Hi,

It was a beautiful day today and I had an empty stretch of wide and straight road ahead of me, so I thought I'd push the engine of my 2000 3.2 TL a little. I was cruising at about 80 kmph (~55 mph), moved it over to SS mode, dropped it into 4th, saw that I still had plenty of room, so I moved it over to 3rd. Then I stomped on my gas pedal and off she went! I shifted into 4th around 6,000 rpm, and let it run until just under 160 kmph (100 mph), when I noticed that my Check Engine Light flashed on! So I slowed down immediately and went back to Auto-Mode, and then I felt my engine stuttering and the Check Engine light was blinking!!!

What happened? Did I overdo it? I know this might have been the fastest I ever went in this car, but it was only for a few seconds! I thought our engines should be able to take it? It wasn't from a cold start nor after a long trip either....

Anyway, it seems to be okay now, it stuttered for about 30 seconds after that, but now the light is off and it seems to be running fine. Scared me for a bit there! Anyone else seen this before?

BTW, I was surprised how stable the TL seems going that fast even though it was only for a second or two.

 

When my check engine light started blinking my vsa light was blinking with it. I took it to the dealership and next thing I know I'm driving an RL because I needed a new tranny.

 

Nah, most likely you had an impurity in your gasoline and it caused one of the cylinders to misfire or something. You can take it back to the dealer's and get them to read the diagnostic codes to see what exactly happened.

Tell me about it! I got a ticket for going 95 MPH and I wasn't even breaking a sweat going that fast.

 

Update:

I dropped by the Acura dealer and made an appointment on Tuesday morning, since the next time I started the car, the Check Engine Light and TCS are now solid on and don't go away!

I don't notice any abnormal shifting behaviour now, but the engine doesn't seem to be as smooth as before?

I've been using Shell Gold (91 Octane) all the time. I used to use Chevron 94, till gas prices exploded upwards last year...

 

okay... 2000 TL have problem with the ECU software... my Engine Check Light poped up like more then 10 times... they replaced the ECU for me once, no help...

it's with the software... Acura admit that they have a problem to me, but never came up with a software update... SUCK ASS...

if it pops up, and then goes off again... could be...

1. bad gas / have you been using the same gas?

2. the gas cap is lose....

if it stays on then it could be

1. you really have a problem

2. misfire (happens to me all da time)

and no... I don't have a problem with my Oxy sensor... it's just Acura quality...

 

You should take your car to the dealership right away, so that they can read out the fault code(s) stored in your computer to pin-point the failed part(s). Blinking check engine light is not good because it means some emission-related component(s) has mal-functioned and they can damaged the catalytic converters. Solid check engine light is better because the mal-functioned component(s) will not damaged the catalytic converters. But either case, it means one or more emission/engine component(s) has failed.

 

03 TLS WITH FAILED TRANNY ALREADY???? WTF???? Why dont these bastards fix this ??? They know there was a problem with the 02's and they continue to sell these cars. This is just rediculous... They've only been out for about two months max. You couldn't have had more than 5000 miles on your car. Ask for a new damn car. Sorry for yelling. Its just sad to hear this. I would be dumb pissed off if my tranny went out that early.

Roshan

 

You said it Roshan

 

Another update, okay I took my car in this morning and they hooked it up to their car computer and got the readings and reported it to be a misfire. They said they reset the lights (TCS and Check Engine) and took it out for a test drive and it was fine. Well, it was fine for 2 drives after that. But when starting up the car again for the 3rd time, while coming home from work, the Check Engine Light is solid again! Doh! I'll have to call them tomorrow and see what they say...

 

rsq123

Looks like this is the 4th case reported so far...

Let me help you out with the solution... two cases (and you can seem like a genius explaining it to your DEALER)

a. Spark plugs are shot...in case engine got flooded.
2. (and more likely) the connection (connector) to the coil packs (we have coil on spark ignition), is loose or as ACURA puts it "has come loose upon delivery of the vehicle" (of course the fact that this happend on 4 cases reported on this board is a fluke )

You can read my long winded letter to ACURA here.

http://www.acura-tl.com/forum/showth...threadid=30434

Hope this helped.

 

So, did you get anything as a result of the letter?

 

Well, the Check Engine light has mysteriously stopped coming on now... so I didn't bring it in a second time. Thanks to all the helpful responses...

 

marko

Nope... NATA... not even an oil change...

All they said was that that is what their warranty is for ... to cover anything that got left out at the factory....

Acura got to seriously work on keeping the customer happy.

OH! well... its working fine now so ...

rsq123

Don't ignore that... since it came on..there is probably a mis-fire code stored in the computer... Also any vibration might cause the connectors to make a loose contact and then you will be stranded.

If you have a good relationship with the dealer take it in and have them check out the coilpack connections for all six cylinders.