Honda HRN 216 Not Warranty?

[bertsmobile1]

To make an unequivocal evaluation I would need to chop up the rod & look at the grain structure at the edge
You see an effect much like striping a lawn where the edges of the grains are all deformed in the direction of rotation where there has been no lubrication
There should also be significant discolouration on the cap and less on the rod. commonly called blueing .
If the bolt was loose / broken from new then the cap would not have been running true so would have more wear at the joint edge than at the rest of the bearing surface .
There would also be hammering damage in the middle of the rod where it got hammered into the journal every time the engine fired
I do not see evidence of overheating in the photos although to make a meaning full diagnosis a lot better photos with proper lighting would be needed
Without doing the calculations there should not have been sufficient force to shear the rod bolt and I would need some photos of the fracture surface to determine the mode of failure
While happy snaps ( well unhappy snaps actually ) are fine for the forum & face book they are of no use for an engineer who needs to see details accurately and in particular the real colours and clean dry surfaces so there is no reflection & distortions due to oil on the surface .

I have been involved in litigation where it was eventually determined that the motorcycle in this case had been run without oil in it prior to being delivered to the new owner
I have also been involved a lot of cases where the item had been run with no oil / low oil by the owner , then filled with fresh oil in order to make a false warranty claim

So the first question is was the mower delivered to you new in the box or ready to run assembled & supposedly checked by the dealer .
If the former then get a engineering / metallurgical examination of the mower and brief your attorney as there can be no arguement about it being defective from the factory thus Honda's liability.
Legal system vary but down here the full costs of the examinations are paid by the looser plus extra for inconvienance & anguish so check that first .

However if it was delivered ready to mow then your claim will be against Honda & the dealer because the dealer could have been responsible for the damage .
These are near impossible to prosecute as or instance your mower could have been a display model and 1000 kids could have pulled the starter rope with the engine being dry .

 

[HurstGN]

So saying these pictures are insufficient to determine the mode of failure, then Honda should also have the same reaction to the pictures and ask for specific pictures as bertsmobil1 has. It sounds like Honda has possibly made a premature decision in their favor. Best of luck going forward.

 

[Keithf1113]

I’m going to be the bad guy here, but everything I see leads me to a lack of lubrication. Definitely aluminum transfer to the crankshaft rod journal. A loose rod bolt would not lead to overheating to cause this. Overheating of the bearing could cause heat to buildup on the rod bearing, causing expansion in the rod, allowing the bolts to loosen. That being said, I would like to see the mag journal and bearing surfaces. Could I be wrong, yes, because there was one time I was proven wrong a couple of weeks ago.

It’s all good. I just want feedback to see if I have a case here. I don’t know much about Mower engines, but I have seen PLENTY of v6 Honda / Acura engines come

 

[sgkent]

considering that I have been waiting almost a year for some Acura parts, I have zero confidence that Honda is being run by people who care about their image any longer. The scoring on the crankshaft implies something was going on with lubrication or contamination. The thrust surfaces show some color.

 

[bertsmobile1]

considering that I have been waiting almost a year for some Acura parts, I have zero confidence that Honda is being run by people who care about their image any longer. The scoring on the crankshaft implies something was going on with lubrication or contamination. The thrust surfaces show some color.

That is a problem with the world supply model of production.
In order to make things to a disposable price parts are sourced from all over the place
many parts are unique o there will only be one supplier on the planet so if that supplier can not supply the maker is stuffed, particular if we are talking about a superceeded or obsolete part
So the tooling up costs is may times larger than the total income that will be derrived from the part .
I have been waiting for injectors & a mass air flow meter from Mitsubishi since March 2021 so right now I am accumulating the parts to drop a 4L GMH V6 in there that was fitted to the local GM vehicles .
Honda is in the same situation, some parts will be near impossible to get
B & S down here now run their warehouse as a logistics depot so when a part runs out they wait till there isa large back order before purchasing fresh stock so that when they pay for the shipment most if not all of the purchase price is already covered by the parts on back order
Not good for the customer but very profitable for the warehouse.
The cost of long term parts supply can quickly exceed the entire profit from the entire sales of a model.
This was shown to the Consumer Affairs tribunal down here way back when all of the vehicle companies challenged the 10 year manditory parts support laws.
The outcome of this is it got reduced to 6 years , which funny enough is the duration of government vehicle lease contracts .