I started the VX up on Monday morning to go to work, and it started rough, then made this horrible grinding noise.. then RAP RAP RAP RAP RAP RAP. I drove real slow thinking it was something was dragging or something.. nope. Pulled over by the gas station down the block, and checked under the hood. Nothing appeared wrong. Pulled the dipstick just to see if anything was unusual. nope.. maybe a bit low, but probably less then a half-quart. I bought a quart and put in a little more then half in. Restarted the engine and still.. RAP RAP RAP RAP RAP.. real loud now. I drove really really slow into work (I'm only 3 miles away). By the time I got to work it was louder. I called service and made an appt for the next day. I ended up having to drive it the 10 miles to the dealer.. noise getting worse and worse. By the time I got to the dealers door, it was a pretty loud RAP by now. I got a call about 3 hours after getting back to work. "You need a short block, a rod bearing went out and the piston rod is slipping". I have 52K miles on it, and have used semi-synthetic oil, and probably never went over 4K between changes. I am not the original owner, I bought it with 29K on it. The dealer is telling me its still covered under the original power train warranty, which is good -- but he is also telling me that Isuzu will only grant the OK to do the work on a case-by-case basis. I guess they need to look at your service records and then determine if they think it was mfg or customer fault. I have an extended warranty as well, but I gues it doesn't cover things that are already covered by the mfg warranty?? So I guess as it stands, I am waiting to hear back from Isuzu if they will let the dealership to the warranty work or not. I really hope I don't screwed, because it doesn't make a lot of sense why I should pay for a silly failure like this.. I mean, is replacing complete engines a 50,000 mile service item??