darkanion

I have an '04 TSX with the 6 speed manual transmission. Yesterday morning, on my way to work, I started noticing a 'thunking' sound in the front end. My first thought was that something was stuck on a tire, as it seemed to be dependent on car speed, not engine speed.

I checked the tires when I got to work (only a mile or so away) and I didn't find anything. I came home last night and did some searches, which seemed to suggest that it could be the CV Joints.

I went out this morning, bought a floor jack, took off the front wheels, and checked things over. The boots all appear to be fine. I did notice a LITTLE BIT of play in the half-axles, but I'm not sure if it's enough to be a concern. I didn't see any ripped boots or fluid flung around anywhere. So, I put everything back together and went drive in my neighborhood, to see what I could figure out.

Under moderate acceleration (especially up hill) I hear the thunking sound. I seem to hear it more when the windows are up than when they are down (the wind noise kind of drowns it out), as the sound itself is not loud. I just know it's not supposed to be there, so it's bugging (and worrying) me.

I can actually notice the sound (and a bit of a feeling in the car) from a rolling start on up to highway speeds. At highway speed, I noticing a clicking or ticking type of feeling coming through the gearshift. That set off alarms...

I'm planning to take the car in to have it checked out tonight, but I am curious if anyone else has experienced this and if so what was the resolution? I'm hoping it's something simple, but I'm starting to fear that it could be something big (like a transmission). Any advice or comments would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

curls

Definately get it looked at. I'd still suspect the CV joint, even if you didn't see any grease anywhere. They can and do sometimes "self-destruct", although I have never heard of an OEM one doing so... just cheaper aftermarket rebuilds and the like.

Does the steering feel any looser at all? Might be tie-rods or a balljoint, although that takes a distant second in my theory as compared to the CV joint.

And, is your dealer open on Sunday for servicing? You realize it's Saturday, right? :P

darkanion

Yeah, I realize it's Saturday. I had hoped they could get to it today, when I called this morning. Apparently, though, they had too many cars ahead of it. I eased it over there, this afternoon, and they gave me an '06 TL loaner car. I guess I'll just have to "make do" with that for a couple of days, until I can get "my" car bck!

Before I left the dealership, I wanted to make sure SOME ONE there knew what it was doing. I definitely didn't want to get one of those "it's not doing anything for us" calls, Monday morning or afternoon. I asked one of the techs to go aroudn the block with me, so I could show him what it was doing.

As we drove around, I told him the things I had done and he did them too. Of course, he got the same results I did. He did a few other things, too, and said he thought it might be an intermediate shaft bearing(??). I've never heard of that going out, but if it's a moving part, it can obviously go out.

He said they'd look at it Monday and get back to me. In the mean time, I guess I "have" to drive this TL for a couple of days. hehe

By the way: Thanks for the quick response. The farther I drove my TSX to the dealership (taking side streets and such, to keep the speed down so it wasn't doing that 'clicking' business through the gear shift), the more I thought it might be a CV Joint -- like you said, even though there's no fluid or obvious grease anywhere. When I had the front wheels off, I had only driven it MAYbe 5 miles and at speeds of under 40, since it had first started doing it. (It wasn't until AFTER I had the wheels off that I took it up on the freeway.) Maybe it just hadn't had enough time to start slingin' grease yet.

I'll let you guys know what they say and what the final outcome is.

Thanks again for the quick response!

darkanion

They're telling me that the carrier bearings and differential bearings are worn out. This troubles me that - after only 54k miles - the bearings in the transmission are "worn out" (his exact words)...!? I would almost expect something like that in a lesser brand, but not in an Acura or a Honda...

They're fixing a couple of other things "under warranty," even though the car is out from under the 50k warranty. They are not, however, agreeing to do any warranty work on the transmission, due to mileage. "My hands are tied," I was told. "With all the parts, labor, and everything, we're looking at about $2k!"

I know it's out from under warranty. I (now) realize how much more I should've considered the extended warranty that I said no to "because it's an Acura... it'll be good for at least 100-150k miles, if not a lot more than that... that's just wasted money." I can't help but be disappointed that the dealer (so far, at least) isn't standing behind the product more, though.

The Director of Service is supposed to be calling me soon to discuss the matter. If I don't get a good answer from him, I'm going to keep going of the chain of command until someone can adequately explain to me how these bearings could've worn out so quickly and how a company with such a good reputation for quality products and service can just NOT stand behind their product in this instance.

miner

I thought Acuras had the 70,000 mile powertrain warranty - isn't tranny powertrain?

darkanion

That's what I thought, too! I'm now wondering if "the transmission" would've been covered if I had kept driving it until stuff BROKE, but "the part" isn't, because "the whole transmission" didn't shell out.

I hope to get some clarification on this, this morning.

curls

If that's their logic, find a new dealer.

The transmission and all parts inside it (with the exception of the clutch as its a wear-and-tear item) should be 100% covered until the powertrain warranty is up.

So why isn't everything covered is the powetrain warranty is 70K miles, and you're only at 54K? I'd be furious and definately kicking up a stink at the dealership (in front of customers) if this phone call doesn't go well.

darkanion

After calling the dealership and informing them of the 5yr/70k warranty on the TSX and the service manager seemingly being "surprised" at that warranty, I called Acura Corporate Customer Service. After speaking to them for a while, I realized that THAT warranty only applies to 2006 Acuras, not the 2004 I have.

They did, however, offer to open a case file on it, to get in touch with the dealership, and to see what they could do. "I'm not offering a guarantte, but Acura some times does things 'out of warranty'. I'll hand it over to the proper people, they will review it, contact the dealership, and see what we can do. No guarantees, though."

This type of review or consideration is what I've been looking for, not the "our hands are tied" business I've been getting from the dealership, up to this point.

We'll see what they do...!

darkanion

They pulled the transmission and started tearing it down. They quickly realized "there was a lot more wrong than they originally thought." Come to find out, 3 teeth on the differential had been sheered off. I'm sure, of course, that mayhem began to insue inside the transmission after that. Pieces became imbedded in other parts, etc, etc...

"You're going to need a whole new transmission."

Long story, short... They are going to cover it.

WoohoooOOoOo!! That's a relief off my mind!

Thanks, everyone, for the feedback.

Take it easy...

curls

NICE.

Congrats and welcome to the "warranties are a good thing" club.

JTso

iTrader: (2)

Congrats on getting it fixed under warranty.

darkanion

Thank you. Thank you.

Getting this fixed right and them covering the repair is SUCH a weight off my mind!

curls

Tell me about it. When they finally said they were replacing the short block (lower 2/3) of my engine with a brand new one from the factory, I felt SO good and relieved.

darkanion

Ouch! What happened (to cause the need for the repair)?

curls

Was burning lots of oil, but no real idea why.

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...1&page=1&pp=25 if you want to read some more.

calgary_tsx

Hey, I had the same problem last night with my 6MT . However, im overly paranoid and had my car towed to the dealer. I just got a call, and it looks like transmission failure. I had a loud clicking noise from my front left wheel. They will confirm with me in 2 days because they have to take apart the tranny. Any advise for me, just in case my dealer calls and thinks it has been abused? I have babied this car and am very careful with shifting, never drop the clutch at high rpm, never ride the clutch, and maintained dealer servicing on time. I hope the dealer doesnt pin this on me!!! My car is a little over 3 with 77000km. I can see that you guys have had the same issue. Thanks!!!

calgary_tsx

Got news back from NW Acura. They showed me the tranny, the diff has 3 teeth missing and there is metal in the fluid. Honda Canada warrantied the repair which is a huge relief They are ordering a whole new 6MT tranny, Interestingly, the transmission is on back order, so might be a couple of weeks, but they gave me a brand new 06 tsx to drive.

Ive seen this before with other members and the tech did say that if there were ANY mods done to this car, it would not have been covered under warranty.

curls

Wow, good on them to warranty it!

Just curious - is this your first manual transmission? Have you ever not babied it? What were you doing just before it failed?

Really interesting that this seems to be occurring lately. Really interesting but really scary.

darkanion

"the tech did say that if there were ANY mods done to this car, it would not have been covered under warranty."

I was told pretty much the same thing. There even seemed to be some intimation that I had swapped out the clutch, because "it doesn't look like an OEM clutch." They said something about "the springs were the wrong color" ?? I told him that they were the only people who had ever had a wrench on it, so if anything wasn't right, it wasn't done by me.

When he called and first told me they were going to cover it, I remember him specifically saying, "you haven't done any performance upgrades or anything, so we're going to cover it." That made me glad that I hadn't already put a CAI on it or new headers or the Hondata flash!

The total bill came up to just a hair less than $4000. Fortunately, they covered it all.

They called last night to tell me it was ready early. How was it the guy said it? "We got the transmission a lot sooner than expected. You're all taken care of. Come get the car at your earliest convenience." I decided to go ahead and have them do the 60k servicing, since they already have the car and I already have their loaner. (That also gave me a little more time to burn off some of the gas I had recently put in the loaner, since I thought I was going to have it for several more days.)

I'm glad to hear they're covering your repair. It concerns me a bit, though, that what you are describing sound EXACTLY like what I saw when they showed me my differential gear. When I figure out how to post pictures on here, I'll post the ones I took with my camera phone.

darkanion

Ok... Here goes my first attempt to post pictures here...

Not the best angle in the world, but you can kind of see where the teeth aren't there anymore :


A closer-up view of the missing teeth :


And a view with the gear stand-up straight (missing teeth at the top) :

curls

Do they have any diea what actually CAUSED the teeth to sheer off? That's gotta be some really excessive force to do that.

darkanion

"It looks like something got in there, but we have no idea what or how. The rest of the transmission doesn't show any signs of abuse, so we don't know what could've caused it."

That was the gist of what the dealer told me. With there being two failures that seem to be VERY similar to one another (that I've seen, on this board), I'm wondering if they got a bad batch of differentials.

darkanion

I got the car back last night. Everything appears to be fine. The shifting feels a little different now.. maybe a little notchy going into first, but I'm sure that'll work itself out, as it gets broken in. It also seems like there might be a VERY slight difference in the spacing between where 3rd & 4th are and where 5th and 6th are. That could just be my imagination, though...

Everything was covered. No hassles. No "wellll, we also had to do this other thing, which wasn't covered" or any of that stuff. I'm happy and content with my car again.

All's well that ends well!

calgary_tsx

Hey sorry for the delay on this...

Curls: Nope this isn't my first MT, I've had a previous MT, also an acura, which I never had any problems with! However that being said, I do have a habit to not match revs if the rpms are low, ie. 2-3k . I wonder if that is part of it. My driving habits are also pretty common. I usually engage 1st at around 1300rpm, and shift at 3k. By about 70 km/h im usually in 6th, and keep it there. For the 1st 32000 kms, I usually geared down through 5-4-3 to 2nd to take advantage of the engine braking when coming to a stop. However, now I dont do it as often for the sake of clutch life.

I noticed the frontend sound while driving home with the window down. I was going up a light grade hill, about 80 km/h in 6th, when I heard the click, click, click. I clutched in and the sound was gone. I clutched out (did not give it gas to match revs, and heard the sound again, slightly more pronounced) Got home, and then when I was going to leave again, had the vehicle in 1st still, noise was much louder now, the clunk could be felt through the body and the steering, so pulled back into home, and had the car towed. My initial thoughts were slipped belt in the front driver tire, tie-rod, or CV. I did not expect it to be the diff, but now that I think about it, everytime I clutched in and back out, the sound got slightly worse, so I suppose it was an oversight on my part, because it seems obvious now.

My diff looks almost exactly like darkanion's, but the 3 teeth that were sheared off, were more sheared off than his. The tranny fluid in the casing was very shimmery with the metal filings in it. The gears were also very shiny, which the tech told me was due to them all being coated with the metallic tranny fluid. The gears were in impeccable condition though, showed no signs of wear.

As per the factory servicing on the cdn models, I also had a tranny flush done at 48000 km. My vehicle has never been in an accident, nor any other hard impact that I can think of to explain this.

afici0nad0

those teeth look really bad.

myblacktsx

A couple of weeks ago, I had the same sound mentioned here and had my car towed to the dealership. I get a call a few days later telling me that the differential gear has a few teeth sheared off. Initially, I am told that even though the car is past warranty (60K miles), Acura might pay some percentage of the repair cost. A day or so later, I get a call saying that Acura will NOT pay for the repair. I call up Acura and open a case file on it. A few days later I get a call back stating that they have determined that the car was "abused" and that Acura would not assist with the repair. At this point, I get rather annoyed since I've owned only manual transmission cars and have driven them for about 20 years - never even had to get a clutch replaced let alone have any trouble with transmissions. If they didn't want to cover it under "good will" that is fine, but don't tell me that I abused my car without being able to show reasonable evidence of it.

In the meantime, a resourceful friend of mine finds a document from Acura which mentions that this specific problem is due to a faulty countershaft and can cause the differential ring gear to be damaged without abuse. And this also states that they have since issued new parts to correct the flaw.

I called Acura back to have them dig up their own document. Less than 10 minutes after I hang up the phone with the guy at Acura, I get a call from the dealership stating that Acura changed their mind and decided to cover most of the repair!

So, it looks like this is a known problem and they are not telling customers about it. From what I can tell, it affects 2004-2007 TSX 6MT and 2005-06 RSX 6MT.

Hoosier_Buddy

Can you post the document?

myblacktsx

Here is the document ID: BTS090401
It is an Acura Tech Line Summary Article. I will try to scan it and post it when I get a chance.

GiantRobot77

I am having the same problem. Acura dealership and corporate denied me a repair on a car with 11K miles on it.

Can you please send a link or post the specified document?

I am in the process of reaching out to Better Business Bureau Dispute Resolution Center.

Much thanks.

GiantRobot77

Found the document:
http://www.in.honda.com/Rjanisis/pubs/TS/BTS090401.PDF

scheißterhöffer

I had this problem about a year ago on my 04 6MT with about 46K miles on it. Not sure how I didn't find this thread at the time because I know I searched. I had about 6 weeks left on my warranty when it happened. They had my car for a month by the time it was all over with but I got a new transmission under warranty. But yeah, same thing, I had about a half dozen teeth sheared off my differential, no outward warning, just happened one morning when I went out to go to work. I'd be interested in knowing if the new part fix that myblacktsx mentioned made it into my new transmission. Is there a part number change or anything that could help me determine that? Good luck GiantRobot77.

myblacktsx

Here are the parts they changed on mine. I just got the car back yesterday after being at the dealer for 25 days!!

The countershaft part number is 23227-PZF-315.
The Final Driven Gear is 41233-PZF-020.
The Differential is 41100-RAS-000.
Also a bearing with part # 91005-PPS-003.

Hope this helps!

myblacktsx

Good find! What I had is a fax. This is much better!

Thanks.

darkanion

I have since moved on from my TSX, but I am glad to see they finally documented the issue. It's too bad that YOU had to go find it and point it out to them, though.

traydeezy

This just happened to my car last night. Do you think Acura will fix it out of warranty? Car has 69k miles on it (04 TSX).

neocrynym

Count me in on this one. Symptoms started mid-February. Had it repaired at Acura first week in March. $1,900 and nearly a week of downtime later, and it was fixed.

I would have loved to have done it myself, but the whole front end of the car basically has to come apart to get the stupid tranny out. Seeing it all disassembled on the lift was sad! But, it's something I would not have wanted to tackle in my garage with hand tools and jackstands. It's not like dropping the tranny on my old Civic or Integra, that's for sure! That could have been done in an hour by myself...this....not so much.

Also, it would have been great if I knew this was going to be the issue, because then I would have UPGRADED all those parts along the way. However, being without my car for that long was not a possibility. Plus, Acura wouldn't install any aftermarket stuff for me b/c they can't warrant it, which I understand.

My car was built on a Friday, that's for sure.

Mayuga

iTrader: (2)

:[ my car is @ the dealer right now for this issue, luckily I still have the "Powertrain Warranty"

Mayuga

iTrader: (2)

Hello All,

I'm having the same problem with my TSX, and my dealer said they wont cover it because it was caused by "abuse". Please can you send me the dealership information that covered it for you guys under warranty. The Dealership wants me to pay 4200$+ to have my car back.

Jay

ParaSurfer1979

This again is why i have no problem adding an extended warranty to my car payment at purchase because i couldn't go into my pockets to fix the other non-warranty items. Power-train is just that. The motor. Tranny isn't powered.

ParaSurfer1979

Yes because you signed to have tear-down. If they claim abuse, you must pay for the labor to tear it down.