2007AcuraRL

I have just reported my tranny incident with the NHTSA. When my tranny went, I was going 65 MPH on the highway when the car dropped down to 2nd gear and jerked me so hard i practically got thrown to the windshield. It was as if i slammed down on the brakes. The TL is a piece of sh|t. Period.

It only takes a few minutes to file the report with them and I would recommend everyone who was a victim of tranny failure to call them. Their number is 888-327-4236.

If they get enough complaints on file, they can act to force a recall. Nevermind Acura's to-little-to-late warranty extension on the tranny, by the time you get to use it, the tranny has already crapped out on you, and by then you might be already rear-ended by a big truck behind you. Too late then to get the car fixed if you are already dead in a box underground.

ArN 2000 TL

Sorry to hear that....i frequently drive at high rates of speed on the highway and could only imagine that happening to me when doing 70+ MPH. Scary....

What is Acura doing about this problem with you? I assume you tried to contact them. Were you able to control the car or did you have an accident?

2007AcuraRL

I am bringing the car to Acura today and they are renting me a car while they check it out. The dealership has been great so far in all of this; its the Acura company itself that blows.

By the way, it feels like being rear-ended when the tranny does the 5th to 2nd drop... Not to pleasant. The car stayed in control, mostly because no one was behind me at the time and i have been expecting this to happen since i first read about the fiasco, so i quickly shifted into autostick mode and fiddled with the gears. I wonder how someone would react under the same situation if they were taken by surprise of it?

Gilgamesh

Man...I was just busting 120 the other day on the open road...that would have sucked if anything happened, I was alone on the road, I wonder, if that happened and I lost control, how long would I be laying there?

2007AcuraRL

Yeah i can relate to that because most all my driving is on the highway and i tend to average a steady 80-85. The thought of the tranny suddenly failing while going at those speeds was always on my mind. Fortunately i was only going 65 last night when mine did go.

randomwalk101

did you experiece any "symptom" before the tranny takes a dump on you? Like several days/weeks before it did that?

2007AcuraRL

Yes there was a tell tale symptom about a week ago, but its very different from what happens when it "goes" so it still kind of hit without warning. I noticed starting about a week ago that during the shift from 2nd to 3rd, the tach would go up a few 100 rpms for a moment or two. It was not something that you could feel in the shift since it still felt smooth, and it was sort of akin to what you would normally see if you shift with a standard stick transmission. The failure, when it shifted from 5th to 2nd came totally out of the blue. I was drving along I95 at a steady speed when it came from out of nowhere. It frightened the heck out of me for a split second but i instinctively reached for the shifter and put it into SS and changed gears back up. The car jerked twice more on its way back into 5th.

Btw, when i brought my car in tonight, i had to back up to maneuver in the dealer's lot and the tranny took about 5 seconds after i put it in reverse before the car moved at all, so a delayed reverse may also signal trouble.

Bottom line, Acura has totally alienated its customers with this. Like the dealer said to me, the failures have been unpredictable and often without giving the owners any early warning signs. Seems to me THIS would be even more of a reason Acura should issue a recall.

And apparently the dealership has been replacing trannys left and right because when the rental car guy showed up at the dealer to drop me off the rental car Acura is paying for, the first thing he said to me was "are you here {at the dealer] for a transmission failure. Do you have a TL?" I looked at him and said "how'd you guess?" and he sorted of smiled and said "because they all have been coming in for that".

Yemeni TL-S

already posted did

MerC

Wow that's scary, glad that you were ok. I would have freaaaaaked of that were to happen.:wow:
For all of you who did have a tranny failure, plz report it to the Nhtsa. The reason I bought my TL was for peace of mind. I dont want to pay and/or drive a $30k+ car that might give at any moment.

spyder5786

hey man, sorry to hear about that. Glad your ok tho. Was wondering..well you see, my tranny is shifting kinda harsh from 1st to 2nd gear, do you think this could be leading up to a problem like yours? (its a 99 TL btw)

2007AcuraRL

I am not sure i can answer that. The defect in the 5 speed tranny is the third gear clutch pack. unless the 4 speed used the same ratio up to gear 4, i would doubt it is the same internal parts as the 5 speed tranny. Thats not to say that your tranny may be having problems just the same but it might just need adjustments rather than being the result of a faulty part. I would say take it to a good tranny shop for a relatively inexpensive diagnosis.

@cUr@-TL

Acura really need to make a recall for the transmission... maybe they will understand when 20 people will call them to report an accident or a death because of a faulty tranny...

what i would do if i was in ur situation is write a letter and send it to every newspaper in u area to publish in the CAR section (i dunno if u guys have such sections in ur newspaper but here we have them) that way, the tranny problems would be known by a lot of people, which means less sales for acura, and maYbe they will realize what they're doing...


@cUr@-TL

COCAINE.TL

I Got A 2002 Tl And I Just Got A Recall Letter From Acura Telling Me To Bring In The Car To Check The Tranny . Theres Nothing Wrong With My Car So Far But They Want To Make A Change On It Of Some Type

PeteTLS

Mine went 2 weeks ago - On Thursday night I noticed a delayed upshift, 2nd-3rd. Continued somewhat on Friday. Saturday I was in stop-n-go downtown ATL, and I noticed going into reverse on 2 occasions that trip that it took a few seconds to engage reverse. Sunday was more of the same, as was Monday, which was when I called for an apt. Then Tuesday on the way to work I was just clearing the slow traffic and accelerating, and the check engine and VSA lights came on, and the green D5 started flashing. It didn't want to shift, so I was shifting manully (via the shiftgate, not the SS), and made it to work, called Acura Care and had it towed....didn't want to risk waiting, and it seems that if I had tried to keep driving I may have had the 'brick-wall-at-60' downshift I've been hearing about....

Not sure if my symptoms match anyone else's, but those were mine FWIW to anyone else who hasn't yet had a failure.

BTW..the second tranny is showing some signs of impending doom...hunting a little for gears, and I thought I detected a slow upshift once yesterday. Of course I am sensitive to that now, whereas before I was blissfully ignorant, but still, I've put 500 miles on this 'new' tranny and ECU. You can bet serious coin that if this one goes Acura and I are gonna go a few rounds!!!!!

ex007

Almost the exact same thing happened to me on the way to the airport two weeks ago ... and there was traffic behind me. I had to pull over quickly to avoid being rear ended. Pretty dang scary.

I have the new tranny in now, but reading about people on their 2nd-4th trannys does not instill any confidence that the problem is fixed and will not happen again. Not really in the mood to buy a new car but it's pretty obvious Honda has not found a solution.

fsttyms1

those are teh exact same symptoms all 3 of my failures had

PeteTLS

Holy Smoke!! You mean there may actually be a common thread through all this!!! I've been looking for a pattern....I've been driving this one like I stole it, and I'm hoping if it's gonna go I can make it happen before the 100K - 26K and change to go...I have heard that the replacements aren't lasting as long - that once the original has been replaced, the successive ones go out in quick fashion!! My first lasted 73K.

fsttyms1

yes it all comes down to the 3rd gear clutchpack failures and the "slipping" clutch type symptom typically between the 2-3 upshift. while its not very noticable early on right before it dies its very pronounced

PeteTLS

Were you the one that rebuilt your last? I know someone here has, but can't remember who. If it was you, how has that held up? Is there an aftermarket 3rd gear pack that has proven to hold up? I don't want to be in a position where I have to get another car, since the only ones I'd be interested in would cost more, and I'd rather not have to spend more money to fix a problem that I shouldn't be having in the first place!

antlive

my replacement trannys only lasted between 20-30k. I had two of them on my 3rd. Right now I'm at 10k on this one. The messed up thing is they only give you 12k on the tranny after your 100k is up.

2007AcuraRL

Hey there all: I was the one that initially began this thread 2 years ago. I've got 87k total miles on my 2002 TL.
My 1st tranny went at 30k miles. I am happy to report that I have driven another 67k miles since then and my 2nd tranny still seems to be just fine. Interesting point to note however is that at around 55k miles, my tranny seemed to be shifting harder and searching for the correct gear, which made me think it was about to crap out on me. As I drove it more however it seemed to settle down and drives smooth nowadays.
I was thinking of selling my car 2 months ago, as I am inching nearing the 100k mark (I drive 25k miles/year so I will hit 100k before the end of the year), but I decided to gamble that the repair was done with the redesigned 3rd gear clutch pack and that I will be okay from here on out. Hindsight is always 20/20 so naturally I will be very unhappy if I hit 101,000 miles and then the tranny goes.

I am wondering about those that have had more than one tranny replaced since after Oct. 2002 (as its my understanding that was about the time that Acura finally figured out that it was the 3rd gear that was failing): If you've had more recently failures after getting a replacement tranny from Oct. '02 and forward, were the symptoms the same each time they failed?

As for those that are experiencing their first failures just now, I definitely don't mean to sound calous, but it was only a matter of time before it would happen. When I first started posting about tranny problems, I got flamed by many for blasting the build quality of the car. The difference was that back then, I was racking up the mileage while the flamers tended to drive around local streets and were putting very few miles on their cars. I was driving more in a week than they were driving in a month. Now that all those cars have more miles on them (many were leased cars I suspect that have since been turned in) the unlucky present owners are ending up with the legacy tranny problems.

Still amazes me that the TL gets such high marks on the Consumer Reports annual survey of best used cars, but I'd imagine you'll start seeing black dots in the transmission reliability category of the chart, as the failures are now happening to all those cars that were once spring chickens....

PeteTLS

From what I can see/hear/read the percentages are still relatively low, which is why Honda is 'patching' the problem instead of really fixing it. You'll never convince me that they 'can't' build a tranny that will hold up for many years in this application, they are simply (IMHO) choosing not too because the problem isn't affecting enough people, and so far no one seems to have been killed as a result of their mistake(s). The really strange part is that 2002AcuraTL is the first I've heard where significant mileage has been obtained with the replacement.

Will it take death(s) to get this addressed??? If so, perhaps I could get my ex-.....never mind.....

Edward'TLS

"Why Honda is 'patching' the problem instead of really fixing it" ?

The answer is cost. If it is a easy fix, Honda would have launch a full recall campaign and fix the problem long ago. Probably a new redesigned tranny is the only solution. Think about the total cost involved if this is the case !

On the other hand, once the 100K tranny extended warranty runs out (won't be too far away), Honda will be off the hook once and for all. Remember that only a percentage of trannys will fail. So the tranny warranty cost is insignificant compared to a full recall campaign.

2007AcuraRL

The interesting thing is, I read an article somewhere a while back where a Honda representative claimed that the lifespan of an auto tranny is 120,000 miles. To that I say --- "OH really???" I know of plenty of GM cars that went way beyond those kind of miles and never had a tranny problem. And what about all the Lincoln Town Cars used as cabs/limos riding around out there that have 200k, even 300k mile on them and are just getting thier first engine swap outs on original trannys? (I live in the Northeast and everytime I have to travel by plane on business out of a NYC airport I am amazed at the number of miles those Lincolns can rack up. Heck, even the leather seats in those hold up better than the leather in the TL!). Now I am not writing to praise American cars, but rather to make the point that if 120k is all that Honda (Acura) thinks today's car owner expects out of a tranny, they are living about 30 years in the past.

The real sad part is for all the people that are just now buying 2001 or 2002 TLs that just recently came off lease with low miles on them. I'd be more concerned about buying a used TL that DIDNT have the tranny replaced than I would be buying one that has been replaced, since at least with a replaced tranny, you know the 3rd gear clutch pack has been replaced with the redesign.

2007AcuraRL

Thats why I asked an open question to all that have had more than one tranny replaced because in talking with the service dept. when mine was replaced, he advised me that it wasnt until around October 2002 that Acura figured out what the problem was. Prior to that they were installing refurb trannys which still had the original 3rd gear assemblies - hence the repeated failures some early TL owners experienced. He also told me that Acura had hired a different 3rd party vendor to to do the remanufacturing (remember the long 1 month wait times in the early days of the tranny problem for a replacement?) and that all internal parts were now being replaced, not just being inspected for wear and left in place if they 'looked' ok. The 3rd gear assembly was also redesigned.

So armed with the above, I wondered how it could be that the 3rd gear clutch pak would still be vulnerable to failing on the new design?

03CoupeV6

The Thread revival from hell.

Welcome to 2 years ago.

Edward'TLS

No. It is a good reminder to those, whose cars are quickly approaching the 100K tranny warranty deadline, to check out what options they are left with.

PeteTLS

That options list looks suspiciously like the options list for buying new Acuras...very short!!!!!

fsttyms1

120k is about the norm for most cars. while i have gotten mor out of some, there have been others that i have gotten less. typically all of mine have lasted about 130k.(all GM, which makes some of the best and strongest auto trannies out there)

fsttyms1

yes, i replaced the one in my car with one with 10k miles on it, then the one i pulled out i rebuilt. Its my "spare" i havent had to use it and i better not have to!

PeteTLS

None of my cars have ever had tranny problems....my last was an '89 Mazda 626 (which I heard later were known for troublesome trannies) that survived 2 engine swaps (both overheats due to faulty temp sensors), and ended up going up in smoke at 245K. To go from that junker to this TL was supposed to be so that I'd have trouble-free driving for years to come, which is why I didn't get the Lincoln LS or Jag S-Type's that crossed my path - I went for the Acura because I was 'certain' that I'd have better reliability. We've had some demand for V8 Jag trannies, and I thought I was dodging a bullet.....