85-90 and stone dropped the clutch or was trying to shift without it.

If your buddy can get away with it..more power to him and thank to gods of dumb service managers..but if not... I wouldn't even begin to say F**K them. YOU make a mistake like that YOU get to pay the consequences.

If they don't take this opportunity to modify the motor