TeeKaa

I read a post that mentioned Acura had extended the transmission warranty through 127,000 miles. Does anyone know if this is true?

My 2003 type S (purchased new) now has 122,500 and I'm beginning to get a paranoid feeling my transmission is about to die. I don't drive the car hard at all. Mostly highway commuting. The car sort of shudders when accelerating to and through 30 - 35 mph. Still shifts smoothly most of the time, just that shuddering, not badly but enough for the wife to ask "what is that?"

I figure it is either the transmission or motor mounts. If it is transmission, short of a rebuilt, what can be done to prevent failure at this point? I would much rather have the mounts problem, but in any event, I want to keep it running.

Just a note of frustration, it appears the 2003's may or may not have a vacuum assist for the front mount. 3 Acura parts depts. said no vacuum assist, and 2 said there WAS vacuum assist! I do feel a rubber hose when reaching under the mount from the top of the car and can trace that line away from the mount, but still was told, it may or may not.

Good parts place for mounts, do we need Acura ($207.15 for the front) or is there good quality aftermarket suppliers?

thelastaspec

Hi,

Ill let others comment on the transmission more - some people really know these transmissions.

For the mounts,
Some people install mounts without vac. lines (racing mounts)
If you do go that route, you just need to seal the hose.

For me, I have a performance suspension and such, so I would go for a solid mount.
If you want less vibrations, the vac. assisted mount might be a better choice.

There are dealers partnered with acurazine that give deals on parts with cheap shipping.

Edward'TLS

TeeKaa, sorry to tell you that the factory tranny extended warranty for your '03 TL has already expired.

If you've received the 2nd warranty extension letter from Honda, it would read 109K miles or 7.75 years whichever came first.

MilwaukeeDave

iTrader: (3)

An OEM or OEM style mount just gonna fail quickly. 50k miles or less usually. The fixed mounts I ordered come with a lifetime warranty.

victus1

How are those mounts? Are they causing you any vibrations at idle?

TeeKaa

Milwaukee, What brand of mount did you get that has lifetime warranty?

I do want smoother though (pure commuter), so I may need to go the vacuum route. Problem is, other than straight from Acura and the few million $$ they want for one, I can't seem to find a parts seller that sells a vacuum mount for my 2003.

fsttyms1

mileage wouldnt matter anymore, you are beyond the 7 year mark. Its mileage or year, which ever comes first.

As for the mounts, you HAVE the vac assisted.

Sperry

iTrader: (1)

The shudder occurs when speeding through and slowing through that 30-35mph?
Sounds exactly what was happening to the 2000 TL my brother gave me in 2010.

Humm . . . my ten year old TL needed a front and side engine mount.
Acura said as much when they were doing an oil change.
I figured that was the cheapest way to get the car on a lift for an inspection, and it paid off.

The side mount, a layperson can view and see the cracked bushing, with a strong light.
The front, I would not have known, not being in the trade, but took Acura's word for it.
Their word, and the shuddering issue, pushed me into action.
I swapped out the side and front, and no more shudder.

Your ten year old TL might be wanting the same.

01tl4tl

always ck the front and passenger side mounts!!

the vac line means you have vac assist mounts = stiffen on accelleration

Do use the oe part-- look in the VENDOR section at top of pages-
thats places that cut us 25-30% break off low retail price
there are several dealers to choose from,,,make a few calls or messages
mention acurazine for the full discount
200 is high retail,,
side mount is normal type and ~50 bucks

trans help: change over to the new fluid dw-1, service or replace shift selenoids and change external trans filter
every year change 3.4 qts (1 drain and refill) of atf to keep it happier

RC99TL

DW-1 is magic fluid. I may of said this before but if Honda came out with it sooner they would have had a lot less warranty claims...

TeeKaa

I'm going to try the side & front mount and have the tranny drained (just had the 9 qt draining done 10K miles ago, I'm checking to see what type of Honda AT fluid he used, the old or DW-1.

chris03tl

BTW, if the tranny DOES go, you might try contacting your dealer.

Mine was out of warranty as well (time-wise, but not mileage wise) but Honda was VERY understanding and VERY generous with how much they covered. I had the car towed to the original dealer on a hunch and they did the legwork of dealing with Honda for me.

CAB NY

How far was yours past the time i dont have the miles but time is definitely over how long ago was this

Rockstar21

iTrader: (1)

oh 2-3 years ago lol depending on when your 03 was bought.. lol

chris03tl

Car only had 65K miles on it, but was almost 8 years old warranty wise.

The extended warranty was 100K (I think), 7 years so we were a year or so past.

Honda covered 90% of what the dealer estimated cost to replace would have been.

Its at least worth a shot asking your dealer....in my case they wanted to see the car first which required me to pay a decent amount for a tow (125 or so), but I figured it was worth a shot. I was looking at 3K for a rebuilt installed from a small shop so the 125 to see if Honda could help me wasnt such a big deal. (This was before I knew the 06/07 Accord tranny would fit right in and actually works well........had I known that I might have considered doing it all myself)

TeeKaa

So I've owned it for almost 9 years. My local Acura shop is part of the Hendricks group. I don't know about other Hendricks dealerships, but this one is NOT very giving or customer understanding in the least.

The $207.15 front mount is their price. I did call them about a rebuilt transmission and the quote was $5800. So if it is a bad tranny after all, it is fairly safe to say it won't be fixed at Acura.

01tl4tl

Hendriks - if part of the racing empire- has a lot of overhead cost, and prices reflect that

the front used to retail at 150-several years ago - cking with our sponsoring vendors will reveal a current discounted rate

service depts are the bread and butter of dealer-
new car sales exist mainly to supply service with a constant flow of easy to do jobs!!,,and big money repairs for those ignorant enough~

the special court case got MOST of us 7 years plus 9 months warranty,
so 8 years is not a big deal with low miles for them to offer help

CHISOX1

Just went through this with Acura, they offered me $1000 credit towards a $5000 transmission job performed at the dealer. I had the trans rebuilt next door to acura at multistate transmission for $2300 with a one year warranty and so far so good. BTW, my car only had 80,000 miles but as indicated above the 7 years had expired.

CAB NY

just to see i called Acura client relations even though time is way past they said since i had the oil jet kit installed my Vin falls under the extended warranty they would work with me if my tranny had the extended warranty problem if my tranny had just lock up on me while driven whatever still would have charge a lot of money to fix anyway

chris03tl

My dealer quoted me 4700 for the "cheaper" tranny job on our TL (since apparently some version of the broken tranny would also have required a new TCM, which would have added to the expense)

Honda covered 4K of it. $700+tax to have the dealer replace the busted transmission? Compared to other quotes, that price was barely a blip on our radar at that point.

The car was already there and they literally had it fixed in 3 working days (tranny died on Friday night, they looked at it Saturday afternoon, had the new tranny on Monday, we got the car back on Wednesday)

I never like car dealers, but I have to give a huge hats off to Devan Acura (Norwalk CT) and Honda for helping us out big time. Unfortunately after dealing with this same issue on my 2000 Accord, it would take a LOT for me to ever buy another Honda/Acura product again.......but who knows, maybe someday "a LOT" might happen.

03blackbeast

My original trannys got 242k on it right now. I had the same problem with it when I first bought it at 221k and I had a bad slip in it too. Changed the tranny fluid and slip left but the fluid was black after only 5k miles at my next oil change. I hadn't thought of the motr mount being bad but the vibration definitely wouldn't be a sign of a bad tranny. Mines been doing that for thousands of miles already.