My 2006 RL has started acting very strange of late. Most of the electronics in the car are randomly working and not working.

Is this some strange electrical issue or do I have to replace each of these pieces?
Is there a full system reset that I can try to clear things up?


Thanks

 

Have you checked your battey?

 

I just recently replaced the starter. Took it to two places and they told me the Battery is good. Anything in specific I should be asking for or looking for?

 

The battery may test "good" by their standards but not adequate for an RL. Your symptoms definitely wreak of battery issues and for less than a single visit to the dealer, a new one could be installed. Cheap and easy diagnostics. There have been numerous people who have had to have changed their battery within 2 years on an RL.

 

Thanks db22. Does that mean I would have to buy an Acura battery?

I bought the last one from another place and it still has a warranty to get replaced, but if the battery is that particular, there may be no point in getting it from the same place.

 

I would check the altenator; it can cause weird electrical issues like that I had to replace mine and everything works great!

 

I just had the battery, starter and alternator checked. They are come back good.

The battery was around 12.8 v with the car off and 12.4 with the car on (engine off).
I guess something else is going on.

Right now, even the car horn is not working and neither are any of the buttons on the wheel, except for buttons that control the driver info. Strange enough, I can still use my phone to dial and connect to the bluetooth on the car. So that is working even though the buttons to operate it do not.

I am taking it into Acura for an estimate tomorrow, and then I'll have to decide if its worth fixing or not. It almost seems like the car has an expiry date and mine has passed.

 

I see you missed the part about bad batteries testing good.

 

my understanding was that a bad battery would show when you turn the car on with ignition off. That is would fall to 10v or below, but mine showed 12.4 (dropped from 12.8).

Otherwise, how can I convince the shop that its a bad battery short of asking them to put in a new one.

 

Buy it and put it in lol.

 

Optima Redtop?

 

I replaced the battery as well. but no difference. The buttons on the left side are now permanently out. Horn is back. AFS and Airbag are 100% on. Backup sensor is still intermittent.

Paid 3 hours labour to Acura and they tell me that the wire connecting the steering buttons to electronics has gone bad (Code 11-11). The backup sensors need to be replaced and the AFS is because I need a stroke sensor and replace a corroded wire. Total 2200+taxes.

To be honest I don't trust their diagnosis and worry that its just some guess that will cause me to pay for some stuff I don't need and still I have to pay for the real issue afterwards.

I opened the steering column and looked at the wires connecting the controls and just playing with the wires, I could not get the left side controls to work again. If its a bad wire, typically playing with the wire should make the buttons work intermittently again, but no.

Any other ideas?

thanks

 

So I found out that turning the wheel all the way to the left makes the buttons work again, then as I turn it back, about a turn later it starts messing up and then stops.

Now I'm off to trying to see how to take the steering wheel off to see why this would stop working.

 

For any one else that finds this later.

Changing the Clock Spring (a.k.a S.R.S Reel) was relatively simple and it fixed most of my issues. The backup sensor and AFS are still not working, but they are not critical.

I found a link online for replacing the steering wheel and many you tube videos also that show you step by step instructions on what to do. The hardest part was actually removing the steering wheel without a remover tool and I ended up asking a friend to help just bang on the wheel while I yanked on it.

Tip: Do not remove the wheel nut completely. Just loosen it. This will prevent it you from smacking your face when the wheel comes loose.

Tip: I had to also center the clock spring, but no matter what I did I could not get it to be centred and also have the wire assembly on the lower portion since that is where it needed to be with the wheel straight. It turns out that the clock spring could turn about 7 complete turns while my wheel could only turn 3 complete turns from end to end. So I took a risk and "almost" centred the clock spring so that the wire assembly is where i needed it and it worked.