I brought my car in this week to get my tranmission fix (5th gear grind). I ask my service rep. if everything will be covered my warranty and he said "yea...I take of it". Today I got a call from him saying that his service manager wanted to do a "tear down"
The service manager wants to pull apart the whole tranny to see if the sychros broke due to abuse or a defect. Now if they find that the sychros broke due to abuse, I have to pay $800 for the "tear down" of the tranny?
My question is to anybody that knows "how can they tell if the synchros have been abused or it was defective???"

 

smells like... BS

tell them to put it back together and your going to take it else where. Maybe the simple threat of loosing Money will straighten them out.

And first of all, before they do anything that will cost you money they are supposed to notify you. Did they?

 

Yea...They left a message on my voicemail asking for my conscent if I wanted to do the tear down or not? So is this "tear down" complete BS???

I brought the car in on Tuesday. Wednesday, my service rep. told me that they figured out the grinding was because of the synchros and they ordered the part to fix it. Today, I checked out my car at the shop to see if they fixed it already and they said that they needed to other more parts to complete it. When I got home later on, that's when I got the call from my service rep. telling me that the service manager wants to do the "tear down" before they fix anything!!!


Modified by Ph0eNix at 12:44 AM 9/27/2003


Modified by Ph0eNix at 12:47 AM 9/27/2003

 

I want them to do the "tear down", but they can just say that it's because of abuse not because of a defect. And I'll end up with an $800 "tear down" fee!

 

warranty should still cover abuse.. to certain extent. I still dont know how tearing down will tell if its been abused or not. the synchros will look slightly rounded off...., but i dunno to wat extent can they classify it as being abuse or manufacturer's defect. I would just let them do the teardown.. and threaten them that u will not pay for any extra labor because yr car is under warranty, and threaten to get a lawyer if they do.. that should scare them enough to do it for you, since they know they'll lose easily.
BTW, you have a stock clutch right?

 

Yea...stock clutch. So I should just let them do the tear down or what????

 

Doesn't sound so strange to me. Honda is just sick and tired of sponsoring everyone's personal race car. You know how much money they lose a year because of warranty work due to user or driver error and abuse or misuse?

They called you and ask for your consent. Meaning they will not go ahead and tear it down without your permission. Their technicians don't work for cookies and milk, you just don't tear down a transmission just for the sake of charging a customer $800. There are rules against it and they did give you a choice.

As far as telling if a transmission has been abuse or misuse...well simply put, a transmission gear will not break on it's own if driven and maintained properly. If it was a manufacturing issue, then there will be numerous cases before you and more than likely the transmission will fail early in it's lifespan. In that case, we have not had any major campaigns regarding this issue. I'm not saying or implying that you broke the transmission. I don't know what happened. I'm just trying to provide my perspective of this situation.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by len &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">a transmission gear will not break on it's own if driven and maintained properly. If it was a manufacturing issue, then there will be numerous cases before you and more than likely the transmission will fail early in it's lifespan. In that case, we have not had any major campaigns regarding this issue. </TD></TR></TABLE>

How can you say definitively that a gear will NEVER break unless it is abused? Did you personally do a metallurgic test on every gear to ever go in every type R? Secondly, 2nd and 5th gear syncros are reported bad here from time to time - if anything I'd say they are one of the few things I hear about breaking on stock type R's. Maybe they aren't enough of an issue for a "campaign," but that doesn't mean they aren't a known weak point in the car. The law states that a warranty must cover things unless they are proven to be the customer's fault, and frankly I find it offensive that the dealer would assume this and require the customer to authorize a teardown on the off chance that it is a customer issue. I don't KNOW it wasn't abuse, but I also don't see how the dealer could KNOW it was abuse after tearing it down.

I'd be interested to hear whether Phoenix is a young guy, possibly not white. It is really funny how all my older white friends and I can get ANYTHING covered under warranty yet my young Asian and Latino friends get the third degree every time they have a problem.

Mike D.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Ph0eNix &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">My question is to anybody that knows "how can they tell if the synchros have been abused or it was defective???"</TD></TR></TABLE>

I'm not sure. However... they can tell what the synchros look like.

I don't know if the ITR is the same way, but the NSX has three different types of "gears" (parts with teeth) that all have to line up for you to shift into gear. First is the hub selector, then is the synchro, and then is the actual gear (first gear, second gear, etc). They engage in that order, and they tend to wear in that order, too. So when people talk about the "synchros", they're often really referring to the hub selector.

As the car wears - and sure, it will wear faster with severe use (e.g. tracking), but that does not necessarily constitute abuse - the teeth on these parts will wear down, so they are no longer as sharp; they may be rounded off, or squared off, but in either case, they change shape. And this is what causes the crunching or grinding when shifting into gear.

To cure the crunching, they have to open up the transmission, and this takes a long time. It's a day to two days on the NSX, but I'm guessing no more than a day on the ITR because it's more accessible. It's expensive. (Ask me how I know this. ) If there's a real possibility of them covering it under warranty, go for it. As someone said, you're going to want to have it fixed anyway. Give them a chance and see whether they'll cover all of it, or most of it.

While they're in there, have them take a look at the clutch surfaces; if it's pretty worn, they can replace it at the same time and save you a bunch of labor.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by MikeD &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'd be interested to hear whether Phoenix is a young guy, possibly not white. It is really funny how all my older white friends and I can get ANYTHING covered under warranty yet my young Asian and Latino friends get the third degree every time they have a problem.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I know a wide variety of car owners, and I'm not unfamiliar with the phenomenon you describe. However, based on my personal observations and those of my friends, it's not a racial thing; it's strictly based primarily on age. Older Asian, Latino, and black car owners tend to get treated with respect and get things covered without accusations of street racing etc. And I know younger white owners who occasionally have the same problems you're describing. So I can only conclude that it's based primarily on age, not ethnicity. (I'm not saying it never happens as you describe, but that it's less associated with race than age.) Also, it tends to vary from one region to another (pretty unlikely in Nor Cal, if you ask me) as well as from one dealer to another. Some dealers are very good at treating everyone well; these are the dealers that most of us wish to give our business to - even those of us who are older and white.

 

okay heres i my pov... the dealership is asking for your consent for 800 just in case warranty dont pick up the tab... just to cover their ***.. i work at a honda dealership and thats what goes on.im sure the dealership wants to warranty your trans but not get their *** rammed by honda for warr your trans. my 2 cents