myCLTYPE-S

Well yesterday I took my 2k1 cl-s with 12k miles into los gatos acura for some strange things going on. First when my car is cold and I put it into drive or reverse it hits hard, a little too hard if you ask me. On mothers day when I was getting on 680 from san ramon (which means the road is pretty flat) I was at WOT. As the car went up it was running high and delaying shifting, so I backed off for a quick sec and the car started to shift. This was second to third by the way. The rpms went from 5900 to 6900 in about a sec and bounced off the rev limiter and the I could hear and feel the tranny slip into gear REALLY SLOWLY. So then I thought that was weird. So I just decided that I would take it easy. Well coming up the hill, the sonol grade, the tranny went into 2nd (I was trying to pass so it downshifted) then when it decided to shift into 3rd it did it soo hard that the trac light came on. Wow that was hard. So I made an appointment and just got the call that they replaced my fluid and COULD NOT REPLICATE anything. Well as we all know, some of the tranny's are bad and some are good. I don't know which mine is but at least I have on record that mine was in the shop for something.

Any ideas anyone?

WebToker

You forget Acura "is not aware of any CL tranny issues". Glad you got home safe. Someone is going to end up dead one day because of these trannys.

Red Rider

Web, if Acura has sold approx. 200,000 CLs and TLs with the 5AT since 2001 what would you consider to be an "issue" 200 failures would be one tenth of one percent.

myCLTYPE-S

I did NOT want this to start into a the trannys are not a big problem or they are.

All I wanted to know is.....

To those who have had there trannys replaced....

Is this how it starts?

BSK181

in a word "YES"

do not let them off the hook.
did they check the codes on the computer?
be a mild nuisance or you are going to get stuck somewhere

myCLTYPE-S

Ok I will ask



This would be me if I get stuck

myCLTYPE-S

They said NO codes

Fluid looked fine

But when I saw it, it was kind of oil color. I know because I have changed my own fluid on cars before, and I know that it was gone. Oh well

moomaster_99

Shuttering..abrupt shift changes...slippin gears...yeah its the tranny....could be the computer too....but then i think the computer fucks the tranny up, so in the end they have to replace the tranny.

99CL

Although mine isn't the newer CLs. I had the same with my 99 CL and Acura told me it was the tranny fuild and just change that for me and told me it was fine. Well, i took it out for a spin and took it on a long drive. To make a long story short. It happened again, so i just took it back in, and they just ordered me a new tranny. NO questions ASKED... So they just try to prolong it by saying it was the fuild.

SilverKnight

YES

From now on, you have to be very careful. Always, and I say it again, ALWAYS keep a long distance between you and the car behind you to give the other driver enough braking distance in case your tranny decides to downshift from 5th to 2nd (especially when you press the accelerator trying to speed up).
Good luck

JRock

You realize it pisses some of us off to see people write such stupid comments like "only 200 failures". My dealer alone has done tons of transmission replacements and about the CLS problem specifically all the techs know about it. Anyone at Acura HQ who says they don't know about it is either lying through their teeth or isn't communicating well with their dealerships and therefore should be fired for not doing their job properly.

JSuppi

They told you they replaced the transmission fluid, but did they tell you why?? From my complete experience, the transmission fluid will tell you a good deal about what the culprit could, or could not be (but again there is a small chance that it won't). Did they tell you the transmission fluid was burnt? Or considerably discolored? Or did it have metal particles in it?

myCLTYPE-S

When I went to pickup the car they said that they drained it, not flushed so that they only replaced what was in the pan. What good will that do? There is still stuff in the torque converter and in the internals. So they said there was nothing wrong with the fluid or no particles in it. Well I pulled the dipstick at the dealership and the fluid DID NOT LOOK CHANGED. The guy there said that even if they just replaced the fluid it would still look like that. What is that you say.... brown. So I asked to see a new quart, since having never seen HONDA fluid I had no idea what to expect. But my experience and from doing this on a ford explore many times, once you change the fluid it would still kinda be red. Well the guy said that it would turn colors because it was picking up all of the dirt in the tranny. Well if it got that dirty in, now read very carefully here 3 MILES, wouldn't it mean that the tranny was not very good. I smell so much B.S. that it hurts. I am going to a different dealer.

DreamU

The failure %, using data from the tranny forum, is around 2%. So Acura has probably had 4000 tranny failures - you would think they'd notice.

kensteele

C'mon dude you jumped on me about chiming in on the tranny issues with my opinion and now you're doing to same, not even on the subject.

Obviously you never worked at a Company before. It is impossible for everyone (even most everyone) to be aware of all the issues with a single line of one of their car's parts. If you call Sprint, of the 20,000 people there, you will probably never get someone on the phone who knows that the model 8000 handset totally fails to make calls in Denver.

Dude, not everyone in that damn company is going bonkers over a 2% tranny failure in the 2nd gen CLs. They don't care, it doesn't directly impact most of their job functions. Gheez, give it a rest, please leave those guys along and bug your dealership, that's what they are for. For the last time, HQ is probably not setup to handle the "tactical" issues, Joe Farmer who says he almost got rear-end when his tranny failed to shift on I-985. Perhaps they should know about it but if they don't, why all the hostility?

For the record, just something to note, the PR department doesn't communicate with the retail stores as much as you might think. Just so you know....

SiGGy

1st there are bunch of different divisons of sprint I can think of...
LD, LTD, Local, PCS, GMG... (and more)

If you call the PCS PHONE CENTER, YES, they damb well better know about the service areas and their phones compatibility.

BAD analogy..

If you are talking to a technical i.e. MECHANIC they should be aware of these issues. As thats all they do. Not very many makes/models of Acuras they work on.

As I'm quite sure your technicians that install the NORTEL switches that run PCS. Or the folks who install the T1 lines for backhaul between towers (and some T3/DS3 in larger citys), or the RF engineers who dignanose RF problems in the major citys...

Should know about problems with specific phones in specific citys... Because it's their jobs to know this stuff and give that type of info to the people making other decicions...

The drones sitting at the desks really haven't a clue. But the technicians definetly should have some... Your not calling the secretary at the dealership and asking her for the bore and stroke on the CLS 3.2L engine...

common...

Sprint does a ton of stuff besides PCS. Not a good comparison....

PR talking to retail stores.... thats because they just sell,sell,sell,sell,sell ... doesn't change no matter what your buying. They'll tell you just about anything.

kensteele

You can't talk to those people on the phone, those people in the know at Acura. And if you somehow manage to, they will never admit to Joe Public your troubles. They're simply not allowed to.

My analogy is good (bad in that I said Sprint when I should have said Sprint PCS to narrow it down) but good because again, there is nobody but a few people in there that will know these things. Dude, there are 1,000 problems and 10,000 jobs. Not everyone is going to said "Oh yeah we know about that. It's the xyz on abc and we're putting in place 123 to fix it." Sorry----it just don't work that way. If you don't believe me, I challenge you to call any number you can find at Sprint headquarters and see if you can get the answer to this:

Q: I have a Motorola v8162 and everytime I dial *2, the phone shows "Emergency Mode". Is there something wrong with my phone and how to I fix it?

A: You find the answer (without talking to anyone in my department or at a retail store, which is where I've given the answer to). So 99% of the rest of Company knows nothing about this.

If you can get the answer to this, I will be showed. Is this a big, big issue; no it's kinda small but how big exactly is this CL issue and what are the chances of you getting the right people? I can name you big issues at Sprint and still, most everyone there doesn't even know what a Nortel switch is.

BTW, there is not PCS Phone Center at Sprint HQ to be called by the customer. Just like there is probably no Acura Service Department at Acura HQ to be called by the customer. The retail store....the Acura dealership. When I publish fixes and problem resolutions intended for the customer, those details are intended for/aimed at the retail stores, not the corporate employees at headquarters. Yes, they get wind of the bigger stuff but they don't make it their job function and they certainly won't discuss it with a customer.

JRock

Wrong, I'm replying directly to something that was said in this thread that is incorrect and silly.

Wrong. Next assumption?

I fail to see how your PR department being out of touch with the rest of your company is any excuse for Acura's upper management to be out of touch with the problems people are having with their vehicles. Clearly Acura mgmt has just determined that the best way to handle this issue is to downplay it. Are you so blind as to not understand corporate strategy or have you just "never worked at a Company before"?

PS, if your PR department doesn't have open and honest communication (better known as two-way symmetric communication) with every major branch of your company you're headed for failure if(when) a crisis occurs and you suddenly need PR to do damage control. But then if you don't have a proactive crisis communications plan, none of that really matters because you'd be working from a defensive position anyway.




That analogy would work if we were driving our cars up to Acura's headquarters and asking a senior manager to come out and swap the transmission for us - that's clearly not his job so he shouldn't know how to do it. However, it is directly his job to plan strategy and to know the strengths and weaknesses of his products, sales, etc. Don't lie to yourself, Ken, they DO look over EVERY number of defects for each type of car and what area of the car the defects are in, etc. It's part of their job to know these things. They have chosen to downplay the transmission issue (perhaps because it is NOT exactly the most common defect so that helps them feel they can get away with not addressing the issue.) I'm not even saying there's anything wrong with their strategy, I'm just saying you are foolish to believe they don't know.

SiGGy

There IS a customer PCS center at headquaters that is OPEN to the public which is accessable via phone. Sprint will not answer questions specifically for technical things. Because the people aren't qualified to answer them. Bunch of corporate monkey button pushers that do most of PCS. (not all)

I understand why Acura is doing what they are... But the situation is different...

Acura doesn't want to hurt the CLS any more that it has too. Which I'm happy about because I want a better trade in value. But they are still covering up the problem.

Everyone at the Campus isn't doing customer support. You *DON'T* get a technician that works on the NORTEL switches or the backbone when you go to a PCS center. There is very few PCS RF technicians. No consumer PCS center is going to have someone qualified to answer technical questions about their switches. Now you will get a technician that is qualified to tear your car apart and put it back together at Acura. Acura probably doesn't want their mechanics taking the tranny apart so no bad information gets leaked out in the US. As hardly any has made it out so far. I can also understand them sending the 1st few back to them... But at this point they know whats wrong, and are sitting on the information playing dumb.

I don't think you can honestly compare the two... But I do see where your comming from in terms of information deseminating from the top down... And the corporation covering it's own butt.

Kkranghkar

That's exactly how it started for me, EXACTLY. And of the course the fluid was fine, I got it changed at 15k miles and my tranny went at 17k...

Don't let them jerk you around with the codes, go to Stevens Creek Acura, they didn't give me any bullshit about what the problem is, and said they've seen this before, and are replacing it. Granted, it's been a week and I'm still waiting for the replacement tranny to come in from the factory, but the promise me it'll be here in the next couple of days.

ThoroDredCLS

This is ridiculous. You guys keep blabbing about the transmissions. If yours haven't broke be thankful and knock on wood and maybe it won't happen to the fortunate.

Seriously....WE went over this b4 with the brakes. When i talked to the dealer, yeah they are aware of the problems but because of so few of us, compared to their sales chart, the problem was not made a big issue. Sure they have a service bulletin out but you can't just run into the acura dealership and be like "I WANT NEW BRAKES NOW!"

Same thing goes with the transmissions. HQ is probably aware of the problem but, statistically, (AND I WORK FOR A BIG COMPUTER FIRM SO I SHOULD KNOW THIS) if the problem is NOT THAT big and the percentage of people having problems are SMALL why waste COMPANY TIME AND MONEY on the issue until SHIT HITS THE FAN! IT's JUST HOW THE WORLD RUNS!

EXAMPLE: I test/program/debug oracle systems and if only a few people have a problem with a database but it's not a major change, DO NOT CORRECT THE PROBLEM if 98% of people are not experiencing it. If you do fix it, it means you need a set of testers, a new release fix or patch and a bunch of money and downtime. Not worth it. We give the users a work around until it becomes a major issue.

myCLTYPE-S - THE ANSWER IS YES! You are going to probably be experiencing downtime too with the car. Go somewhere and get that transmission completely FLUSHED AND CLEANED.

1SICKLEX

My friends 3.0 CL tranny just blew with only 70k miles.
He's selling it for another car.

myCLTYPE-S

Ok being the person that started the thread it’s my turn to add my two cents. My main purpose to this was to ask it this was normal or if this was going to lead to my inevitable demise of my tranny. From what I have gathered it seems that the latter is true. Now as for the “if 98% of the people are not effected by the problem, then don’t fix it.” My response to you is as follows.

We all or at least some of us know that BMW has or had a small problem with their cooling fans. They stayed on and over heated, some burnt out and others just caught on fire. It only happened when the car was parked, since when the car was moving, the incoming air, or something was cooling the fans. Anyways I think about 4 or at least less than 10 actually caused a fire that resulted in some major damage. I remember one story was that they were on vacation and their BMW X5 caught on fire and burnt most of the garage and the Land Cruiser that it was parked next to it. Nobody was hurt and BMW gave them a new car, paid for all damages and then recalled 29,000 X5’s. Now having just purchased a new 740i for my mother I was a little concerned. But remembering that they were only X5’s that had this problem I thought nothing of it. She received a letter 2 weeks later stating that they were going to replace the fan control unit and put her into the rental of HER choice. Since the problem only took about an hour to fix but since BMW knows that people who own there cars don’t want to wait, they gave her the rental M3 for the whole day. Now before you ask NO I DIDN’T GET TO DRIVE IT.

So anyways they even sent her a fruit basket about a week later with a letter of apology about the delay. Now I know that this is or might be going too far, but why. We paid a good chuck of change for a car that has, and at this point I really don’t care what the Acura HQ thinks, a major problem with its tranny. I mean they fail! What is it going to take for them to own up to this? Someone dead, hurt, or just a few totaled cars.

So here is my idea, for all that anyone cares. Acura SHOULD replace any and all trannys that show any sign of failure (period). Next if your car is out of commission then you get a loaner (I don’t know if everyone has so that is why I am stating it). Next they pay YOU for the time that the car was not drivable. Then they send you a warrantee card so that you have your tranny covered for 100,000 miles. This way they could save some face and make all of the people who had problems, a little less angry. All of this concern and trouble has made me rethink buying another Acura.

Now this is all good and well but we all know this is not going to happen. Just thought that I would throw this out into the open for people to think about.

Member # 15487.6 of the MY TRANNY IS GOING TO TAKE A CRAP CLUB

Kkranghkar

By the way, myCL, here's a new update from my Stevens Creek experience:

Just got a call from my service rep, his name is Preston, go ahead and ask for him, seems like a good guy. He said he was test-driving my car right now post-repair, and they fixed all the rattles and replaced the tranny, just making sure. I put my car in last monday, so it's been 10 days.

It would've been sooner, but apparently FedEx ran over my tranny with their truck at the Oakland warehouse, and it got trashed, so they had to resend a brand-new second one from the factory -- otherwise he says I would've had it back Fri last week!

Still haven't gotten the final "pick up your car" call, so there's still room for something to go terribly wrong (I'm always a skeptic these days, given all the posts on the tranny shit), but it really seems like they're taking care of it.

kensteele

Dude, I walk by that Sprint Store located at Sprint Parkway that happens to be physically located on the Sprint Campus nearly everyday. I know it is there. That doesn't mean if you call that particular store, you are calling Sprint Headquarters as opposed to calling a Sprint Store located on Main Street and then you're calling a regular Retail Store.

Try to get the point that I'm making in my statements instead of reading it literally, a customer cannot call the company's Headquarters and expect to problem-solve and trouble-shoot something that is normally handled by the customer-oriented outlets unless it is something unusual, profound, or suspect.

If you call HQ instead of the retail store and you get no satisfaction, why blame HQ for ignorance? Because you don't know who you are talking to when you call.

BTW I agree with most of what you're saying except for the cover-up part; and the monkeys.

Ok, I guess I'm done with the particular argument. Go ahead and continue to call the Acura Headquarters. Unless it's something really big, I really don't think you'll get the satisfaction you're looking for (something over and above what a dealership might do for you) unless you bitch and moan and bitch and moan and bitch and moan..... I know, because if a customer called me long and hard enough about a problem, I'd just give him what he needed and the rest is history.

SiGGy

I was correcting your incorrect statement about the Sprint campus. Which from what you said, which was wrong.. But you are calling the Campus

But, you completely missed my point...

PCS CELLULAR CENTER= MONKEY BUTTON PUSHERS!!! lol, if there so smart have them build 3G. LMAO, Anyone can work in a PCS store/service center.

AUCRA SERVICE= trained techncians capable of tearing your car apart and putting it back together, and diagnosing problems.

Two totally different things... And they should be capable of telling you what is wrong about your car.

That was my point, and yes since HQ makes the "big" desicions, it is their fault. But I agree it's pointless to contact them... Only because they don't listen unless you bark loud enough with enough people... We agree, but Sprint is not a good example IMO. They are a technology purchasing company, they distribute other products... They don't design the hardware for the switches/phones/backhaul systems. Not the cell sites/software to run some of the stuff, yes...

tel1sps

I've been there... Get ready for a new trans....

Red Rider

Tough shit Jrock, back up YOUR comments. What's a ton ? How many out of approx. 200 thousand. Even if, and it's a huge if there were 2,000 failures it's still 1 percent. Hell on our tranny forum, we came up with a whopping 70, and some of those were replaced twice. Are you counting the guy who brought his in with the nitrous bottle still hooked up. If mine goes tomorrow i'll get it replaced under warranty, meanwhile i'll run my car hard and enjoy. I suggest that the 99.5% or whatever who haven't had a tranny problem do the same. You just love to whine. About a tranny that you haven't had a problem with, and headers which you're to cheap to buy.

SiGGy

Of course no one really knows how many have failed... (lol accept Acura) There has been a bunch at the dealership here in Overland Park! But kensteele and I and are the only Overland Park people on this forum.

Not everyone is a Internet freak, looking to speak ther minds on online...

One can assume there is a ton of failures you don't know about...

I doubt 99.5% is correct. There wouldn't be a national back order for such a small ammount over this many months. Of course I don't know either. I have no numbers to backup my guesses, but either do you...

I just know it sucks when it happens Which is why a lot of people take it to a personal level. Because it sucks when it happens to you personally. Easy to talk about when you aren't one of the people who has been witout their CLS for weeks...

JSuppi

They ran over your tranmission too ??? Well I thought they were doing good when I initially took my car in, until the dealership called me back and said they had to order another because it was broken during shipment (Then it starts ) Took a freaking month for that second transmission to come in.