I didn't think that it would happen, but alas, it seems to be true:

Yesterday evening, I experianced a severe vibration followed by a grinding and loss of power. My 2005 RL has only 3200 miles on the odometer.

Has anyone else experianced the same situation?? All info is appreciated

C.J.

 

that is why the 6-speed TL is a best seller. I won't buy another Honda unless is a 6-speed.

 

Traded my 04' TL 6-Speed in on my RL. Too much torq. steer for me...still an awesome car!

I had to get a new transmission on my 2003 TL-S too...Hmmm, maybe I have a problem with defunct trannies???

I get her back tomorrow evening. I can only pray that this is the last time this happens

C.J.

 

Could this be that AWD problem others were having before? Hmm...

 

I think it's just you and your curse with auto trannies.

 

Don't know Rob....I asked the service rep. if I was the first to have this replaced, and he said, "Yes."

Go Figure... My auto trannies hate me.

-C.J.

 

Sorry to hear about the problem. I know you've been really satisfied with the RL. Keep us posted on the outcome.

 

You know I wondered about that when I purchased this car 2 weeks ago. Maybe when I take this car in to get the steerrig and shift knob installed, I should ask to see the pre- inspection service. Will they reveal if they have checked the fluid in both locations on the tranny?

 

mr mri,

well I hope it gets fixed ASAP and whatever the prob is doesnt happen again.

 

Houston,
I have a copy of me inspection sheet. I would def. ask!

Rob,
I too can only pray that this get resolved now, and never rears its' ugly head again.

Thanks everyone for your input!

C.J.


I get her back tonight, w/ a new solenoid(sp?).

 

I hope this is resolved. Did the dealer have an explaination?

 

I noticed something strange also. I had to make a sudden stop when the car wasn't fully warmed up ... going about 30mph & probably in 2nd gear. When I went to stop, I got what seemed to be a loss of power & grinding. However, the car did not stall. Happened another time with the same set of circumstances. I could never replicate this at the dealer & hope it was just an electronic abberation.

 

Monwe,

I would go back to the dealer with a print-out of this thread. This is exactly what happened to me. I can even fax you the service record from the dealer. Let me know if I can be of any help to you. THis is too dangerous to be left alone. PM me if you need some more info.

I did not get an explanation, nor did I ask...

Take care,

C.J.

 

this is ridiculous, isn't this the 3rd car w/ the similar problem on these forums? this really throws a wrench into my rl purchasing decision.

 

This has happened to me twice so far. In each case, I was pulling out of the parking lot at work while leaving for lunch. Within 500 yards from the parking lot, there is a stop sign and for each occurrence, it happened at this particular location. When I slow down for the stop sign and start braking, I hear some grinding noises, a little bit of jerking action and I might have had some loss in power, but it's hard to tell, since I wasn't going very fast. After I let it calm down for a few seconds, everything seemed to be OK. The first time that it happened, I thought it was maybe the ABS acting up.
But now that it has happened twice and I see other people having this problem, then it might be something more serious. Ugh!

 

I find it disconcerting (to say the least) that some RL owners are being bothered by this problem. My RL has 100% perfect from day one (back on October 15th when I took delivery). It remains so to this day. Everything works exactly as it's supposed to (and admittedly, as I expected it to). I believe I could keep this baby for many a moon.

But if I were experiencing any of the noises/problems mentioned, I would definitely call into my dealer's and have the vehicle inspected, especially the SH-AWD just for safety sake and my own piece of mind.

I wish every RL owner the very best driving experience possible since, with my vehicle at least, that is what I've gotten since day one.

 

My family has owned three Honda's(1995 Accord V6 sedan, 1996 Accord LX sedan, 2001 Acura 3.2CL coupe) so far, and we have never confronted any transmission problem in any of them.

 

I have heard that same "grinding" noise on two different occassions. It hasn't happened in the past week, but I'm becoming very concerned.

What does the dealer do besides an inspection? Is the fluid level in the SH-AWD mechanism the problem here? I'm hoping this is something that can easily be checked, and if determined to be the issue, easily resolved.

If anyone has any further information, I would be most appreciative if you could share it with me (in a PM or on this board).

Thanks

edited to say that my car only has around 3,500 miles on it.

 

My sentiments exactly DCRL! I too took delivery in October 04 and have experienced no problems whatsoever. Could it be that the initial production run ( First 1,000 vehicles) received more attention in the assembly process than subsequent production runs?

 

i think it might be that differential problem that someone posted about a while back....something about insufficient fluid or improper filling of fluid at factory or something....should only have affected a few cars.

im sure acura wouldnt be dumb enough to release the flagship car with a screwed up tranny. call me naive, but i have faith in honda.

 

I believe that Acura/Honda know what they are doing. sometimes things happen...certain details can go unchecked. As stated above; When I hit 17,400 on my 2003 TL-S, I had to get a new tranny. And just a few weeks ago, Honda released a flyer stating that I (still) had a car that would be needing a new tranny to further prevent injuries/harm. A little too late for that, but I think A/H are on the right track to addressing minor and major problems as soon as possible...especially with a flagship vehicle.

Great posts guys, you all are top-notch!

C.J.

 

Sorry, but I can't resist. It's crazy to make excuses for Honda. The tranny problems on the TL, CL, took quite a while JUST to get Honda to admit the problem, not to mention that there was never really a fix.

To say oh Honda would never release a flagship with tranny problems, how naive. I suppose they 'would' release a non-flagship model with problems. Honda auto trannies are a question mark, ESPECIALLY on a new model.

As far as Honda carefully examining the first 1000 out, wasn't that the number of RLs that needed the tranny fluid drained because the factory put the wrong amount in, this, their highly promoted SH-AWD system too.

I'd be pissed at paying 50000 for a Honda and having tranny problems, good luck guys. I have no faith in Honda auto trannies on new models.

 

at least it's not a german car. then it would be in the shop for a few months out of the year.

 

Actually no, my BMW 530i and 745i were in the shop less than my 05 RL

 

Well, sorry, but you're not going to get me on your negative bandwagon. The RL is a great car, and if I have problems I'm not going to get "pissed". I'll take care of it. Anytime you buy a car with new, innovative technology that's a risk you take.

When the most recent 7 Series was introduced, BMW was doing buybacks due to electronic glitches. I was looking at a 5 Series at the time and the BMW salesman told me one of his customers couldn't take delivery of his new 7 because the car wouldn't start. Needless to say, the 7 cost a lot more than $50k.

As for Acura's other trannies, I owned a '99 TL (brand new model) for 2.5 years and never had any problems.

 

Well Acura released a 2005 Product update which seems to solve the problem you guys are having. It seems to be a software issue rather than a transmission issue.

 

How does people get these updates? My car has been trouble free though.

 

I would also like to know where I can get this information so that I can go to my dealer with it to have my RL checked out.

Much thanks.

 

I'm an Acura car supporter, have owned 4 coupes, 2 Legends and 2 CLSs. I love the cars but it's the customer service that has not been up to par with the cars IMO. I realize all cars can have problems, it's how they respond that is important.

I'm glad for the success Acura is having with the 3 new sedans and hopefully their dealer and corporate customer service will improve also.

 

I received a letter in the mail last night stating that I needed to bring my car in for these product updates. Coincidentally, my car was already at the dealership due to one of the issues, which was the grinding noises that I was hearing when I came to the first stop when the engine was cold.

Prior to opening up the letter, the service manager had left me a message on my answering machine stating that the problem that I was experiencing with the grinding noises was probably due to squeaky brakes. Yeah right! Like I can't tell the difference between squeaky brakes and abnormal grinding noises and the car shuddering!!!

This morning I called the service department and told them about the letter and they didn't know anything about the letter. He asked me to fax it to him which I did. Hopefully this will fix my problem!

 

I called the dealer yesterday and advised of this letter which I have yet to receive. He looked up my VIN and indicated that my vehicle is affected by all 4 issues.

I previously, last week, had the XM unit replaced. But I'm more interested int eh engine re-programming as I've had the grinding noise since I picked up the car. Hopefully this will correct the issue. Its scheduled into the dealership this Thursday, Feb 17.

 

You should receive a letter in the mail notifying you of the updates. But until you get the update, maybe you guys should let your engines warms up before driving the car? It's only for the good of the motor.

 

This also happened to me yesterday when leaving work..... Maybe I should have opted for the extended warranty..

 

Get the software update to the Powertrain Control Module and see if this resolves the issue. I received the update on Monday and have not experienced this problem since then (knock on wood)!

 

I got the update applied yesterday (Thurs 17 Feb). While I was leaving the dealerships parking lot the "grinding" noise reared its ugly head. I turned around and advised my service advisor that the Transmission/Engine re-programming did not fix the issue.

Back to square one. Welcome to Acura.

 

Not good

 

Sorry to hear about your continued trouble, dtrose. This is definitely worrisome. I will say that I have not had the shuddering problem since the first time I experienced it a few weeks back. I will still take my car in for the software updates, though, but perhaps there's more to this problem than just a software glitch? I thought this had to do with some fluid levels being low (not filled correctly at the factory)? Has this changed, or this a different issue all together?

 

Actually the last time that I had the shuddering or grinding noise was Jan 14. Then again when I drove it off of the dealers lot after having the TSB applied last week.

I'm at the point now of driving the vehicle until something falls off the rear end.

 

correct me if i'm wrong, but it sounds like update fixes this problem. i've noticed that there are sporadic tranny problems with honda / acuras. i've had the 2000 accord coupe, 2004 tl and 2005 rl and none had tranny issues, my family also has a 2002 rsx type-s and 2004 tsx and they don't have that right now. i do know that when i had the accord, my friend had the same exact car and he had a big tranny issue, but after it was fixed he never had it again and drove an additional 150,000 miles on them.

best of luck to everyone, i hear about these things and wonder if it'll happen to my rl, but nothing yet. i just wanted to point out that ANY car make and model will always have some cars that don't perform as well as others, it's not just acura and hondas. my parents have the MB clk-320 and so does my aunt, they bought it within a month of each other. my aunt is having a lot of little issues here and there and my parents have none. i know people who have toyotas, bmw, mercedes, lexus, vw, audi's where some have problems while others don't, so don't let these issues dissuade people from buying the RL. it's truly an awesome piece of machinery that'll justify dropping the amount cash on it.

 

Very true. 2,900 miles and no issues.