Okay, I'll admit up front I'm a woman with little knowledge of cars, so I'm hoping to get some help.
I have a 2004 Civic, 70K miles, never missed a scheduled maintenance, and all maintenance has been done at dealer.

The service dept just told me I need an oil pan because mine is rusted and if anything heavy falls on my car, or even if I were to hit a curb, the entire pan could give out.

This is not making sense to me. Is it normal for an oil pan on a well maintained 5 yr old vehicle to rust out? I've had older cars that haven't needed this. In fact, a friend of mine has a 9-year old 8-cyl truck that hasn't needed the oil pan replaced. I have a suspicion that they're trying to talk me into a service I don't really need, but I don't want to risk damaging my car by not doing something I should.

I have a few questions:

Don't all oil pans have at least some rust on them? I mean, from what I can see it's under the car and over 5 years it would be weird to me if it didn't have some rust on it.

How much rust would there have to be for it to be considered in dire need of replacement?

How much rust is "safe" to have?

What conditions would lead to it being so rusted it would need to be replaced ASAP? For the past two years I've been working from home, so it does sometimes sit in the parking lot of my building for a week straight, but I drive it at least once a week, and it's not like I park it in a pond or submerged in fertilizer or anything. It's in a parking lot.

They also told me I have a small leak in the radiator hose, so that with the oil pan and the scheduled maintenance are a grand total of $800, right before Christmas. I don't want to pay for anything I don't actually need, and I'd love to sound like I know what I'm talking about when I call them back, so any help you guys can give me would be extremely appreciated.

Thanks!

 

You are not saying where you live, here in Nova Scotia a car would see lots of salt air from the Atlantic Ocean, as well as the extreme amount of road salt used. Most people do not wash or look under their car, so a real mess can appear because it is not visible to most people. If you have not used any sort of body manintenance progam, then it is possible that you have let your oil pan blister from a initial rock chip. My 2004 is going into winter season number seven, I change my own oil so I get to see blisters as they start to appear, and try to slow their growth. Oil pans do rust quickly here, a coworker has a 2005 Hyundai, he touched the blister and put a hole right through his oil pan. Have someone else look at your problems to see if they can wait, or should be changed asap. A good shop would at least let you look at the bottom of the pan while the car was in the air to first hand to show you the problem. Service advisors are usually paid on comission, so of course they are trying to sell you the repairs. Good Luck.

 

Get a second opinion. The radiator hose may be something to be concerned about, because if you leak a lot of coolant, your engine might overheat and blow the head gasket. It is a $5 part that an independent shop will probably replace for $50-100.

As for the oil pan, not sure. Any chance you can get a picture. Its probably normal for it to have some surface rust, but I wouldnt say you are in danger unless it is flaking rust hardcore.

 

Without seeing the car, it's hard to gauge whether you actually do need a new pan or not. It's doubtful, but in many years of working with cars I have seen a lot of strange things happen, so it certainly is possible.

I'm assuming this is a DX, VP, or LX model. If it's an EX then it would have an aluminum oil pan, in which case they're definitely trying to bullshit you..

I don't know what "scheduled maintenance" you're having done at 5 years/70,000 miles, but there is no way that a steel oil pan and a radiator hose should add up to an $800 bill. The pan itself is less than $100 new from Honda (including gasket) and they shouldn't be charging you more than 2.5 hours (flat rate) in labor, which at a very generous $100/hour still only adds up to $350 installed for the pan if they're saving the old oil. Figure in an additional $20 for changing the oil and filter at the same time. Radiator hoses are an easy fix; one new OEM hose is less than $15 and labor to install shouldn't be more than an hour. Add in coolant and disposal fees, and you should be looking at somewhere around $130 for the hose installed. That brings us up to a grand total of $500, still $300 shy of the $800 estimate. What else are they doing?

You need to take the car to a different shop for a second opinion. Don't take it just anywhere; find an independent specialist in Honda/Acura vehicles that you can trust.

Just for reference, a new oil pan and both rad hoses installed all together wouldn't run you more than $340 total at my shop including new oil/filter and coolant - and I always estimate a few dollars to the high side.

 

Same here, we get alot of salt on our cars here in Newfoundland, year round exposure to the oceans salt, and then 4 months of road salt. I change my own oil and do most of my own maintaince, entering winter #9, my oil pan is only showing very minimal rusting, I have my car rust checked every year anyway so that might be helping.

 

Thank you all for the responses! I found an independent shop that comes well recommended and has a good, long-standing reputation. I told them what the dealer said and asked them to give me their opinion, so I dropped my car off there this morning before they even opened and should hear from them this morning.
I tried looking under the car with a really good flashlight (the problem is by the time I'm able to go out and look it's already pretty dark outside). I couldn't see very well, but I'm pretty sure I was looking at the right thing and I didn't see anything that looked like extreme rust or corrosion.

I live in New England but nowhere near the coast, and for the first 2 years I owned the car I was driving back and forth to work every day (all highway, 30 miles each way) so during the winter I saw a lot of road salt, but since then I've been working from home and when the winter weather sets in I generally don't take my car anywhere, so it's minimal exposure now.

I didn't know a rock chip could cause a blister/rust problem, so that's really good to know, and it's definitely possible - but I would think the service department would have mentioned it since I take my car in a couple of times a year and they're the only ones who've ever changed the oil. That's what irks me too - even if for some odd reason the oil pan is really rusted, why is this the first I'm hearing of it, when it's (supposedly) already so bad it's ready to rust right through. From here out I'm not going to the dealer for anything. Targa250R, I could drive from N.E. to PA, have your shop do the work and drive back and still pay less than what they'd charge me! They said the oil pan alone was $349, not including labor.

Thanks again for the help. It'll be interesting to hear what the shop has to say today.