So I was a member of the first gen club for a couple years until earlier this week I recieved a nice suprise when someone ran a redlight. I dont want to look into buying another 1st gen, 10years is getting to be too old to risk, so I was looking at the 3.2s.

I was real ecstatic about buying a 3.2 until i came to this board and saw nothing but tranny failure issues. So realisticly speaking, how many people would say stay away from buying a cl with 90-100k miles on it? And does anyone have any sort of figures on how many CLs actually had tranny problems? Of course reading the board it looks like everyone, but this is a forum. People usually look for forums only AFTER something has gone wrong.

And aside from looking at the tranny, anything else I should watch for when test driving one?

 

Any CL that has a number "1" as the 7th digit of the VIN has the good tranny. If it has the number "2" in that spot you will have problems.

 

What he's saying in a rather bizarre way is the mt cars are ok, the automatics are not.

 

Get an 03 6 speed and you'll be happy.

 

 

what are the diffrences between the 1's from the 2's?

 

1-stick 2-auto

 

true x2..actually, the auto 2003 are not as bad as the 2001's,but power is the best with an 03 6speed...gl

 

There are no manuals in the area! (From what I saw) I looked in the entire state and only found 6 for sale :-o all auto. Think its pretty likely ANY auto is going to have problems, even if it's had the so called 'band-aid' fix?

 

Well..I guess I lucked out! I have an 01 CL, automatic trans, with 130,000 miles on it and it runs and shifts STRONG! No problems at all with the tranny. I'll bet there are more here that are just as lucky as me! I am the second owner, the first owner babied this car and had all the servicings done on time by the dealer. Maybe that accounts for the good luck?
I can't believe that ALL the 01 auto trannys are bad!

 

[QUOTE=MrMajstyk]Well..I guess I lucked out! I have an 01 CL, automatic trans, with 130,000 miles on it and it runs and shifts STRONG! No problems at all with the tranny. I'll bet there are more here that are just as lucky as me! I am the second owner, the first owner babied this car and had all the servicings done on time by the dealer. Maybe that accounts for the good luck?
I can't believe that ALL the 01 auto trannys are bad![/QUOTE]

not all just most

 

I'm knocking on wood as we speak but I've had good luck with my 01 CL as well. Granted I'm only at about 76k but the car feels strong. My car was a one owner as well which from the extensive service record was very well maintained. I've been doing the same since 59k so only time will tell. I wonder what percentage of non type S CL's are still on their original tranny's versus type S models?

 

Watch for the warped rotors and brakes.

 

If I had to guess (an that's all we can do), I'd have to say that 15% of all auto CL owners run into transmission problems. Many of those are repeat customers too (multiple failures). Consumer Reports put a black mark on the CL because of the transmission in it's used car guide.

While I've backed off my original recommendation of never buying a auto CL, I'd now suggest that if you're going to buy an auto CL, make sure it's still covered under the factory warranty. 109K miles or 7 years. Lots of the 01's will be hitting that 7 year mark soon and won't be covered regardless of what the mileage is. Also the last half of 03 automatics aren't covered because acura thinks that they "fixed" the issue You can call an acura dealer with the vin to see if the transmission will be covered before you buy.

When I joined in Aug 02, I saw the transmission forum, and just avoided the issue all together and got a 6spd.

 

CLP's still have problems. We don't hear much about it on the forums, but some of that is probably due to CLP owners not being as performance oriented as CLS owners, and they are generally older and not online as much as the younger CLS owners...

No offense meant to our CLP owners here... I just call 'em as I see 'em.

I would tend to think that the lesser power would help extend the life of the tranny, but if it's a bad one, I think it will go regardless of what car it's in.

 

ill say it again....it doesnt matter at all how you drive the car. all the autos are a potential failure no matter how much you baby the car. thats why they break less than 1000 miles after getting replaced. when i dropped my car off to get replaced there was a TLS there being driven by a 65 y/o woman, and yes the tranny was out for the 3rd time on hers according to the tech.

 

if you buy an auto, make sure it is covered under warranty.

buy a 6 speed like everyone else said... it'll take you time to find one, try searching in the states near by also. good luck

 

Thanks for all your input!

 

109k miles or 7 years AND 9 months...im gonna sell this thing within those 9 months..

 

ya it took me a little over 2 months to find mine, and i still had to go to a different state to pick it up. trust me its worth the extra effort!

 

I too took the six speed route and have avoided all troubles with this car. After working for a local Acura dealership for almost a year back in 05 I had inside information about this transmission problem. Working in the parts dept we were doing close to 5-7 tranny's a week. (cl's, tl's mdx's) I was in charge of cataloging ordering and returning these tranny's. The parts dept was making a killing off this process. Acura was paying us like $1200 a piece. Commissions were fat for the whole dealership. The honda corp, and acura district reps that visisted knew about this problem with plenty of time to fix it when it was discovered like six, seven years ago. I personally think they built it in to keep the shops running and bringing customers back in, even if it was for warranty work they'd end up selling them some other services. Dont forget the recall band aid "patch" that brough them in too. The techs used to laugh and be like yeah they'll be back. I mean for christ sake this trans should have been on a 4 cylinder only. I think its very simliar to an integra trans. One tech that had been there for over 10 years talked about never repalcing motors or trans at all on the old legends, tegs, and even vigor. Why all of a sudden does this very popular car have such a huge problem? Cause the shops were slow and not making much money because the cars were not breaking major components. If any of you have worked for dealerships like I have, you know that all the big money is being made in the parts and service depts. Stay away from the auto's guys they will continue to break...

 

I had an 03 auto, experienced tranny problems, got the tranny replaced, still felt the tranny doing odd things, looked for a CL-S 6 speed, couldn't find a decent one so I instead got an 03 Accord 6 speed. Couldn't be happier. Definitely avoid an auto. cltypeslow is totally right, it doesn't matter how much you baby your tranny, if it's going to go it's going to go.

 

i agree with everyone..shop around even if it means going to another state. just don't get the auto. i might have set a distance record going from austin, tx all the way up to cleveland, ohio to get my car.

 

Then the techs should have also known what the oiljet was for and that it wasnt designed to do any thing to solve/fix the problem we all experience