sup ya'll, after washing my tsx and waxing, i've noticed little chips/scratches along my top rear bumper, right where the tail lights and rear bumper meet. is this a factory defect, or the cause of the tailights rubbing the top rear bumper where they meet? anyone else have this issue?

 

Mine is just fine, but...

If you scan the posts over at the TL board, there seem to have been similar complaints.

http://www.acura-tl.com/

 

Posts about paint chipping seems to be very frequent on this board. What is Acura doing?

 

I don't have any chips on my rear bumper, but I have quite a lot on my front bumper after a year. Especially right above the headlight on the hood, a whole lot there.
Is Acura paint cheap as heck or what? My BMW that's a 97 probably has less paint chips!!

 

could be caused by vibration from driving on rough roads, potholes, etc. no paint chips on mine nor my brother's '00 tl. but that may be because most of the roads we drive on are pretty smooth. in either case, the head/tail lights shouldn't be rubbing against the other panels. i guess it's still a bad design if a lot of people are having the problem though.

tsxy, your bmw should have less paint chips, after all, it is a bmw. wanted one myself, but couldn't afford the 330 (there's no way i'm buying a 325 if i'm getting a beamer).

 

Ya it's a BMW, but this is an Acura, and I would expect that they would have similar standards as Acura is a luxury car division

I think the paint is chipping because it's just not high quality and little rocks have the ability to chip it to easily. I actually was just looking at a 3.2TL in the parking lot here and it had a number of chips on the front also, which were all totally through to bare metal so they were rusting, and my TSX had the same thing. I've sanded the rust off and touched them up with paint recently so it looks better

 

The reasoned consensus on the paint is in the last 5 years, the EPA has cracked down on the use of solvents (in lacquers, for instance). As a consequence, mfrs. use more brittle formulations and spray fewer coats.

It isn't a Honda/Acura-specific problem, although it could be a tad worse given that Honda considers itself a "green" manufacturer and may be complying a bit more enthusiastically than others. See, e.g. http://waw.wardsauto.com/ar/auto_aut..._technologies/