Wow. Another cracked manifold here on a 98' Civic LX, non VTech. The crack was noticed by our head technician in our dealership (Toyota). He only noticed the crack because he smelled the exhaust. It occurred right in the middle of the manifold, at the bifurcation and intruded into the threads for the 02 sensor. You couldn't hear it or see it, but I was trying to get this thing inspected so I could buy it for my girlfriend. She has a 94' Civic that's falling out from under her, so I bought this Civic cheap and figured it would be a good commuter car for her. The car was a 1 owner, "senior" lady, absolutely immaculate interior, and great body. (the Car, not the ole lady) After replacing the rotors and drums, I found a manifold with Catalytic for $180 NEW! And jumped all over it. I patched up the leak to pass inspection, and am about to finish the job on Friday, will post pictures if it will let me.

I took my car in to the dealer- Honda of Thousand Oaks, in Thousand Oaks, California, for its scheduled maintenance at 90K miles. I have taken my car in for every scheduled maintenance (i.e. I take care of my car). I was told the exhaust manifold was cracked and needed to be repaired. I didn't do any research into this since it was my 3rd Honda that I had owned so I trusted them. I went ahead and had the repair done and it cost about $1000. I have since realized that a lot of Hondas have had this problem since when this happened a second time I did do some research. (Refer to my second complaint about this for the second occurrence).

This is my second complaint for the exact same problem with my car- only 2 and a half years later. I took my car in to the dealer- Honda of Thousand Oaks, in Thousand Oaks, California, for its scheduled maintenance. My car was at about 133K miles. Two and a half years prior to this the dealer told me the exhaust manifold was cracked and needed to be repaired. At the time I didn't do any research into this since it was my 3rd Honda that I had owned so I trusted them. I went ahead and had the repair done and it cost about $1000. When I took my car in this time, they told me that the exhaust manifold was cracked AGAIN! I reminded them that they had just repaired it 2.5 years ago (and only 43 K miles later) but the service person told me that they only warranty their replacement parts for one year! Since I didn't feel that I had any other choice but to have it repaired, I had the repair done for ANOTHER $1000. I later called the service department manager-Len Akers- who told me that the part should last 70-80K miles but that there was nothing he could do to compensate me. I guess he had already spent the money I paid him for the repair!! He went on to say that he "couldn't" absorb the cost of the part himself because with the economy the way it was, Honda Corporation wasn't doing as much goodwill compensation.

This is my 3rd and LAST Honda! I only hope this part doesn't crack and I have to write a 3rd complaint about this before I can buy a new car and get rid of this piece of cr-p!