lakies

I have a 2003 Acura Tl that I bought in June 2002. It has just over 14,000 miles on it.

I plan to keep the car a long time [kept my '90 Legend until I bought the TL ].

I have not yet had any tranny issues.

So far I am happy with the car.

Q's I have:

--should I buy an extended warranty?

--any advantage to buy it before I have owned the car for one year/have 15,000 miles on it?

--where is the best place to buy an extended warranty?

--is buying the warranty from Acura the best way to go--if so, why?

--what are the watch outs?

--any other advice?

I am a periodic lurker who found this a helpful site before buying the TL last year . I appreciate all the knowledgeable owners!

P.S. I will be checking my door jam to see when my TL was made! I have not had any contact from Acura regarding an extended tranny warranty.

this is me

You bought the car in june 2002, so that mean your car must've made before that. Thus, your car might be cover by the ext warranty. Go to acura.com and the owner link to check if you're in the ext warranty or not. I believe TLs that are manufactored after june 02 are not covered.

chris03tl

Hold off as long as you can (the length of the regular warranty).

There would be little (if any) benefit of buying it early...........I *think* it goes up 50.00/each year you wait.

I like to hold out in case something major (READ: tranny) goes wrong with the car, then call Honda Customer Care and ask them nicely for something..........not surprised when that something turns out to be a free extended warranty. Saved you ~1K, cost Honda nothing. But you get free piece of mind.

Or, wait until close to the 4 years are up and buy it. You can also try to bargain for it: my cousing got the ext. warranty for her MDX for half off just buy talking to a couple dealers.

-Chris

Mr Zipps

All TLs from 99 to 03 have 7 yr Powertrain Warranty. If your VIN doesn't fall within there range it is Grandfathered in.. That is what happened to me....

chris03tl

Yeah, but when the tranny on my 2000 Accord died (LONG before Honda even hinted there was an issue), a call to Honda Customer service got my bumper to bumper extended to 5/60.

And now Im covered under the 7 yr tranny (not full powertrain) warranty as well.

Its just a good option to leave open in case something major happens with the car. And if nothing major happens with the car by the end of the 4 year normal warranty, then you think about paying for it.

-Chris

medic

a warrenty is money for the dealer. you can bargin on that just like anything else.

if you buy from accura, it may cost more, but the service department will know if some issue is covered or not right away. If you buy 3rd party (warrenty gold or some place), you will pay less for similar coverage, but the dealer or you will need to call to find out if an item is covered.

do a google search for car warrenty and some sites hsould come up.

akira768

Dude i just got a 7000 tranny and my navi and radio done due to my ext warnty. thats almost 10gs i saved. Do it.

Cobrax420

hey akira.....did they Apexi vtec controller really give you that much of a gain??? I have a '99 TL with I/E/H and I still want more performance. If it did, how do you know?? Are there dyno charts for it??

TLHottie

Here's my advice for Warranties (take it for what it's worth):

I never got the warranty before my car hit 50K miles and the reason was simple. It cost an extra $2k for the warranty. Since my Acura has never had any major problems, nor do I forsee it happening, I can spend up to $2K on the Acura and I'll be alright. In other words, I'm not losing anything.

If you think of it in those terms, it helps out a little more.

see_fu

I would highly recommend the warranty for the TL that was built prior to June 2002. If after, why would you spend the extra grand or two when you know your Acura is not going to break down. You buy a Honda/Acura because of its realibility. The only warranties that I would buy are for American cars period.

mikem

From all of my research it seems that the brakes and tranny are the biggest issues and the tranny is covered for 7/100,000 and brakes are not expensive and not worth spendy over a grand to have them replaced on warranty in case they warp. There not completely covered by any warrantly anyways. Everything else I would say is as about bulletproof as you would expect Honda/Acura to be. I drove my 98 Accord EX V6 to over 80,000 miles without a single problem not even a flat unless you count the time I fell asleep and went off the road but that was not Honda's fault unless it was because the car was too comfortable