I couldn't believe it. The door handle, on the interior driver side, broke off while I was trying to close the door! Has anyone else had this problem. This
Acura RL has been the biggest piece of shit I have ever owned. I can't wait to get rid of it!

 

please do not disrespect all of our cars just because you have had a few problems.

 

don't buy rebuilds! If you really think this car is junk then i can't wait to here how you like your next car. lolol

 

This has happened before...

Use google search

https://acurazine.com/forums/2g-rl-2005-2012-76/interior-door-handle-499809/

 

Many have reported the same problem. Mine is squeaking when pulled and I know eventually it will break off. It is only plastic afterall. A replacement is pretty affordable though.

 

That was the only part of my RL that seemed a little flimsy. Actual breakage is an infrequent problem, however.

I would hardly rate the RL as a "piece of shit". It is, bar none, the best luxo cruiser in its class. In fact, i wish there were a way I could have kept mine along with my new V.

 

perhaps a bigger garage?

 

bro its only a door handle lmao

 

you betrayed us all...

 

 

RL is not making me happy, a mistake?

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I have a 05 RL and so far I have put 66,000 miles on it. So yes a bit more then your usual driver. Nevertheless, I am not seeing the Honda/Acura quality I expected.

The brakes for example are POS. The rotors are warping and after the dealer shaved them and etc. it has warped again. Now they want to charge me money to shave it down and fix it. Has anyone purchased Brembo or such rotors and done an aftermarket system? OEM seems to suck.

My trunk struts already went out, and now I have to manually hold the trunk up or use one of my golf clubs! Well now the car is in the shop getting that replaced.

The A/C went out on me and had to get that replaced.

The AFS headlight system is annoying the hell out of me. On a road trip of 2 hours or so, it will always go off! The dealer can't seem to fix the darn thing. One one road trip it went off 3 times!

The blue tooth hands free system is not working as well as it used to. People used to tell me the sound quality was great when I first got the car now they can barely hear me.

Well that is about it for now, I could go on but I think that's for another day.

So anyone else been having problems? I should of gotten a BMW 545i.

This is a post from OP 2 years ago. I would say he has more gripes than a door handle. If I had had all of these issues I may call my car a POS also. You may want to do some research before piling on the guy.

 

Hm. Good point, ssim3.

It sounds like he got a lemon. Most people here don't have more than the usual electrical gremlins.

 

Sorry to hear your problems...my experience with warping rotors on Hondas is that if they warp, and you cut them down to re-true them, is that they will warp again. You have that much less material to absorb the excess heat, which is why they warped in the first place.

I would not spend the money to get them cut once again. I would get new rotors. Is it the front or the back or all four?

As usual, another of my long winded stories. YMMV.

I have not looked for 2G RL rotors, but here is my experience on another Acura. For my 2G Legend, which never warped, but after 150K miles, I thought it deserved new rotors when I put on the Hawk HPS pads, I just bought standard OEM Brembo replacements from the Auto Barn over the net. They have been trouble free, even after two sessions of break in. The HPS do not work unless they are broken in. They were dangerously slow in biting and stopping the car. I had to do a session of 10 cycles to accelerate to 60, and do a near stop, and accelerate to 60 again, etc., then drive for about 20 mins without stopping to cool down the rotors. Talk about cooking brake smell. After that, the brakes worked really well. I did another session a week later to see if it improved anything, and it really did not....bottom line is the Brembo OEM replacements worked great.

 

This all sounds like a good reminder for everybody...

Be careful when buying a car in it's 1ST year of production, especially if the warranty has expired.

If I wanted a car bad enough, and it was in the first year of production, I would definitely lease.. especially cause I get tired of my car after about 3 years anyway.

But this sounds like pretty bad luck regardless....

 

Exactly why I got an 06'.

I'll be pulling my doors closed from the bottom of the handles from now on.

 

my handle sounds like it will be coming off shortly as well. Will the dealer replace this? I have an extended warranty.

 

Are you aware that all you have to do is get the door moving and it will close itself? Try it.... instead of jerking on the handle and/or slamming the door shut.

 

+1

Got some dudes checking how fast they can shut their door...

BTW, I'm STILL about the door handle coming off upon closing the door..

 

Yes. I think that was the only part of my car that felt a little flimsy as I noted above. I was gentle with it and had no issues with it.

 

Jeeeeaazzz Acura owners lol, "My Interior squeaks, lemon law?"

 

Will Acura do anything about this? My door handle popped off also. I am guessing Acura will try and charge me an arm and a leg for it to be fixed.

 

you should immediately sell that "P.O.S." RL and go buy a high quality, long lasting, GM product....

 

I didn't imagine that the interior door handles are just plastic without reinforcement. I hope that my door handles will not be broke off but there is some noise from the goose neck type handle when I close the door. Broken goose neck? No way...

 

No matter how many times I see this thread, the subject makes me everytime...

Take it easy on your door handle guys!

 

Have the same problem now, among many others. (Nav- Disc reading error, please contact dealer, center arm rest leather torn, leather on driver side arm rest has wrinkled is also starting to tear, one LED bulb on tail light is out cannot replace just that one, must buy whole new tail assembly, glove box door is starting to get what looks like heat bubbles on it??, Bluetooth works sometimes, console lights for defrost button(s) and seat heater are out) Other then that the car looks great and runs great. LOL!! I am convinced without a doubt that I have a lemon and am lookin forward to getting rid of it in the summer. nothing else goes wrong between here and then.

 

i don't know how you guys rip your door handles off as soon as the door gets any momentum, it closes itself I normally close mine with one finger......

 

I have an '05 RL now and love it, but the build quality is not as good as the '97 3.2 TL I used to own. I bought that car used w/17k miles and drove it for 7 years/113k miles. Over those 7 years, that car had absolutely no squeaks or rattles. As for maintenance, oil, tires and brakes. The only non-routine item I had to fix was a turn signal that was jimmied off by some moron trying to get my HID headlights. Fortunately the idiot gave up or realized that the car didn't have HID headlights before doing too much damage.

 

That's what I usually did to avoid closing the door by grabbing the door handle. (Which is what it's meant for) But this time I just pulled and the only thing that came with me was the door handle. I knew it would eventually happen because it was starting to get loose, but by no means did I pull hard or anything.

 

My handle just broke off as well.

That said I've owned a Mercedes (total JUNK), a Lexus LS and this RL is the only vehicle I've had that even comes close to the build quality of the LS. I've been very pleased.

I've owned the car for 4 years and it has 82K miles on it. Other than this strange issue, I've had very few problems with the car. The passenger side HID headlight would flicker a bit and go out on rare occasions but the dealership worked with me on that repair, costly as it was.

Just thought I'd chime in on the POS line of thinking. I could disagree more.

Cheers!

 

It's posts like this that make me wary of upgrading to a gen 2 RL, not just the door handle, but other things I have been reading about AFS light, brake rotors, squeaks and rattles etc. I have a gen 1 RL that has been a solid vehicle and still drives like new w/o any squeaks and rattles (almost 100K on it). During it's entire life the only issue was a SRS light sensor that was replaced by dealer. I am not hating on the 2G, I was set on upgrading to one in a few years, but am feeling that overall Japanese cars are compromising on quality. This decade seems may be dominated by Korean automakers like Hyundai and Kia (love the Genesis). Brother was looking to pickup a 07-09 Lexus ES350 and found reports of transmission issues (then there's the whole Toyota quality issue). Nissan/Infiniti although vastly transformed has quality issues (personal experience from Maxima and G35). And when it comes to looks, Honda/Acura is really failing. Do you feel like the early 2000s (2000-2004/5) vehicles from Honda/Acura were of better quality, reliable and aggressive looking vehicles?

 

Since so many have broken off, I would expect someone to post how they resolved their problem and what the parts cost wholesale.

 

145 dollars for a door handle is nothing close to affordable...
both door handles breaking is 300 bucks just for parts
all this means is that Honda failed to test them properly after designing. its a door handle it should be designed to be pulled on

145 dollars for a fn door handle. is ridiculous.. even a Mercedes door handle doesn't cost that much.

belive it or not there are such things as built in design flaws
that's how dealerships make money

heres a question for you

do you really think that in 100 or so years of making cars the manufacturers are so stupid to still be having issues with parts breaking when we can send an unmanned robot to mars and have it run around with no maintenance or the dealership nearby yet we cant make a door handle that doesn't break?
the actual plastic only makes up about 20% of the circumference of the door handle. it is designed to break and it was designed to be a nice dealership money maker but when they make to many parts with built in failure or non serviceable like 1800 dollar driveshaft this is NOT a pinnacle of engineering.. its exactly what the OP described.
so far I am very disappointed that Honda turned a great luxury car into a fast depreciating car

heres the reality that most people don't want to admit
1 it is smaller than any other luxury sedan that RL tried to compete with and failed
2 it has the gas mileage of a V8 and power of V6
3 it weighs more than e350 4matic and a Toyota t100 and many other cars in its class
4 its designed with mostly unserviceable parts like driveshaft bearing and ball joints etc
5 the odd lug pattern,the breaking door handles, the impossible to upgrade stereo system, faulty ANC,the internal transmission filter,radio/defroster interference, keyless entry issues, and plenty more

so far I am unhappy with the way Honda made this car because its a good example of a great car that has been bastardized by the manufacturer. then they wonder why it failed to sell so bad that they don't even advertise it on their facebook anymore, I think even del sol didn't fail as bad as the RL it actually sold more than this

 

Nice rant! 8/10 purely for length!