So I just bought a 1999 Acura TL with navigation and 183,000 miles. I know this sounds crazy but the car drives and feels like a dream. I love it. I had it taken to a shop before I bought it and they said that everything was fine. So now 2 months later I have a few minor problems. The first is the transmission. It has never been replaced and I think its gonna go out within the next year. I was told that my torque converter needs to be replaced but that I could get by for at least a few more months. The second problem is my rear view mirror. That liqiud crap is only covering the bottom half of the mirror and the mirror functions don't work. The third problem is the navigation. It says that my hard disk is unformatted. Any suggestions?

 

Welcome to Acurazine!

1) If it's the original transmission, 183,000 miles is a pretty good run. The original transmission in my 1999 TL made it to about 173,000 miles. (The replacement cost the original owner about $3200 through Acura.)

2) The fluid in the rear view mirror can leak and damage your interior.

You'll want to replace that ASAP. See this thread for details:

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78061

It's about a $100 part.

3) For the navigation system hard drive failure you can build a cheap replacement that uses a 512 MB Compact Flash card that will cost about $20. It will actually work better than the hard drive.

Search the forum for "PCMCIA" for many threads on this. I build one for my 1999 TL after the hard drive failed.

If you'd rather not build one yourself yourself, you can buy a pre-made unit from Paul Mooney on his navhelp.com site for about $135:

http://navhelp.com/

Another option is to buy one of the DVD-based units from a 2000-2003 TL. This will probably cost several hundred dollars but you'll have more detailed map data that covers the entire US and you'll be able to get map updates.

These are also sold on the navhelp.com site. But you can also buy them on eBay, in the Acurazine black market forum or through car-part.com:

http://car-part.com/

 

Hi Bob,
I have a question about the transmission. I just bought a 99 TL as well, 140k miles and it runs & shift very well & smooth. However, I look on the engine from the top down to the transmission, I saw some part number marked on the transmission. Is that mean it has been replaced or rebuilt? I can take a picture of it later and post it here so you can can help figure it out :-)

thanks in advance.

 

Original transmissions will have a small green VIN tag attached to the front near the bottom. Remans won't.