snap ring failure

[Larry Bastanza]

We have to compare apples to apples. From what I am hearing in this thread there is some inconsistency.

Snap-ring failure requires two labor operations:

R & R trans - 10 hrs at a dealer out here ($720 @ $72/hr)
Rebuild Trans - 7-10 hrs so up to $720

EDIT PER DISCUSSION BELOW: Just Snap-ring fix/Not Rebuild Labor - 4- 5 hours $350

Above is LABOR only.

Best case (no pun intended) $500-700 parts (Just to fix snap-ring, NOT a rebuild.

Looking like about $1500- 2000 TOTAL.


So, above when we comment $XXXX for the "repair" what do we mean??

LarryB

 

[nsx_parts]

Sooo glad I have a six-speed right now!!!

Sorry to hear your case failed!

 

[nsxtasy]

The "gamble" is paying less for an in-range car than an out-of-range car (all things being equal) and hoping that it will never fail.

Okay... that makes more sense, because (as noted above) there really is no significant downside to waiting for the transmission to fail.

However, even if he "loses" the gamble because the snap ring fails, that doesn't mean he "loses" any money on the deal. Discounts for purchasing an unrepaired car in the snap ring range typically are in the $1500-2500 range. And repair costs when the snap ring fails are typically in that same dollar range. So even if it fails, he's ahead or breaking even. (If it hadn't failed, he would be ahead by the entire amount.) Which is not a bad gamble to take - a "win-win" (or, at least, a "win-breakeven") gamble is nice.

If it were up to me, I would do what jlindy did - buy the parts from Dali for $635, and have Bob at Import Specialists do it for $825. (Heck, he's already done jlindy's so you know he has the experience!) And not worry about trying to chisel an extra payment out of Acura when you're already ahead of the game; I would just pay the $1500 for the repair and move on...

(And incidentally, based on Larry B's analysis, it sounds like it takes 17-20* hours and thus would cost a lot more than the $700-1000 that St. Louis Acura estimated - which means it's smart of them to demand that it be done on a T&M basis. Obviously Bob's hourly rate is much less than the $100/hour that SLA gets.)

*Larry - 17-20 hours sounds slightly high to me. I had my NSX tranny rebuilt a couple of weeks ago and I'm quite certain they didn't spend more than two days on it.

 

[DDozier]

Larry - As I understand it the labor being quoted is for 7 hours to R&R the trany and replace the cover, snapring, seal, shim. They are not going to need to rebuild the trany unless other damage is found. There should not be any additional damage to the trany if when the snap ring failed you stop driving it. I am getting this info direct from Mark Basch's write up. I guess additional damage could have been done but at this point that is an unknown, so the quote is for the service described above.

Ken - I do not think getting Acura to repair a manufacturing defect via goodwill is an example of dubble dipping, by your logic if I had not been prudent and adjusted my asking price then I would have more merrit in asking Acura to repair a defective part? Besides when I adjusted my price I had no way of knowing if Acura would or would not goodwill the repair, If I was 100% certain that they would I would have payed the full asking price, picked up the car and went straight to the dealer the day I bought it.

The real issue here is not what I am paying to repair a manufacturing defect, it is that "I", not Acura is paying for a manufacturing defect. From all I have been able to tell about the snap ring issue is that it is not related to time. If the part was made wrong it will fail, if it was made right it will not fail, seems simple to me. The fact that my car is not driven 20K miles a year (more like 4-5K a year) just means it will take longer for the part made wrong to fail, but rest assured it will fail, and most likely at the same mileage point. So if the part had failed within mileage warranty then in my mind it should be covered as time does not appear to be the issue.

Dave

 

[nsxtasy]

All I know is, I have a two-year-old Acura and a twelve-year-old Acura. When something goes wrong on the two-year-old Acura, I expect Acura to pay for the repair, because it's still under warranty. When something goes wrong on the twelve-year-old Acura, I expect to pay for the repair myself, because the warranty expired nine years ago. The warranty represents their obligation to repair things that are defective and fail, and it doesn't last the life of the car.

 

[DDozier]

Ken - Point taken, however if you and your neighbor had the same car, and had the same failure and the manufacturer fixed his but not yours, how would that make you feel? Remember Acura has set precedence for repairing this failure for vehicles both in and out of warrantee. I do realize all good things must and will come to an end, but in my opinion this issue should end after they have repaired all of the defective parts. Perhaps if I was the original owner of the vehicle maybe Acura might have more consideration.

The scary thing for me is a month earlier I was tracking this car at Gateway International, this is a very unforgiving course and any mechanical failure is likely to result in a collision with concrete or worse yet someone else’s car. I know this is certainly not an issue on the minds of the Acura Customer Service Rep, but maybe it should be, and before you say Acura did not intend to build race cars or all race cars require maintenance in order to perform safely, remember this is not a maintenance issue. As you yourself recommended there is no way of knowing when or if it will fail, you just have to wait and see or replace as a preventative measure

Dave

 

[nsxtasy]

if you and your neighbor had the same car, and had the same failure and the manufacturer fixed his but not yours, how would that make you feel?

While goodwill was fairly common for the first few years after the warranty expired, it has become extremely unusual now that these cars have been out of warranty for eight to nine years. Knowing this, if my neighbor were one of the few who turned out to be lucky enough to get some goodwill out of it, I would be very happy for him - and I would still not expect anything myself, nine years after my warranty expired. Maybe we'd go out to lunch together to celebrate, and maybe he'd pick up the tab - and I would be grateful for that, because it is more than I would ever expect.

Also, keep in mind that in the few recent instances in which Acura has provided some goodwill coverage, it has typically been under the circumstances described above - IOW covering half the cost of the a new transmission, and none of the labor, with the labor done at the dealer. So even with the goodwill provided, the cost to the owner of doing the repair under these terms is actually thousands of dollars more than it would be if you had the snap ring and upper case only replaced.

Finally, given the cost of the repair - and, on the NSX, a $1500 repair is NOT an expensive repair - I would be quite inclined to just pay it and get it done (by Bob). A $1500 repair comes up every once in a while. For example, I just paid more than that to have my tranny rebuilt, due to some gear crunching caused by worn teeth on the third gear hub selector. Stuff happens on any car, and you get it fixed and move on with your life, no big deal.

The scary thing for me is a month earlier I was tracking this car at Gateway International, this is a very unforgiving course and any mechanical failure is likely to result in a collision with concrete or worse yet someone else’s car. I know this is certainly not an issue on the minds of the Acura Customer Service Rep, but maybe it should be, and before you say Acura did not intend to build race cars or all race cars require maintenance in order to perform safely, remember this is not a maintenance issue.

Remember, this is not a safety issue, either. The snap ring failure typically does not happen all at once - there are some symptoms that develop and you have an inkling beforehand - and when it does happen, it becomes difficult to shift in gear and the gearshift lever feels loose. It does not create a driving hazard, and of all the cases of snap ring failure we have heard, we have not heard of a single one in which the failure caused an accident. So that argument just doesn't hold water, either.

So Dave - how much would you say you saved when you bought your car, because it was in the snap ring range? $1500 to $2500, right?

Finally, remember, once you have this fixed, your car's market value will no longer be lower because of the snap ring status. So let's add it all up:

1. You saved $1500-2500 when you bought the car. (EDIT) At this point you are $1500-2500 ahead if it never breaks. (For example, maybe you paid $28K for a $30K car.) However, you will lose that $1500-2500 when you sell the car at a discount due to the snap ring status.

2. (EDIT) Your snap ring fails. You're going to pay $1500-2000 for the snap ring repair. So you are no longer $1500-2500 ahead; you are even, for now (in our example, having paid $30K for a $30K car).

3. Your car is then going to be worth $1500-2500 more because it will no longer be considered a snap ring car. (EDIT) So, in our example, you will be able to sell the car you paid $28K+$2K for, for $30K. So you are still even.

Add it all up, and the bottom line is that you are (EDIT) even - not out of pocket for the repair at all, even without any goodwill from Acura. And you're upset because they won't give you still more?

The fact of the matter is, the only person who is really losing out because of the snap ring status of your car, is the previous owner; he's the one who lost $1500-2500 (when he sold it) because of the snap ring status, not you. He's the only one who lost anything, and he is the only one who has any right to feel put out.

EDIT - corrected statements about the value.

 

[DDozier]

I do as posted earlier realize that Acura's liability is limited, but as I stated to the dealer and Acura customer service I would be happy if they just replaced the defective parts and I would then pay for the labor. I really do not think that is to far off base for a fair resolution. You may not agree, but given a choice of spending 700.00 to repair or 700.00 on Mods or 700.00 on maintenance, I would not chose repair.

Dave

 

[gheba_nsx]

So Dave - how much would you say you saved when you bought your car, because it was in the snap ring range? $1500 to $2500, right?

Finally, remember, once you have this fixed, your car's market value will no longer be lower because of the snap ring status. So let's add it all up:

1. You saved $1500-2500 when you bought the car.

2. You're going to pay $1500-2000 for the snap ring repair.

3. Your car is then going to be worth $1500-2500 more because it will no longer be considered a snap ring car.

Add it all up, and the bottom line is that you are going to be $1500-2500 ahead of the game, even without any goodwill from Acura.

Wait wait... that is not the case (if I understand that "you are going to be ahead of the game"). He will be even after the repair, not ahead.

The car has value X if snap ring was not an issue (*).

He pays X- 2000$.

Snap rings break, he adds 2000$ for repair: he paid x-2000+2000 = x

He paid x for a car that has value x (see (*)).

 

[nsxtasy]

You're right, gheba - my bad.

I have corrected my previous post.

As you point out, Dave is still coming out even. The only person who lost money on the snap ring status is the person who sold the car to Dave.

 

[Larry Bastanza]

DDozier,

You are correct, my quote was high. I mentioned labor for a trans rebuild, not just the case swap/snap ring replacement. (Obviously your source is correct)


LarryB

 

[jlindy]

Larry - As I understand it the labor being quoted is for 7 hours to R&R the trany and replace the cover, snapring, seal, shim. They are not going to need to rebuild the trany unless other damage is found. There should not be any additional damage to the trany if when the snap ring failed you stop driving it. I am getting this info direct from Mark Basch's write up. I guess additional damage could have been done but at this point that is an unknown, so the quote is for the service described above.

Ken - I do not think getting Acura to repair a manufacturing defect via goodwill is an example of dubble dipping, by your logic if I had not been prudent and adjusted my asking price then I would have more merrit in asking Acura to repair a defective part? Besides when I adjusted my price I had no way of knowing if Acura would or would not goodwill the repair, If I was 100% certain that they would I would have payed the full asking price, picked up the car and went straight to the dealer the day I bought it.

The real issue here is not what I am paying to repair a manufacturing defect, it is that "I", not Acura is paying for a manufacturing defect. From all I have been able to tell about the snap ring issue is that it is not related to time. If the part was made wrong it will fail, if it was made right it will not fail, seems simple to me. The fact that my car is not driven 20K miles a year (more like 4-5K a year) just means it will take longer for the part made wrong to fail, but rest assured it will fail, and most likely at the same mileage point. So if the part had failed within mileage warranty then in my mind it should be covered as time does not appear to be the issue.

Dave

Wait, wait here...am I missing something. If the snap ring is broken, to fix it correctly, you HAVE to rebuild the tranny with the upper case, etc. right? If you just remove it and slap a new snap ring in there, it is a matter of time before it happens again. The snap ring breaks because of a too large grove in the tranny case that houses the ring, not because of a defective $2 piece of metal. What is the point of spending $700 on doing that? Am I right or have a gone way off here? Ken, Larry, anyone?

 

[nsxtasy]

You are correct, that the upper transmission case must be replaced along with the snap ring.

Whether that requires the much higher labor estimate for "rebuilding" the transmission, Larry can tell you better than I can.

 

[erobbins]

Whether that requires the much higher labor estimate for "rebuilding" the transmission, Larry can tell you better than I can.

In talking with Kevin Adams, the NSX mechanic at Goodson who maintains the DAL race NSX, about the only thing that isn't done during the "snap ring repair" by replacing the transmission housing is to actually remove / replace gears from the mainshaft and countershaft.

The whole thing has to come out of the car and be completely disassembled on a table. NSteXpo attendees got to see this first hand - it's not a quick thing.

EDR

 

[DDozier]

OK here is the deal,

To repair the trans you must remove it from car replace the upper case, replace snap ring, replace a thrush washer and counter shaft bearing. All these pieces must be replaced to insure the failure will not happen again.

Acura calls for 4.5 hours to Remove and Reinstall the trany. The Snap ring repair is an additional 2.5 hours for a total of 7 hours labor. add this 7 hours labor to the $700.00 in parts and the repair will cost a min. of $1300 - $1500.00 to complete. This assumes no additional damage was done due to pieces of the damaged snap ring being sent through the trany. If so the repair can be as high as 8,000.00 plus labor if it was handled through the dealer with only new OEM parts, but more likely about $3500.00 using a rebuilt unit.

There is another thing to think of here and that is of time lost while waiting for replacement parts and the aggravation of the issue as well. At a min my car will be out of service for 2 weeks. Not a huge problem for me but if it was your daily driver this could get sticky.

Anyway, as the number of snap ring range cars start to change hands, and end up being driven more by their second or third owners. I really think this problem is going to grow not just disappear as these car start hitting the 30-40-50k mile marks. There are a lot of snap ring range tranys out there with less than 35k miles on them, just look at the adds. Auto trader has over 83 listing for 91-92 cars and almost all have less than 45k miles, how many are in snap ring range, I do not know, how many have been fixed, I do not know, how many will fail, I do not know, how many will never fail, I do not know, but I would bet that someone at Honda/Acura has a real good idea, that is the same someone that worked the problem backwards from the first few failures to find the manufacturing problem and come up with a "possible effected range". If we were able to get the 2400 people who have cars in this range to supply data you would be able to find a pattern, and most likely force Acura/Honda to do more than they have done.

My car will start its repair process on Monday, and I hope everthing inside is OK. I was very carefull, did see the warning signs, was only moving 25 mph, and was able to park it within a mile of failure.

Dave

 

[nsxtasy]

Auto trader has over 83 listing for 91-92 cars and almost all have less than 45k miles

Autotrader currently has 46 1991 NSXs listed (including 3 automatics) and 37 1992 NSXs listed (including 2 automatics).

Median mileage on NSXs is about 5K miles per year, and if you count those Autotrader ads, you will find that half of those cars have over 45K miles on them.

how many are in snap ring range, I do not know, how many have been fixed, I do not know, how many will fail, I do not know, how many will never fail, I do not know

Roughly 40 percent of NSX sales were sold in the United States. Therefore, it's pretty safe to conclude that roughly 1000 snap ring range NSXs were sold in the United States.

We know how many cars were sold in the United States - 3163 cars for the 1991 model year, and 1270 for the 1992 model year. Knock out the automatics, and you get 2886 and 1131. We also know that approximately 80 percent of the 1991 sales were not in the snap ring range. Therefore, we can conclude that approximately 500-600 snap ring cars were sold in 1991 and approximately 400-500 in 1992. This is about 20 percent of '91 five-speed sales and 40 percent of '92 five-speed sales.

Three of the Autotrader listings for '91 note that the car is not in the snap ring range, and one says that it was but the transmission has been replaced.

 

[DDozier]

Ken – I will have to take your numbers for what they are, frankly I do not have the time to count them up, but as far as your numbers about the percentage of cars in the US, I have a couple of questions. Would the cars being produced for the US have been made in sequence? I would think they have some flexibility in assembly since they are hand built, but I would think the assembly jigs would be set up for a right hand drive run and not reconfigured until they were ready to make left hand drive cars. If this is the case it is possible that a bulk of the bad transmissions made it in a single production run of cars headed to the US and only a few made it elsewhere. Of course this is a guess, but then so are your numbers. There is just too many unknowns to do anything but guess. We do know that there are approximately 2400 transmissions that fall in the range. Using your numbers 900-1100 might be in the US, leaving 1300 min going elsewhere.

Do we know worldwide production numbers for the 92 model year? My personal belief is that a vast majority of the 92 US production is in snap ring range, of course I can not prove it, again Acura knows the exact numbers. It is clear that some have shown up in Europe after reading posts from others but how many? I do not know it is an interesting discussion but with out all the data may be a waste of time.

I just wish that someone within Acura would have made a different decision about recall. I know you say there are no reported accidents due to snap ring failure, but if my car jumped out of gear at 7k rpm while I was on the track I am sure that would have resulted in a spin.

Too many questions without answers, my head is starting to hurt, and I really miss driving my NSX.

Dave

 

[nsxtasy]

Would the cars being produced for the US have been made in sequence?

I don't know. It's quite possible that they build, say, 50 in a row for the U.S. market, then 5 for Canada, then 40 for Japan, then 10 for Europe; it's equally possible that they intermix them entirely. The computer controls over manufacturing processes were around well before 1990, so the latter would have been technically feasible. However, they needed to ship to all markets at least monthly, maybe even more frequently, so I'm sure that any production that lasted for more than a month was uniformly distributed to markets in proportion to their sales.

If this is the case it is possible that a bulk of the bad transmissions made it in a single production run of cars headed to the US and only a few made it elsewhere.

I don't think that's possible. Remember, we're talking about 2400 cars worldwide. That was somewhere between 10 and 12 months of production at that time. That means they were virtually certain to have been sent to all markets in equal percentages to the sales in those markets. They don't ship to one market for an entire year, and then start manufacturing for another market.

Of course this is a guess, but then so are your numbers.

No, my numbers are not guesses. They are extrapolations based on knowledge of actual, published production numbers and actual, published sales figures.

Do we know worldwide production numbers for the 92 model year?

No, but we can extrapolate worldwide sales (not production) numbers for the '92 calendar (not model) year. More specifically, quoting figures on this site, they were:

Japan 702
Europe 297

One can assume that calendar year 1992 sales for the NSX were somewhere between the 1270 sold for model year 1992 and the 608 sold for model year 1993, which means they were probably around 1050 (calculated by averaging 8 months selling the '92 model and 4 selling the '93). Canadian sales have generally been around 10 percent of U.S. sales, so you can call them 105. There were probably a few hundred sold in all other markets (Asia/Oceania/Latin America/etc); if those were 550 cars, for a worldwide total of 2600, the U.S. sales were 40 percent; if they were only 150 cars, for a worldwide total of 2200, the U.S sales would have been 45 percent. So from these published numbers, it's safe to assume that U.S. sales were 40-45 percent of worldwide sales at that time; hence the estimate of around 1000 snap ring cars in the States.

My personal belief is that a vast majority of the 92 US production is in snap ring range

On what basis do you say that? Please show exactly what basis you use to come up with that conclusion, because all the other published, documented numbers indicate that this statement is false.

Keep in mind that, while the transmission numbers can't be tied precisely to the snap ring range, the fact is, the transmissions come from the transmission assembly line and get transported to the NSX assembly line. It's reasonable to assume that the snap ring transmissions started getting manufactured at one point in time, and starting around that time (plus whatever lag there is in transporting them to the NSX assembly line) were installed in almost all the NSXs built; similarly, they stopped making them in the snap ring range at one time, and shortly thereafter, they stopped getting installed in almost all the NSXs built. Thus it's reasonable to conclude that the snap ring range transmissions were installed in the cars starting at approximately one VIN number and stopping at approximately another one. You can't be certain about any particular car, especially if it's around the time they started or stopped, but you can come pretty darn close.

I am not sure when they stopped getting installed in NSXs, but I know they started getting installed in NSXs about the time they were building VIN MT002600 for the U.S. market, and VINs for 1991 went up as high as MT00321x; hence there were 500-600 snap ring trannies for MY 1991 (the 600 cars in the VIN sequence include some automatics). That leaves 400-500 snap ring trannies for MY 1992, which is less than half of the MY '92 sales of 1131 five-speeds.

It is clear that some have shown up in Europe after reading posts from others but how many?

Well, we know that NSX sales in Europe have been 11-13 percent of worldwide sales (as noted above), and that snap ring sales are proportional to the number of cars sold in that market. So it's safe to assume that 11-13 percent of the snap ring cars, or around 300, were sold in Europe.

I do not know it is an interesting discussion but with out all the data may be a waste of time.

Actually, we have pretty good approximations of answers to all the questions you're asking. I just don't see what you are trying to prove by asking where the snap ring cars went (they went all over the world) or why this is relevant to your own personal situation.

I know you say there are no reported accidents due to snap ring failure, but if my car jumped out of gear at 7k rpm while I was on the track I am sure that would have resulted in a spin.

I don't know why you keep harping on that, because that's not the way the snap ring fails (and besides, jumping out of gear doesn't necessarily cause a spin). Again, that argument is pretty silly, since that's not the way it happens, dontcha think?

I really miss driving my NSX.

Well, if you had simply ordered the parts from Dali and made the appointment for the repair at the time this all happened, the snap ring repair to your car would probably be completed by the end of the day tomorrow. That's what I don't understand - why you have spent so much time agonizing over this, and analyzing data without any apparent objective that's relevant to your repair, all of which only results in aggravation to you and delays the repair of your car - instead of just concentrating on arranging the repair and paying the $1500, which is not all that big a deal anyway. (It's not peanuts, but it's less than a clutch replacement or a 90K service.) By simply proceeding with the repair, you would probably be paying less than you would under most goodwill scenarios (remember, the goodwill has typically been offered as a partial payment for replacing the entire transmission, not for the $1500 replacement of the snap ring and tranny case), you're not out any money (you're simply paying back what you saved when you bought the car), you would be getting your car back much sooner, and you would be a lot happier... and isn't enjoying driving your car what it's supposed to be all about?

 

[DDozier]

Ken – you are an amazing individual, you are the one of the few people I know who has managed to mass an enormous amount of information about an NSX and based on your last post you did it with out ever asking a question only answering them. You da man!

If it makes you feel better to know my personal time line for my repair here it is.

6/21/03 snap ring failed
6/23/03 ordered parts from Dali Racing
6/23/03 set appointment with dealer, but did not have a tech available until 6/30/03
6/24/03 started asking questions to better understand the problem
6/26/03 waiting for parts
6/26/03 stopped asking questions to better understand a problem because Ken said so

Dave

1 entry found for extrapolation.
Entry: projection
Function: noun
Definition: prediction
Synonyms: calculation, computation, estimate, estimation, extrapolation, forecast, guess, prognostication, reckoning
Concept: prediction
Source: Roget's Interactive Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.0.0)
Copyright © 2003 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

 

[jrehner]

I think the important thing is to help on the original issue--the problem stems only from 91 & 92 cars from what I have read and what's more important is that the failure may never take place and I believe that is one big reason why Mark says there is no need to repair the potential problem until it occurs..If the failure does occur it does not create any further damage anyway--as one person said--he could still drive it home.

So people who know the car or those who did not but investigated before buying would negotiate with sellers accordingly. If the person who began this thread is not thinking of selling the car anytime soon--then why bother to repair that which has not failed? Don't say peace of mind-it's not an issue...

AS the saying goes "If if ain't broke, don't fix it" Jim Rehner

 

[jrehner]

I was just reading about poor Matteni in the vendor section--See My Nightmare with ACR--another good argument not to fix what ain't broken....