My car started to make loud banging sounds coming from the engine area, and would also make a clunking sound when turning the streering wheel left or right. This would only happen every once and awhile, and never when it was looked at, so it was assumed that it was coming from the road?? So one day when i was out driving around i made a turn in a parking lot and then it started again, clunk, bang,clunk. I then proceeded to leave the lot and go to the dealership. I only got about 500 feet and my car started to get really bad, i was on a busy street and had to get off it. I then made a quick turn into a bank and all of a sudden, boom! my front wheels locked up, and threw me foward a bit. Well to make a long story short, my car had trans fulid all over the street, tow truck came and took me and my car to the dealership. Tech tells me that my gearbox exploded! and this destroyed my transmission?? I say how could this happen? He says i dont know, maybe it was abuse? I'm shocked and pissed, but luckly everything is covered under warrenty. I cant beleive this would happen to my new car, with all the problems that everyone is having like with the rattles and such, I'm also having these issues yet! I will be trading the TSX in as soon as i can. I'm crushed that honda is making trannys that are falling apart like this! By the way my vin is #308.

Dario

 

Sorry to hear that. I can imagine how emabarrasing that must have been. This is the first case of a auto tranny failure we've heard of I think. I have just over 16K on my Auto TSX and all is fine so far, not experiencing any of the symptoms your explaining.

Love it how the dealer is so quick to blame abuse when they see a tranny failure. They must learn that in training.

 

what a shocker... i mean was this a day by day thing or was it all in one day....

I agree on how dealers are really fast to point fingaz too

 

That is shocking! This is the first Automatic TSX I heard of that has tranny problems.

Also, the dealer will find every excuse to blame you for causing the tranny to got bad. They will always accuse you of abuse or racing the car. That is not always true, a lot of ppl pamper and take care of their cars!

 

Sorry to hear about the transmission problems.

This is only the fourth transmission problem I've heard of yet in the TSX but most of the problems have been with the 6MT. I wonder what is the industry standard for transmission failures? Obviously nobody can make a car that will never fail, but that's what waranties are for. My mom had a new Camry and the AT went on it 6 weeks after she got it and people always say that Toyota builds the best cars....

 

Well it started about 10 days before the complete failure, i would guess. But who knows when it started to go bad? I think that about 10% off honda trannys fail, someone just told me this. Correct me if i'm wrong.

Dario

 

damn, sorry to hear. hopefully i'm in the 90% of trannys that dont fail...dealership will prolly try to point to my mods as the cause of any defects

 

There is already a TSX automatic transmission failure complaint on file with the NHTSA:

http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/pr...aintsearch.cfm

Make : ACURA Model : TSX Year : 2004
Crash : No Fire : No Number of Injuries: 0
ODI ID Number : 10051870 Date of Failure: December 15, 2003
Component: POWER TRAIN:AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION

Summary:
WHILE PROCEEDING TO ENTER THE INTERSTATE TRANSMISSION FAILED, CAUSING THE DRIVER TO PULL OFF THE HIGHWAY. THE DRIVER HAD THE VEHICLE TOWED TO THE DEALER. *AK

 

Not saying that you in particular abused your car, but when you see posts like this http://www.clubtsx.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=5713

It makes some of us who actually have to work on these cars wonder how many people treat their cars like this, and then are the first to cry WARRANTEE!!!

You might be surprised how far some people will go to try and cover up their own abuse/damage/neglect to try and get Honda/Acura to fix their cars for free.

 

Funny that no matter what the manufacturer there will be problems. Especially with the first year run on the vehicle.
My mazda6club BB has a similar section with problem this and problem that but usually it's minor stuff, people like to complain.
Yours is more serious BUMMER )
What are you goig to buy next ?
Whatever it is you can go to a BB site for it and probably find problems with it just as well.
Good luck .

 

Well i dont know what to get just yet. Maybe a Subaru? Not really sure yet. As far as abuse go's, I did not do any thing like that guy in the post at clubtsx. I have run my car hard in a straight line and in the curves but not to the point of abuse? What really is abuse? Stepping on the gas on the highway? This is bullshit, this car should be made to handle that, and not fall apart like a tinker toy after normal driving. And for gods sake its an automatic! I'm not really shifting it, well except for when in SS mode. But if that caused the tranny to fail, then honda should not offer that in the trans, or should redesign it so it is more durable or stronger. I could see that the trans would fail if i had a power added like a turbo or nitrous but thats not the case, the only mod i have is the injen cai?? Well looks like i'll be driving like my grandma from now on just to be safe

Dario

 

Bump. i kinda feel what he talkin bout... a gearbox jus doesnt explode on a auto esp. i mean

 

Like i said before the issue started 10 days before, so my car was able to be drivin, so what ever failed happen slowly and worked its way in deeper? i'm assuming, how can you drive your car if the gearbox is exploded?? Honda service was very hush hush, they would not say anything or give any insight on what happen only thing they said was "i dont know what to tell you, maybe it was abuse"? There was a error code in the ecu, P0700 I think, they would not tell me what this error meant either. Also they would not offer me a loaner car, so they said that they would get a rental car from a local rental place and pay for the cost for me. Yeah it was a dodge! not even a honda civic!

 

Of course it's a shame to have to deal with something like this. Believe me, the dealer doesn't like to see this either, as they don't make much doing warr work. Unfortunately, in any car, the very earliest production numbers tend to have the most problems. The fact that you said ATF leaked out and the trans locked up, leads me to believe that the diff. failed. Pretty unusual, but we've seen weirder things happen.

My only suggestion is you probably should have taken the car in as soon as it started making ugly noises. At least the tech might have had a chance to figure out what was going on. Once the thing grenades, it's harder to decide what failed first.

P0700 is a generic A/T code. Is that what the tech told you the code was? He should have been smart enough to dig deeper to find the full code in the A/T software of the computer interface.

I wouldn't give up on the car. It's probably just one of those "fluke" things that happens. I'm sure it'll be fine once it's got a new trans.

Good luck,

Kevin

 

i was going to say the same thing, fropm his story it sounds like the differential failed and a peice of the gear got in between 2 other gears or a gear and the case and blew it open.

 

Well so far no prob's with new tranny, i'm gonna sell the TSX privately. How does $24,000 sound? My car is almost mint and have about 16,600miles on it, I dont have th navi.

Dario

 

It just happened to me. Auto tranny failed. Just over 39000 miles. Driving down the interstate, and suddenly RPMs hit the rev limiter. Tranny hooked up and slipped randomly. I managed to quickly limp off the highway on the next offramp and ended up getting within 1/2 mile of the local dealership. I was, however, forced to push the car through an intersection when I was not able to get the tranny to engage. That was pretty embarrassing. The check engine, VSA, and VSA warning (!) lights all went on, too.

The dealer's not sure what caused the failure, but it's the first they've heard of it. I tend to drive somewhat agressively and use the sportshift liberally, but I've never revved it and dropped it into gear. I would hope that the transmission is built strong enough to withstand regular use of the sportshift.

Anyone have other experiences with auto tranny failure?

 

Ouch! Sorry to hear about that. I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to trade her in. My stomach would drop if my supercharger belt would crap out on my Integra... I can't imagine the whole tranny going...
Good luck!

 

i really hope that this doesn't become common like on the 3.2l engines in the TL/CL

That would make me lose lots of confidence in Acura engines if they had the same problems in yet another engine.

 

This is the second one we've heard of as far as i know. No reason to call it an epidemic. parts fail in all makes and models, bmw, mercedes, you name it. Some instances are to be expected.

 

My 6MT transmission was re-built twice and I've been noticing the same problems I've noticed before my gear-slippage problems.

Hopefully it isn't correlated to this , which I doubt.

Anyway, I scheduled an appointment for service and to address some of the problems I've been having, and hopefully it won't turn out to be a "transmission failure".

Anyways, good luck selling your car!