Bad experience with S2K purchase - My Story

[dciisir]

Hi All,

It's been about 6-7 months since I bought and returned my S2k due to odometer tampering. Here's my story.

I was looking to purchase an S2K about 8-9 months. In about June or July last year, after looking at several S2Ks, I finally found one at a Honda Dealer. The car had 55,xxx kms on the clock and everything looked to be in good nick. I took it out for a test drive and had a visual inspection at the car. The car had full service history (doctored), and according to the salesman, had 1 previous elderly owner who had traded the S2K for a bigger family car. I put a deposit on the car pending an inspection from Stateroads. So the day for the inspection came and gone. The report indicated a very good rating for the car on the overall. There were some minor panel repairs, no accidents etc. So the day after the inspection, I went and paid for the car and drove home.

After I got home, I opened up the bonnet to have a look at the car. Everything was still good until I started the car up. I hear this really unhealthy tapping sort of noise which was not present when I was inspecting the car. So I took it to a local mechanic who specialises in Honda and they told me its the timing chain tensioner. At the same time, they said that the headers have been taken out before as there were some pinkish looking seal around the gasket. I then called Honda immediately and took it back the same day. The mechanics there had a quick look and said they will take care of it and replace the timing chain tensioner and to pick up the car the next day. So again the day came and gone and I picked up the S2K.

Several days after I had the car, I again opened up the bonnet and this time I opened up the intake box and noticed there was a hole cut on the side of the box (no wonder Vtec was so loud when engaged). I didn't think much at that time. Over the next day or two, I was browsing through Ozhonda forums for mods and came across a thread with a picture of an S2K with the exact same hole cut open on the intake box. The car was coincidentally the same colour. The plates and the wheels were different. So I started going through all the post by this individual and came to a conclusion that it was the same car. I then called up Vicroads and provided the previous plates and finally confirmed that it was indeed the very same car. I was also told that the car had gone through 5 owners. After going through pages and pages of post by the individual, I noticed that the car has had more kms that what was showing on the car. The car had at least 70,000 kms 7 months before I bought the car. The car also had the timing chain tensioner replaced 4 times and was tracked frequently. Upon inspecting the screws under the dash, I could see scratches on the plastic and evidence that it was removed previously. I went online again and printed out every single post that was relevant.

At this point I was pretty pissed off and called Honda immediately (about 1 week after purchasing the car). I explained the whole situation to them and being the salesman they are, turned me away and said I was paranoid. After several phone discussion with the salesman, it got no where so I went to see a solicitor. He contacted Honda and basically said what a solictor would say. He also managed to get the phone number of the previous owner. I was also told by my solicitor that the person who traded the car in was good mates with some of the guys at this Honda Dealer. Whilst all this was happening, I called up consumer affairs to get some advise. I was told that I needed more concrete proof that odometer tampering had taken place. I called up more than 20 of this odometer places to no avail. Each and everyone of them said that it is not possible to check on a digital odometer. I then came across a company in NZ who said they can check this. They specialise in this type of fraud and are frequently employed by individuals to provide evidence in court. The only thing was I had to take out my dash and send it to NZ. Everything looked bleak at this point until I called this place in the city which was providing the exact same service as the company in NZ. With the all the information I had printed out and the assurance of the odometer tampering company in the city, I called up the previous owner to discuss. He denied tampering with the odometer and said that he had several cars and got confused with the km readings when he made the post. He offered me all these spare parts for the S2K. At the end, I just told him that I don't believe his story and I will be booking my car in for the odometer tampering. The conversation ended there. That very afternoon, I received a call from the manager at Honda who offered to buy the car back from me + the inspection fee. From here on, everything worked out well. About a month after this incident, I saw the car went back into circulation again with the same kms and the same price though through a different car dealer now (not Honda). The individual who owned the car previously seemed to have seized all activities on this forum. Whether he came back as a different user, I don't know.

Whew... long story but would like to share this with everyone and hope no one has to go through all this crap.