So my 3 week old '06 TSX and I are driving home from work... All seems well, then while casually accelerating to 50 MPH from a stop light, the engine cuts-out momentarily, then kicks back on. This causes an exceptionally hard BANG in the drivetrain that actually made me say "What the F**k?!" to outloud. I swear it was so hard I could've sworn the exhaust struck the underside of the car.

I pulled off into a shopping center and the car seemed to be idling alright, no check engine light, etc... I decide to continue my journey home, albeit obessing about the intense shock that every gear and joint up front just sustained (I'm not totally sold on the car's durability).

I end up getting stuck in traffic on the freeway. It is stop and go for a while. I have the A/C on with the climate control set to 75. During one of the stops in traffic, the engine just dies--no drama, the tach simply falls to 0. I think it coincided with the A/C compressor clutching.

I cranked the engine and it had some trouble catching. It was pretty rough coming back to life (eventually), then smoothed out as if nothing was up. There was no check engine light.

I advance a bit more in traffic. I happen to pass a pretty cute girl driving a matching Carbon Grey TSX in the right lane, albeit an '04 or '05 model. I rev my engine at her and smile. She smiled back. It was sort of a goofball moment, but who cares. With my luck she's probably married. And besides it would be weird if she had the same color and type of car that I have. Anyway...

Approximately 30 seconds later, during the next stop in traffic, the engine dies again--same conditions. Again, I have the same difficulty cranking the engine, but it eventually smooths out. Good thing too, because Carbon Grey girl was about to drive by in the right lane.

At this point I'm pretty much disgusted with the car. I see an opening the right lane, about 300 feet from my exit, so I floor it and start to wind out 2nd gear. The engine knocked extremely loud at around 4500-5000 RPM, so I let up on the throttle and throw it in 6th gear. It otherwise continued to run.

Once I get to the top of the exit ramp and turn, I decide to wind it up again to see if it tries to preignite itself to death. I didn't hear any knocking, but it feels slow as hell. Bah... I get home and park it.

What with the stress at work and the stress at traffic, as well as a newfound bitter attitude at the $30,000 car I just bought, I didn't so much as look at the car for the rest of the evening. I suppose we'll see if it gets me stranded tomorrow, or if it tries to become a compression ignition engine again.

Has anyone ever experienced something like that? It almost seems like the fuel pump momentarily failed. Either that or a crank or cam position sensor... With a new car it is really hard to tell. I dread taking the car to the dealer because I know they are going to probably start tearing stuff apart--which is absurd for a new car IMO.

 

I'd bring it to the dealer.

 

Bring it in ASAP - you don't want this problem going away and then rearing its ugly head down the road. I'm sure they'll be receptive and try to fix the problem before it gets worse, especially if its a brand new car.

 

Sounds like it might be anything from a bad tank of gas to an ECU problem. I would take it to the dealer and have them look at it.

 

Take it to the dealer. Better to be safe than sorry.

 

I think the most absurd is your way of reasonning things. At the very first bang, you should have stopped the engine and inspected inside the hood to see if you hadn't thrown a rod. Then next step should have been to call the platform and send direct to the dealership instead of going and beating the hell out of it when it was knocking. You have a warranty, it's not there for nothing. Use it to your advantage if you want your car to be durable. You may not be "sold" on it's durability, like your say, but that doesn't mean you should necessarily keep on destroying it.

 

Before I got my TSX, I was driving my parents' '04 Chrysler Sebring. It was just a few months old and did the same thing....stalling for no reason when I was in stop and go traffic. It did this numerous times and scared the shit out of me. Took it to the dealer and they did a reflash/software update.... everything's been fine since and it hasn't stalled again.

 

I think the most absurd thing is your insane response to me. It's disrespectful and I doubt you would ever cross that line in person... I would certainly never take that kind of attitude with anyone else and I guess I would expect reciprocal respect. I realize an online forum feels like a relatively safe place though.

And please take the time to actually read what I write and don't make up parts of the story. You've gotten so much of it wrong and it has led this entire topic astray.

When the driveline slammed really hard the first time, I pulled into a shopping center to check on the car. I'm a former factory trained Audi technician--I know a fair bit about modern automobiles.


The "platform"? What is that?

The primary problem wasn't knocking. However if you actually read my post, you'd know that. And I didn't "beat the hell out of it"... I drive quite conservatively in traffic, but after sitting in traffic for an hour with two mysterious engine shutdowns, I was tired didn't give a sh*t anymore.

That is when I moved over to an empty space in the right lane to take the exit--I actually needed to dip into the power a bit, but when I reached around 5000 RPM in 2nd, I heard the loud spark knock--and I backed off the throttle immediately and put it in 6th gear. Of course, I've already said that, but I suppose you didn't read it.


Yeah thanks... I know I have a warranty and the car is going to the dealer already. I just wanted to see if this was a problem that other people had experienced, and if so, what was the failing part.


The only thing being destroyed here is your credibility and willingness to help a fellow TSX owner.

 

dude, you're crazy.

your car makes odd mechanical noises and your solution is to rev the piss out of it????

if your car makes weird noises and/or loses power on the road, pull the heck over, and call Acura Roadside Assistance!!!! You'll be lucky if you didn't cause additional damage which will VERY clearly be YOUR fault.

 

Have you read what I wrote?

Are you guys just bitter about the stupid hockey game and taking out your frustration on me?

Since when is 5000 RPM "revving the piss out of" a Honda anyway. Especially when I'm on the freeway and need the power to maneuver??

 

Lets all calm down. junktiofet, knowing sauceman I don't think he was trying to be direspectful, just trying to make point. You should have IMO immediately pulled over and called roadside assistance. But whats done is done, live and learn.

I hope you car is OK.

And I don't think I recall hearing about anything like this before.

 

Thank you. I appreciate your honesty and your advice. It is true that I probably should've parked the car when the first hiccup occured. But at the time, I wanted to get home and figured it would be alright to continue my journey. Getting stuck in traffic was icing on the cake

 

dude, from this point on, your first reaction should be to pull over, and shut OFF the car.

Call Roadside assistance, and wait for them to rescue you.

nobody is out to insult you, or trivialize your experience, we're simply trying to show you there are different (better) ways to handle the situation.

 

Thanks to some explanation by Astroboy, I see where the possible misunderstanding occured--

When I turned off of the freeway exit ramp and "wound it up" the second time, I was of course cautious and worried. I didn't slam the accelerator nor did I redline the engine.

I took it to around 5000 RPM like before, starting at light throttle and ending at around 2/3 throttle, listening for any hint of pinging. What can I say--it is the technician in me, I was trying to diagnose. In fact, a technician at the dealer does the same thing.

And by the way, found out now that it is a failing fuel pump. Of all things... heh.

The pinging I heard was probably a result of a lean mixture--or maybe the engine was just heat soaked from sitting in traffic that long. It was hot outside yesterday evening.

 

Good to hear it was only the fuel pump. Would hate to see a engine replacement on a 06 already.

 

Well, with the answer all wrapped up, what happened with the Hottie in the other TSX, talk about leaving out the best part of the story....

 

Oh yeah, I would've been surprised if the issue was due to a mechanical failure in the engine. That engine seems to be built as well as the structure of the car itself--very solid.

The only mechanical part of the car that concerns me is the transaxle--after reading posts here and seeing the TSB about skip-shifting, etc. While I am very gentle with it even when I've driven spiritedly, the shock it took when the engine first hiccuped concerned me. I'm probably worrying over nothing though. With hardened parts like that, failure is catastrophic, so if it was going to break, it would have done so at that time.

 

I've seen that car out and about before near my neighborhood, but never got to see the driver up close until yesterday. Too bad I couldn't see her ring finger I think it's hot when girls have good taste in cars

 

^^^I can certainly agree to that one.

 

I wonder if CarbonGrey Girl is related to CarbonGrey Earl (poster here).

Maybe she was driving Earl's car and you're now in pursuit of another AZine members' wife.

 

Exactly. Things can overheat, piston heads can warp...

I agree with Astro and Sauceman, but I'm glad it was just eh fuel-pump.

 

What TSB are you talking about?

 

IIRC I saw a TSB (maybe for the RSX-S tranny-of-glass?) that says skipping gears (ie: going from 4th to 6th, or 5th to 3rd), will cause premature wear on the synchros.

 

Yep, that was on one of the service bulletins from Acura that the technicians get. All of them are listed in PDF files over in the TL forum somewhere.

 

See this PDF for the stuff on skipping gears.

While I really do like my TSX and I am glad I bought it, I cannot shake the thought that certain components in the car were designed with little or zero headroom. The text in this document illustrates this very clearly.

This is my first time ever owning a Honda product, so all of these little engineering quirks are new to me. Though I doubt I will ever have a serious mechanical failure, I really do not like the idea that disaster is potentially so close.

They should take some of the budget away from ridiculous features like the Drive-By-Wire Adaptive throttle, and put it into making the transaxle components a millimeter or two thicker.

 

You're pretty discerning Dom.

Junktionfet, good to know your car is OK.

Let me just precise the following concerning the durability of the TSX. Of course, the engineering philosophy is different from an Audi, no need to be an expert to notice this. However, despite any car manufacturer not being exempt from any lemon once in a while, the Honda cars have a solid reputation of being especially durable. If you think Audis are durable, you surely won't be disappointed with Hondas.

My personnal experience with Honda cars is 5 cars including the TSX, and none of them have been driven for less than 335,000km except for the TSX, but I would be very surprised if I don't make it to 500,000km. My Accord 87 died at 335,000km because I crashed it.

I don't believe you need to be sold about the durability of Hondas. It's pretty much a well established and documented fact. Of course, durability is always affected by the quality of maintenance an owner performs on his car, but you already knew that.

Best of luck.

 

I would hardly call that skipping-gears a Honda-specific problem. Any gearbox, especially close-ratio ones, will wear faster with gear-skipping, exactly for the reasons mentioned in that service news PDF. There's no need to built a beefier set of synchros if the gearbox shouldn't be operated in the manner requiring it. If a tranny were to fail because of it, I'd attribute it to repetitive-user-error, not a poorly designed synchro system.

 

This is an issue because the manufacturer has actually released a bulletin which tries to blame premature synchro failure on the driver, instead of taking responsibility for the fact that they've engineered the transaxle with zero or near-zero headroom.

Not that I'm a fan of Audi and Volkswagen service practices, but they have never done such a thing. Even Daimler-Chrysler hasn't gone to such lengths. You might still get some static from the Service Rep. However in the case of Honda, they've already covered their ass in a way that's synonymous with a dumptruck on the freeway sporting a "Not responsible for broken glass" sign on the back.

In the real world, the spacing of the gear ratios isn't exactly practical... so skipping gears should be expected. The fact is that the synchronizers in a close-ratio transaxle like this don't have to do much work when the gears are shifted sequentially... so, the engineers designed the synchronizers accordingly (i.e. they made them much lighter-duty). It is almost as though they didn't use any real-world daily-driver models. Or perhaps the engineering team did their job correctly, but some "suit" in the company advised them to do otherwise. Who knows.

With that said, being that I know how a manual transmission works, I always go through the motions when skipping gears, just to make sure the input shaft changes speed in steps. I suspect that not all TSX buyers do this because they don't know any better, and this bulletin targets those people. An extra bit of wall thickness on the synchros would eliminate this from ever being a concern.

Honda produced a car that is beyond competent on so many very important levels. However they didn't really handle these particular aspects very well in my opinion. It's a machine--it's allowed to have goofy stuff like this. But I think it is important to recognize these items and hope they are addressed as the car evolves.

 

I don't know you or anyone else on this forum very well, and thus didn't know how to interpret your response to me--I am glad everything has been cleared up.

I have family and good friends that have owned Honda products and they have never had any major failures, though most of them trade up after a few years (no high-milers). I also like the fact that new Hondas don't look awkward like so many new cars today.

However being that I'm inexperienced, and I join a forum where a lot of major problems are discussed--you can imagine I get a bit nervous. But then I have to remind myself that this is an enthusiast forum, so every little thing will get mentioned.

As a side note, I think I've had enough Audi for one lifetime. I never owned one, though I loved driving the cars and I think they are technically some of the most impressive cars on the market. I don't think I'd want to own one out of warranty.

Any car that has a slide-out front bulkhead for serviceability is probably not going to be a fun car to work on. That and replacing the failing double-wall exhaust manifolds on the 2.7T engine, or removing the gas tank from an A4 Quattro is not really how I'd want to spend my time in the garage.

 

I agree.

However keep in mind that the Service News you linked to isn't available to the public (well, it shouldn't be). It's an internal bulletin to Acura mechanics and service departments. Heck, it's like spying. (That being said, I changed the link manually from 0303000.pdf all the way up until 0605000.pdf and glanced over every monthly service news since March 2003. Thanks for the link.

Surprisingly, very little is in there about the TSX except the odd quirk which has already been covered on this site somewhere, and the part I replied to in another post where some cell phones plugged into the charger outlet, would cause the left turn signal to blink.

Cheers, and many happy Honda years to you.
Eric

 

Do you really know the transaxle has "zero or near-zero headroom" -- or are you just making a wild guess?

 

I don't make wild guesses without some kind of disclaimer in the same sentence. My educated guess is based on the PDF mentioned above. It clearly implies that the transaxle has little or no tolerance for skip-shifting. This would qualify as near-zero headroom in my book. Perhaps my standards are too high?

Oh yeah, and

I'll punctuate it with a because this is all in good fun. I have no affiliation with Honda, except that I paid them $30,000 recently. I figure I'm entitled to have an opinion and express it freely. I'll tell the truth as I have many times already on this forum--I bought the car because it is a fantastic value and a blast to drive. It has faults though. It is entitled to have faults of course, but what's wrong with pointing them out?

 

I still don't understand why you are this aggravated at Honda for not designing the synchros to be misused... and even abused.

If you want to skip shift in any car, prepare to pay for new synchros sooner rather than later, and while you're at it, get beefier ones "with more headroom" if you still want to skipshift.

 

I would expect cheesy synchronizers in a $10,000 Civic from years ago, but not in a modern $30,000 near-luxury performance sedan.

Skipping gears is not abuse. A competent engineer should design a road car such that the synchronizers can handle occasion skipping of gears without severely affecting the design life expectency. Honda has clearly stated that their transaxle cannot tolerate this, in so many words.

This is not difficult logic. So many of you seem to believe the stock intake, exhaust, and even ECU programming is inferior... what's wrong with believing the stock transaxle is too fragile? Is it because a simple and inexpensive bolt-on won't fix it?

What if there was a bolt on that could fix it--or a special transmission fluid? I bet serious money that such an item would sell, and people would recommend it based on the aforementioned risks with the stock transaxle.

While on the subject, I find the stock exhaust, ECU, and most of the intake to be just fine--it suits daily driving and even spirited driving extremely well. So far the transaxle has been and probably will always be fine in my hands... But that doesn't change how it is designed and what benign action it would take to potentially harm it.

Slamming the gearbox around and shifting it without full use of the clutch IS abuse. They should have a bulletin on that. Don't blame it on someone who is casually driving to work in city traffic.

 

Then again I HIGHLY doubt you're going to kill any synchros with the occasional skip-shift... I think the internal bulletin was really referring to the people who do that multiple times a day, or more.

Heck I knew a guy in high school (explains a lot!) that would never use 4th... he'd just go 1-2-3-5 as he wasn't accelerating after 3rd, but wanted to cruise in 5th. His synchros seemed fine but then again it was only a few years that I knew him. I don't think that his shifting is normal, though, and I wouldn't recommend it regardless of if I'd have read the bulletin or not.

 

That's probably true. And there may be some unspoken hints in there to Service Reps that they need to use discretion. On second thought, if the car was otherwise well cared for and the driver seemed competent, I doubt there would be any issues if the transaxle failed.

 

\


On a 3 week old car.... yes that is reving the piss out of it unless you put a shit load of miles on it already. I am guessing that you are still in your break-in period. I have to agree with other comments that you really don't seam to be worried about doing damage. I went to school in Raleigh so I am not at all bitter about the hockey game. If you want to complain about a $30,000 car, take care of it and THEN if it causes problems bitch about it.

There is my 2 cents

Oh by the way stay away from that crappy Acura Dealer in Cary they suck... take the time to go to Chapel Hill.

 

Yes I am well beyond Honda's documented "break in" period, which might be a misnomer since that phrase is never really used by them. Still I don't drive the car nearly as hard as I could if it had several thousand miles. Regardless of mileage I drive rather sedate anyway. My average fuel economy display hovers between 28 and 29 mpg with a mix of freeway and city driving--granted it is an optimistic display at best, but still...

 

I'm among those who are the most picky about the maintenance on the TSX. I've always done ALL of my maintenance as suggested by the dealership, at the dealership.

This has resulted in two things:

A) My car is in great shape even despite the high mileage.

B) If ever I run into a problem where the dealership could use discretionnary powers, they use it to my favor because they know me and my car very well.

As for the transaxle, I'd venture to say the TSB was a very preventive one, because though I don't make a habit of it, every once in a while I do skip gears, and my tranny werks as good as possible. What's more, every once in a while, when I take the TSX out drag racing, you can be sure that I really beat on it, and the transaxle is definitely the one who suffers the most. I haven't ever suffered any failures yet. Not a single symptom of wear & tear.

 

I've read the PDF several times, and I do not see how it clearly implies the transaxle has no tolerance for skip shifting. If anything it implies this would only be a problem for drivers who habitually skip-shift -- and in my book that repeated misuse would be considered abusive. I think your misinterpretation of this bulliten shows one reason why Acura prefers theis information not be public.