I have a 2003 TL (79,000 mi) and started to show signs of slippage as the car would shudder slightly between 2nd/3rd and 3rd/4th. Over the next month and a half the transmission just kept getting worse.. slipping between gears and then finally when I would downshift on the highway by pressing the pedal to the floor the transmission would fail to downshift and rpms would go beyond the redline with no acceleration whatsoever.
I brought the car into a local transmission shop that has a very good reputation and the guy said as soon as he dropped the tranny he knew right away what the problem was.... the clutch spring in the 3rd gear clutch set had snapped and was the issue for all the slipping, etc. He mentioned that he notices the spring snapping in about 40% of the TL's they work on there... so he regards the spring as a defective part for it having such a high failure rate. According to him the spring is about 60 pounds too stiff and that weakening the spring most likely would solve the transmission issues probably most of us are facing here on this forum. Of course I had to ask if they resolved the spring issue and he said that Acura has not done a thing with it so now $2,805 later I have pretty much a rebuilt transmission with yet another defective spring that will probably let go again (40% chance).
I'm sorry but 79,000 miles is way too soon to have such transmission failure. I mean the car doesn't even need a tune-up for 105,000 miles yet the transmission can't last that long? That is pretty sad. Does anyone know if this kind of damage is covered under any extended warranty on the transmission? I would like to at least get my money back on the parts that got replaced ($1300).

Eric

 

Your tranny should be under warranty until 100,000 miles from Honda/Acura

 

the spring isnt the issue. Its the clutchpacks that wear out, then they cause the spring to spin in the drum. Ive got 2 of them laying around that the spring is fine but the drum has been chewed up buy the spring spinning.

 

Well, all i know is that the clutch packs were not replaced so they weren't worn and not the issue. know nothing of these transmissions... this was just all information I heard from the transmission mechanic who worked on my car and works on a lot of TL's and sees the frequency of the TL's that have the spring failure occuring. I'm sure the wearing of the clutch packs may indeed be another issue altogether but had nothing to do with my car's problem. He also said that the spring issue which arises 40% of the time usually occurs between 60,000 and 90,000 miles. I'm glad that acura has the extended warranty as I plan to pursue these matters with them now.