Explorer

Hi, Acura TL TypeS people

Can you please tell me the 1st signs of Transmission problems, I own a 2003 TL TypeS and I have about 5000k's on it, I live in Canada and up here its in K's not in miles, can someone tell me the general signs please.

Thank You

ngcreese

Well...

I just got my third tranny put in yesterday.

A) Since it's install in mid July of 2002, the second tranny always seemed to shift un-smoothly from 2nd to 3rd. I dismissed that as Acura trying to crisp up gear changes.

B) The tranny missed a couple shifts from 2nd to 3rd. This happened two of three times in the space of a week. And then went away completely

C) Finally, last weekend, I'm driving along at highway speeds and hear this humming noise. Thought my tires might be wearing down or something, it never occurred to me that it was actually my tranny getting ready to go. When i get off the highway, still about 20 miles from my house, I start to feel the missed shifts again. Then it starts getting worse, as if the clutches are slipping, finally it get to a point where the car will shift hard from 2nd to 3rd and back to 2nd.

D) After that it's only a matter of time before you loose second and the car becomes almost completely un-moveable. Also, by this time my car was making some serious grinding noise will the shifter was in park of reverse. Very embarrassing for a ~34K car...


To put it on a time line:
A to B : 3.5 months (3 missed shifts occurred over a 2 week period)
B to C : 1.5 months
C to D : the next day

Garage time:
One week to fix.

Well I'm glad for a couple things:
The first tranny went after a thousand mile round trip to DC from upstate NY. I'm glad the first one didn't go till I got back home.

I thank goodness I wasn't killed by the sudden tranny shift to 2nd at 60 mph...

After that, I'm glad I had enough sense not to go long distance with the second tranny. This second one too, by the way, died (once again) in front of my home. ( I dunno, maybe it's my home that's the problem and not the tranny. I know the tranny cooler didn't save it. Although, at least the fluid wasn't brown but it still smelt burnt, go figure)

I'm glad that I'm leasing so I can give this sucker up when I'm through and not have to feel bad trying to sell it to some sorry person.

I'm glad that the BMW 330i exists with a FIVE SPEED STICK!!!!

I'm glad that this WILL NOT last forever, but until the end of lease... BMW here I come...

Anybody want to start placing bets on how many trannies this car will need before I turn it in? I say 5 to 6.... :yack:

BJSTLS

I have an '03 TL-S and my transmission went "bye-bye" last Thursday....... Here are the symptoms I had in the order that they appeared:

1. When cold, the car shifted from 1st to 2nd, then 2nd to 3rd pretty hard....no loud bangs, but it felt like I was being pushed forward. When the car was warm, I had no problems. (3-4 months ago)

2. When at highway speeds, the car felt as though it downshifted then upshifted within a fraction of a second. It kinda shook the car a little. (3 months ago)

3. I started noticing that when passing on the highway, the car downshifted really hard, and almost like it went down to far. I didn't think too much of it when it happened, but looking back, that could have been a sign of what was to come. (2-3 months ago)

4. When yielding (or slowing down for tolls) then hitting the gas again, the car didn't seem to know what gear to go in to. It kinda had a delayed reaction. (1 week ago)

5. Within 2 days of the above yielding issue, the transmission started slipping when shifting from 2nd to 3rd (maybe 3rd to 4th??) - RPMs would shoot up and then go down when it caught on. (4-5 days ago)

6. After 2 days of slipping and making an appointment to have it checked, the transmission finally crapped out (Thursday night 11/14). I was getting on the Garden State parkway, gears started to slip, then suddenly the D5 light started blinking, engine and VSA lights came on, and I was stuck in 4th gear (30 miles from home.) I was able to limp to my acura dealer and they confirmed the tranny was dead.

This all started about 3-4 months ago. For issues 1 -3, the dealer was able to recreate #1 -- they flushed the tranny fluid and that helped for about a week before the symptoms returned.

Hope this helps.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

You can also check the sticky at the top of the forum which should answer most, if not all of your questions. Follow this link and look about 1/2 way down for my post which contains the Letter from Acura's website....

http://www.acura-tl.com/forum/showth...0&pagenumber=3