My car stalled on the way to Grand Caynon from Vegas. The engine suddenly lost power and shut down. Check engine light came on, SH-AWD failure notice, and emmission system warning notice came on. It was about 115F degrees, and the car just died in the middle of dessert. I called acura roadside assistance, and they couldn't locate my car. I thought they had satellite communication with my car, like ONSTAR, but they don't. They kept on asking my for my location, and they couldn't find my location on the map either. Good thing I was only several miles away from the Hoover Dam. They told me they think they know, but towing will take 3-5 hours. It was 115 degrees out there and I just couldn't wait for that long with my family. I kept on trying to see if the car would start. After about an hour the car started, so I made a u-turn and kept on driving downhill towards Hoover Dam. The car only had like half the regular power, and I was smelling gas fume continuously. The engine stalled intermittenly, but I just kept on driving to Vegas Airport because I couldn't trust Acura Roadside assistant. I got a rental car there and the car was towed to Las Vegas Acura dealer. They couldn't dianose the problem until 2 days later, and they were blaming it on the gas. I told him that I filled my car and drove over 50 miles before my car stalled. Also, I filled up the rental car (Grand Caravan) with same gas and this car is running perfectly fine. He drove around after they cleared the codes and nothing was happening. I told him that if it's the same gas, if should give you the same codes again. He backed off and he said he would call Acura Engineering. So, I come back home in a rental car home to Los Angeles, CA (250 miles away). He calls me back and tell me that the Engineering dept told them to replace the fuel pump with newly updated fuel pump. He said the car will be ready by end of Thursday (7/10/08), so I take a day off from work. He calls me up on Friday (7/11/08) and tells me that parts not in, so the car's not ready. He also tells me that Acura will not release the new fuel pumps until 8/19/08. Acura dealer will not give me a loaner because I live in Los Angeles, and they don't have anything available. Acura Client Services refuse to tow my car to Los Angeles, CA. They are pointing finger at each other and I am stuck here with my car at the car, and paying for my own rental car. I asked the dealer if I can pick up the vehicle and drive it back home, and he said that I have to sign a liability waiver before I can take the car because they know that the car is not safe to drive. They don't want to install a new pump (old model) because they will get into a legal trouble for installing a pump that will fail. I have been talking to Acura Client Services several times already and no one seems to make decisions or authorize anything. They keep on saying that it's my car, and I should make the decisions to do whatever I need to do.
Thanks for reading up to this point. I am skipping about all the run arounds that people at Acura Roadside assitance, the dealer, total luxury care department, and Acura Client Services made me do to come this far. It's a whole another story.
There's no recall on this item yet, but I want to make sure all you RL drivers are safe. You should talk to your dealer as well about replacing your fuel pump with new one. If your dealer want to talk to someone at Acura, I will be more than happy to give you those numbers. I can give you Acura of Las Vegas who tells me there are several car they have at the dealer with similar problem, and Acura case manager's number.
Does anybody know who I should talk to next?

 

Haven't heard much about a fuel pump issue here. Perhaps it's a 2007+ issue? Perhaps you really did have bad fuel with water in it and it fudged the fuel pump?

Anyone else have fuel pump problems?

Edit: There was a TSB on RLs for a fuel pump relay, but it was only for a certain VIN range. https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...ight=fuel+pump

 

Unfortunately they removed ONSTAR beginning 07, therefore your car is finless. If your car was a 05-06 you would have been rescued a lot faster.

 

Or using the navigation system, you can pull up your current GPS coordinates (run car on battery for 3 minutes, no gas/motor running needed) and select current location, it will display an appoximate address and the GPS coordinates with elevation as well.

But to answer the Op's question, I would ask acura to tell you the codes the car gave and see what they are. My suspicion is that the fuel pump overheated, you must have been near empty on the way to the gas station, and fuel is what actually cools the pump, but this caused excessive heat in the fuel pump. Then you poured in gas and drove in 115 degree heat, the already hot fuel pump could not be cooled enough and failed. That's one senario. Another I can think of is that your fuel "seperated" in the heat, the ethanol and the gas and caused the motor to stall. Waiting on the side of the road, it remixed due to kenetic energy and then you were able to drive.

 

That's a ridiculous comment by UW RL. So no one should be accountable to do what they should have done because there is no Onstar?? Giving directions by a human is not good enough. Plus the fin IS on many RLs without Onstar.

THe whole thing doesn't give much confidence at all in Acura's 'customer service' we all hear about when you buy the car.

 

I don't think UW RL's comment is ridiculous at all. While it is true that service should have been there regardless, having OnStar would have alleviated difficulty with locating the car. Not everyone knows how to hack into the navi to get their GPS location, easy as it is.

This situation makes me a little more happy to pay for OnStar every year.

 

You don't need to hack into the navi, its a user available option. On my mdx, I think it is push in the knob while on the map, and select current location.... I'll check when going to work.

 

Yep. Just say "Where am I" or "Display current location"...

or while the map is displayed. push the knob, select "Icons displayed on map (or soemthing along those lines)", and then you'll see an option to display the location.

You'll get the address and GPS coordinates.

 

Looked in owner's manual yesterday. You guys are absolutely right. I just prefer to use the three finger salute to see the satellites.

 

The fin is NOT on RLs from 07 on.

My comment was obsolutely true and correct. And you are correct too, the OP should have been rescued a lot faster but it was the fact that he did not have ONSTAR that he had to wait for so long. Plus, do you think everyone knows about every single command on the nav?

 

the FIN IS ON 09 RL's with no onstar... The OP would have been rescued faster, but if there is no one out there within reasonable distance, it still would have taken time to get to them. With onstar, maybe they might have gotten there 15 minutes quicker...

 

So what ever happened with the fuel pump?

Any other reports of bad fuel pumps?

 

I had a similar problem in my 05 RL in that my SHAWD, VSC, Anti Lock and display all went out on me. I called Acura and they said they had never heard of such a problem and suggested I drive to my nearest Acura dealer, which for me is 400 miles away. I pulled over to contemplate my situation and decided to check a few things out as it sounded to me like a computer problem with-in the car. I decided to check a few of the 20 amp fuses and pulled 3 of them out and checked them only to find that they were all good. I replaced the fuses and got back in the car and started it again and everything worked perfectly. I determined that a fuse had got lose somehow. All but one fuse went back in ok and I put a sponge over that area to keep it in place until I am near a Acura dealer.

If all else fails, pull a few of the fuses and re-insert.

 

Now that is some interesting physical chemistry you're talking there....the heat causes the ethanol and gas to separate, and then the "kinetic energy" (which is directly related to the heat) caused the two components to remix. Sounds like an oscillatory reaction where if we can determine the frequency and phase we can decide exactly when to turn the key and have the car start.