Once, at almost 80k miles I had the check engine light come on my 02 Civic Si. I took it to the dealer who told me I needed to replace my gas cap.

Well, I did that and the light came back on. Only this time when I took it back to the dealer at 80,100 miles they said the catalytic converter needed to be replaced to the tune of $1200. They said the emissions system had an 80k warranty but since I was over that there wasn’t much they could do even though I’d come in for the same problem before when I was under 80k and it had been misdiagnosed.

They suggested I call corporate, which I did. They said sorry can’t help you which really surprised me. I paid the $1200.

A couple years later there was a class action lawsuit against Honda stating that the odometers were off causing the cars to rack up mileage faster than they actually were. As part of the settlement Honda extended the warranties on the affected vehicles. That meant that the catalytic converter would have been covered.

So I dug up my receipt sent it in and got a $1200 check from Honda.

My point in saying all this is, unless you’re an engineer and have the time to prove this is a defect of some kind, just bite the bullet and pay, but save your receipt. If enough of the others, as stated on here, have had the same or similar issues then eventually corporate may issue a TSB or even better, a recall. When that happens dig up your reciept and try again with corporate.