At 120K the connecting rod in my 03 Honda Accord (2.4 L, 4 cyl) snapped and the engine needs to be replaced.

I took pretty good care of my car. Regular oil changes at 5K intervals. What could've caused this? I hadscheduled maintenance performed at 30K, 90K and was going to do one at 120K.

 

My 2003 blew up just over 100,000 miles and was one that had the Mysterious oil loss. The timing chain slack adjuster failed and the valves hit the pistons. On the way back from Home Depot the check engine light came on. There is a parts store in the same parking lot and they got the code which was the cam timing sensor. I drove a few blocks and that was the end. The Honda dealership said it was very low on oil and no signs of leaking. I topped it off the day before. I think there were a few bad engines in the 2003's as that is pretty much the only year I read about early failures. My oil light never came on. I had the dealership put a use engine in for me. It was $3500.

 

Kris,

That's really interesting, because I'd started going to a new place for my oil changes and had noticed that my oil light was coming on prematurely. I thought that the new place was just shorting me on the amount that they were putting in. The day mine snapped, the oil light had come on probably 15 minutes before.

The CEL light had come on a couple months earlier but the reading we took said it was the gas-air mix sensor (O2 sensor). We replaced it but the CEL never went off and the reading was never different.

Mine is costing me 2500. Thanks for the info.

 

I think the low oil level is what killed you engine over time. There are only a few cases of the oil consumption on the web and most I have found are the 2003 Accord. I have read that one of the cylinders were not proper machined somewhere. Nissan had a similar problem but it was related to all of a certain engine and they had to tell their customer not to drive their cars until a solution could be found. On their vehicles the catalytic converter internal parts were being sucked into combustion chamber and damaging the cylinders on the VTEC engines. I didn’t realize that the cam timing sucks exhaust for better performance during the four stoke process.

My engine was $1100 with $200 for shipping. It cost 2200 at the dealership with 400 parts and 100 towing. After they got it started there was quite a bit of trouble shooting and the exhaust manifold was leaking at the head. There were three or four items that were damaged and sent a code which other than the O2 sensor were damage from the engine in transport or being pulled at the junk yard.

I read that low oil pressure will put the check engine light on as that is one of the inputs for the computer.

Strange that the oil light did not come on for my car.

 

Chris,

Can you send me a link or tell me where you read about this? Really curious to read more about it.

 

I found the information at least a year ago. The mention of the cylinder problem on the Honda was one of the forums and there was not enough there to get Honda to get involved. The exhaust damaging the engine may be Mazda and not Nissan. I was looking to purchase either car and started out on Edmonds and look up both engines they use currently and found the information. I tried to get Honda to help on my car and did tons of research but there are just not the numbers.