Coming to a stop at a red light before the highway onramp, I felt the car downshift, or no, I should say slam, into first gear. On green, I took off slowly and I could feel a slight bit of hesitation on every upshift.

10 miles into the trip (I was on my way to a wedding, too), I gave it some throttle to pass a slow-moving car and it slipped. I have a habit of putting my right hand on the gear selector and I instinctively just threw it into neutral and pulled over. After talking to a friend who was following me, I decided to carry on and see what happens. Using the SportShift, I locked it into 5th gear and figured that should somehow and somewhat prevent an undesired downshift into 2nd gear. Well, for a while, it seemed to be okay. Wrong.

My transmission is done. It lasted 51k miles. D5 is blinking, and MIL is on. It won't shift out of 2nd gear and reverse is fucked, too.

Funny thing is that from the first symptom of the failure I only had 10 miles of warning. And JUST out of warranty, too. My car was a later batch '03 and was not eligible for the extended transmission warranty because, and I quote, "Honda implemented 'the fix' during production year '03".

I never got a chance to scan the code, so I can't say for sure (though I would guess the chances are pretty damn good) that the cause of the failure is the same as the one responsible for the majority of transmission failures. My car was towed to the dealership and will sit there until Monday.

I hope they cover it on good faith, because I don't think it would be cool of them to deny the claim over the issue of 1,000 miles past warranty mileage. They might give me a hard time on my mods, too. But I'm hoping that since a friend of mine works at this dealership, they will let it slide.

Either way, that pretty much ruined the day. I still made it to the wedding, though. At least I had fun there. Just venting.

 

Why... won't.... mine.... die!

It's been shuddering, occasionally slipping, sometimes slamming into gear.. but at other times it seems fine! No lights so far. I just want it to die because it's killing the driving experience.

Edit: is there anything I can ethically and legally do to speed the process? It's obvious that it is on its way out, it's just taking its time. If it were a horse, I'd shoot it.

 

Bummer DUDE!

 

Been there had that!!!

 

Sucks doesnt it!

 

Been there had that!!!

Bummer DUDE!

Sucks doesnt it!

wanna RACE!

For Pinks!

[mod edit -- cut out with the PW'ing]

 

For Pinks!

 

Holy Postwhore, batman!

 

the day in US was great, and the wedding part was pretty good, except the part that we stayed at the gas station for 2 hrs...

i just got home, almost fell asleep during the drive, have to sing karaoke all the way to keep myself awake

well, i guess i won't come anymore, since i gave u all teh bad luck sucker :p

 

you just can't pick a better day for the tranny failure...LOL

but it was fun that both of our TL zipping around teh traffic b4 ur tranny blew up

 

I fit is really on it's way out, you can speed it up by changing the fluid (especially if the fluid is brownish and smelling a little burnt).

That may seem counterintuitive, but a tranny with clutches that are starting to get smoked will actually break down faster with new fluid in it. It has something to do with the higher detergent and additive packages of the fresh fluid.

 

To Pure Adrenaline:
Piss, bitch, moan, whatever it takes at your Acura dealer. This is still a second gen. TL with the same transmissions as all of the other ones that have failed (I'm on my second but it's holding up well). Their potential attitude that it's not covered under warranty is not acceptable, even if it's over 50K. Any carmaker worth keeping customers should change the transmission, no questions asked. Otherwise, call Acura corporate in California. Good luck. No transmission should fail at such a low mileage.

 

if u part DIBS ON EVERYTHING!!!!!!!

 

Thats 1 of the reasons i dont like changing fluid. It seams like about every time i do it fails!

I would make the larges stink to acura if they try saying no. They know damn well that it doesnt matter what date it was built. The trannies will FAIL!

 

This really sucks. Hopefully Acura will cover the tranny. My car falls out of the warrenty extension as well but I still have awhile before im out of warrenty.


This could also be a good time to get an upgraded tranny and start getting some real power mods

 

Sorry to hear Rob.

I still think acura will honor the warranty otherwise i would raise major hell.

 

Well if you need help putting in a new tranny give me a call!

 

the fluid is brownish and smells a little burnt.

Hmmm maybe this is what I'll do. A few months ago the fluid was perfectly red/pink like it should be and no foul odors. But now that's all changed.

 

Rob

your car still has powertrain warrenty that has 5 yr/60000 miles, so your tranny is still have warrenty covered~

check it out at the acura website

 

If he does part everything out, I'll personally make sure he doesn't sell to you.

Why do people ask for parts whenever someone posts about their accident/bad fortune?

Good thing you weren't in (or didn't cause) an accident. Too bad I'm not in MI anymore - but at least I asked my buddy to help you

 

Thanks, guys.

I'm going to call them tomorrow morning and see what they say. I'll post an update.

 

Sam -- I don't know where you got 5/60,000, but I just checked the warranty booklet and it's 4/50,000.

 

yeah your buddy andrew is a good help for us, too bad i dun live in US and couldn't help him out much

 

Canadian has a 5 yr/100000km Powertrain Warrenty

guess the US is different?

 

It's 4/50k here except for a few things that are covered 'til 8/80K, 7/70K, etc.

 

funny
coz the warrenty i got is 5yr for major components

engine, transaxle, engine cooling, fuel, occupant protection, steering and electrical

 

Pure Adrenaline ...

Guess your tranny couldn't last forever ... you beat on it like there was no tomorrow. I'm surprised it even lasted 51k miles. I worry a bit 'cause I don't drive my car hard that much ... but when I'm driving around 50km/h (30mph) ... I feel the tranny slip once in a while ... (approx 1 time / 3 months). I'm at about 100k km (out of a 160k km extended warranty)

Hope the dealership gives you good news on Monday.

 

Yeah, I guess it was just a matter of time.

By the way, are you "ds" on MSN?

 

That warranty is for 2006 Acura's. All of our 2nd Gen's should be covered under 100k tranny warranty. Most dealers don't even differential that its an 03 and officially has just the 50k warranty.

 

Ha, for once I liked the way the dealership works.

They called me at 9:30 AM, already test drove the car and ordered a transmission. Funny part is that they said it was covered under the warranty, but officially it is not. So obviously they don't even care. I'll take it as an acknowledgement of how widespread the transmission problem is.

They said the transmission should be in by tomorrow afternoon and put in on Wednesday.

 

 

Good to hear it Pure Adrenaline

Not to sound like an @$$, but how come you didn't buy an extended with mods like that ?....
I have a year left on my 4 year (mileage isn't an issue)....so have time to decide.

 

My first died at 73K, and I'm at 85K now, and I've had some tranny slipping, and I did see the D5 light fluctuate a few times on one trip about a week ago. Not going off, just going dim for a few secs then back to bright (weird). The wife's been driving the car to work, and I've been on the bike to save gas money (Kawasaki zzr1200, not pedal-power) for the past couple of weeks, but the last couple times I've driven it it's seemed to be getting worse. If it goes, it better go in the next 15K....

 

Because I haven't had many problems with my car. I deemed it unnecessary to spend thousands of dollars on an extended warranty. Besides, I am able to fix some things on my own and have friends who work at dealerships as ASE certified mechanics to help me out if I run into something that I can't fix on my own.

In fact, when my friends found out that my tranny was blown and out of warranty, I got like 5 calls that same night offering to help if the dealership wouldn't cover it.

But I did recommend an extended warranty on my dad's XL Denali because I'm not too familiar with his car and the 7 onboard computers can prove to be an expensive fix. So yeah, it's all relative. I'm just glad that the dealership didn't give me any trouble at all and offered to cover it at no charge.

 

Ok, makes sense.
I'm thinking the cost of a replacement tranny vs. the cost of the warranty. I may do it for peace of mind. Unless I decide to change cars next year. Just nothing out there that interests me though.

This is my first car with a warranty...so it's a weird novelty.

 

That's VERY interesting as mine failed right after doing a triple flush!!!
It was starting to slip a little and I decided to flush it. Ran great for about
150 more miles and then the slipping returned worse than ever. Once
it begans to consistently slip it totally failed within 20 miles.

/Steve

 

I also wonder if what happens is that sediment is freed up by the fresher
fluid that starts to circulate and clots form that cause hydralic failure.

/Steve

 

Told ya they would cover it.

 

After my first one went (several weeks after a fluid change), the tech showed me the heat exchanger. It was clogged with gunk.

We had a Lincoln Continental that we towed in. It had reached 100k miles and the dealership recommended a tranny flush. He wasn't able to drive it more than 10 miles after that.

We blew tons of CRAP out of his cooler lines. When the cooler clogged the unit overheated. Needless to say, he bought an aftermarket cooler.

 

yup. if your going to do it you need to clean EVERY THING. alot of problems on our cars is the selanoids get plugged on our cars. mine were filled with all sorts of debris. and if those arent working right the tranny wont. Honda has a small internal filter, But if they had a larger replaceable filter they may extend the life of the tranny too