NHTSA Complaint #11571696 — 2018 HONDA ODYSSEY

My wife was driving our 2018 Honda Odyssey when there was acute diminished and very unstable engine power on 7/10/2023. She heard a "knocking" noise like metal-on-metal and pushing the accelerator resulted in very uneven increase in speed - in fact, it would not go above 30mph. She immediately took the van to our local car dealership, but it was very difficult to drive the 1-2 miles it took for her to get there. Her safety was put at risk because the engine did not provide reliable power to drive after that acute event and she easily could have been rear-ended or involved in an accident. We were both very thankful that our children were not in the van at the time. The check engine light immediately came on as well when this happened and when she got to the dealer, the service department identified a P0303 stored code suggesting a cylinder 3 misfire on the lower block. There were metal fragments in the oil and they noticed internal noise/knocking. They informed us that we would need to have a new engine installed. I spoke to our dealership today 2/13/24 and they felt like it was highly probable that a manufacturing defect related to the Honda service bulletin 23-097 for Connecting Rod Bearing problems could be the manufacturing defect and culprit for why our engine stopped working. This bulletin covers build dates of 2018-2019 Honda Odyssey vans from 4/9/2018 through 8/28/2018. Our build date was prior to October 2017 is what our dealer has told me. I do not believe that our defective engine would be available for inspection as I believe the dealership discarded it after installing a salvaged engine, also from a 2018 Odyssey. I do not believe any other agency inspected our defective engine after it was removed. The dealership also was unaware of the 23-097 service bulletin, since they were informed of that later in the year during November 2023. We took excellent care of this vehicle (bought new) and all service was performed on-schedule at dealership.