i bought a tsx 06, in jan 2012. the car has 76K miles on the meter. All stock as off now. the car was fine but recently the car little heavey. i changed the air filer and engine oil too but there is not much changes. ATF is also fine. any idea what might be the issue ?

 

OK, let's slow down and post clearly.

Define "heavy"...I assume, from your post, you are suggesting it is sluggish or slow to accelerate. It seems you are suggesting it recently has seemed to slow down.

1) What kind of driving do you do?

2) What kind of gas are you using?

3) Who did you buy the car from (dealer, first owner, second owner, etc.)?

4) Is any warranty in effect?

5) What kind of inspections can you do (do you have a full garage or is it parked on the street, do you have a floor jack, etc.)?


Several easy thoughts are; brake hanging up, water in fuel, clogged injectors, incorrectly installed air filter or something blocking the intake,

 

fill the tires when cold to 35psi and take the negative cable off the battery for 15 minutes then reconnect

 

well, i am little far from acura cavitation. i am form Cambodia, where people does not really know much about cars. i bought the car from 3rd owner. it does not have any warranty what so ever. I am using 93 octane which is the best available here. i use castol edge 5W-30 and NGK iridium plugs which I am using for the last 7000 miles.

By heavy means, when I want to accelerate it seems someone is holding the car form the back or I have 500 kgs of weight on the trunk. Eventually the acceleration is slow and the in the city mileage has dropped down from 22/23 to 19/20.

Tires are okay. I randomly drive fast. Mostly is I cruise within the small city where I live in now.

I figure out one thing, my rear wheel is 225/45/R17 but the front tires are 215/50/R17. My mechanic who used to work for Honda says it is okay as front and rear is not connected. But my sense says the different rotational speed of tires will turn on the VSA. I drove and still doing with VSA turning off but things are not much different.

But when I bought the car it was smooth and fast and light. Suddenly, I dnot know what happened. Little clueless.

 

OK.

Octane: It appears likely your 93 octane petrol is RON rates, so is actually closer to 89 AKI (and AKI is the number Acura uses when it says to use 93 octane). You need either 97 or 98 octane (RON) fuel for best performance. This will reduce performance, but unless the previous owner drove it somewhere else with better fuel, not likely the whole reason.

Tires: Your rear tires are an acceptable size, different by less than 2% (slightly smaller rolling circumference.

Filters: The air filter is new, so perhaps the fuel filter could be a problem. Unfortunately, the TSX filter is in the fuel tank. You might have to try to change that.

Brake: It's entirely possible that one or more of you brakes could be hanging and hurting performance. Easiest check is jacking the vehicle and checking the wheels spin freely (in neutral, of course, for the front wheels).

Fuel Injectors: Dirty or clogged injectors will harm performance. Again, though, unless the previous owner lived away from where you are, it begs the question of why now.

Fuel contamination: Dovetails with fuel filter concerns.

Catalytic converters: If your car has them, the problem you are having is quite solar to the results of clogged converters. Does your car rev freely while in gear? (Remember there is a rev limiter when you are in neutral)

Also consider O2 sensors or debris in the intake.

Good luck

 

Thought some more and realized I missed the ATF note. Perhaps the fluid change was done incorrectly or with wrong fluid. Also, perhaps the unit has a problem.

Other area is the throttle body (dirty or damaged/failing) and/or accelerator sensors (damn drive by wire).

 

hi DD, thanks for your noted.

the fule we have is 95 octane (my mistake it is not 93). i use STP injector cleaner after 3000 miles.

I dont want to take a risk of checking teh fuel fileter. i am not sure they can do it here.

i will check the brakes this weekend. and let you know the results.

btw, what ATF do you recommend. if i dont have it here, i can get it from Thailand.

 

OK, assuming that's 95 RON, that works out to 90-91 octane, which should be good enough...if the fuel is not contaminated. That's the one big problem here, because the fuel filter can easily get overwhelmed by contaminants.

The injector cleaner is good, but the filter still worries me. I understand your concern, Do you have a Service Manual, it would be a good buy for you.

On the ATF, simply any fluid meeting Honda'a standards (the old is Z-1, the newer is DW-1) should work, but Honda is a solid choice.

Still wondering if your engine rev's freely or if it is bogging...that is if your car still has cats on it.