Ok... I take back what I said... the dealership my wife took the car to told her that they are replacing the trans. Got a loaner to drive (TSX) for the time that the car is going to be there.

I'm glad this came out positive.

Not that it should matter, but we didn't buy the car from this Acura dealership. I had originally called the Acura dealership (about 5 miles from home) where we purchased the car. Inquired about bringing in the car for trans. and asked for a loaner. Service guy looked up our record and said no loaner car for us. I told him to give me a date that they have a loaner available. He then told me that I haven't brought the car in for over 3 years (indirectly implying no loaner). Then proceed to ask me did we buy the car from them??

I told him yes but he still insist there's no loaner but his manager might be able to do something if I talked to him. Talked to the manager and he told me no. I didn't bring the car to them for service etc in the past. But he can arrange for Enterprise but I have to pay for it. I then asked him what if I did the 105k service + timing belt. He quoted me about $1200. I said, ok if I do it, can I get a loaner then?? He said maybe he can reimburse part of the rental if I did the service.

This is why I figured I'm going to get screwed when bringing the car in for service..

Not just this one incident... but over the years... a lot of bad experiences w/ service guys.

So, I called another dealership. Ask for a loaner and guy told me first loaner availability is Thursday. Now that's how all dealership service dept should operate.

Anyway, at least the car will be taken care of. Also just received the auto dimming mirror from Dani today. And after I changed the rotors and brakepads, hopefully all the known problems with this particular TL will be taken care of in a swoop

+1 to Acura.

 

hamproof-

I 100% agree. I bought my TL from a different dealer (although I moved so not much I could do about that). I only brought it into this dealer ONCE for a minor $200 fix. They drove my car for 30 minutes until they could reproduce the error and then got my the $1800 deal without me saying a word. I was pretty pissed off about the situation expecting a $6000 bill, but I have to say I feel pretty well about the situation now. Not only that, but my heater on my front seat broken this winter. This is the 3rd time this has happened (but the 2nd fix is well out of warranty) and they are going to take care of that as well for free.

If my memory serves, the tranny is the first serious thing I've had to pay for in 152,000 miles and they give me a break on it. Maybe a new RL is still in my future.

Glad to hear things went well for you!
Chris

 

Well yea you got a new one from the dealer but it wasnt new. It was rebuilt.

 

Unfortunately every dealer is different. The one i go to would give you a loaner for oil changes. They didnt have one one time i went in no appt and they gave me a new car off the lot with dealer plates on it so that i had a car comparable to mine (actually better, RL)

 

I picked up my car today - it was $1414 total for the tranny. I got some new brakes and tires. The car is running really nice, except there seem to be a bit of a vibration now when I'm in park and just idling in drive. It wasn't like this before I took it in so I guess I have to call. I'm not sure why this would have started... ?

 

Mine just failed and the dealiership said that the tranny isn't covered under warranty. I have 51k miles....

 

Well I am going to assume you have an 03. For some reason not all 03s are covered. Now did he say the mileage was too high or it was out of the time frame for the orginal warranty. If he said mileage was too high tell him you know about the class action lawsuit against Honda saying that all 02-06 Hondas/Acuras have odomotors that count too fast. As a result all warrantys are extended by 5% so instead of 50k its 52500.

Now if he said too much time has passed there are a few things you can do.
1)Try another dealer and hope they will goodwill warranty the tranny.
2)Call the Acura support line and open a case with them.


While talking to people about fixing it be nice and say things like "I really hoped to one day own another Acura but I dont want this to stop me." Stuff like that. The saying you catch more flys with honey works MUCH better then being rude with the dealers.

One last thing to consider is that Acura updated the tranny so if you get it done by the dealer you will have a new model. These hold up much better and seem to be running very well.

Good luck.

 

Thank you for your response. I will see what I can do with the three dealerships around me.

 

they arent covering it wit ONLY 51 k?

 

They told me it is only covered for 4yrs/50k after I gave them my VIN. It is an 03. I'm probably going to have to get the car over there and beg them to help me out. I didn't know about this tranny problem when I bought the car about 2 months ago. What a pain... I'm going to print out all of these pages along with the USAToday announcement of the warranty extension and other such paraphenelia to help build my case.

 

You might want to call Acura's national customer care group. Sometimes they will help arrange for "good will" out-of-warranty repairs. You will find many reports of good will repairs in this forum.

Good luck!

Bob

 

Well another thing that would be nice to know is the orginal purchase date of your car? If its not 4 years old yet then you should get a new tranny no matter what happens, since the mileage extention means miles wise your not over how high you should be.

 

It was October '02 so the purchase date exceeds the limit. I will let you all know what Acura says.

 

I finally made it to the thread at about 64000 miles on an 02 TL type s. gotta love the price of the new transmission FREE.

 

Isn't the tranny covered for 7 years 9 months OR 109,000 miles??

Is it a different case for 2003?

 

yes its different. some 03s arent covered

 

i've made it to this thread now!! 2000 TLp with 65439 miles... Called the 1800 number provided in this thread and Acura took care of me.. right now they gave me an 07 TL loaner.. Due to my circumstances Acura also paid for towing.

 

As mentioned above, not all 2003 TLs are covered by the extended warranty.

And, for those TLs that are covered, it's 7 years 9 months or 109,000 miles, whichever occurs first.

Bob

 

Make : 2002 Type-S
Mileage : 83000

* I just bought this a week ago and the tranny died (VSA light, ! light, and Flashing D5 light) in just 7 days.
* My TL was one of the affected units and had a Transmission check complete on Feb 22, 2005. The Computer (ECU) that controls the transmission was replaced then.
* Called Acura Cust. Relations and had the car towed to the Acura Dealer

My Questions
-----------------

* After the tranny is fixed under warranty, the dealer i bought the car from told me that i could trade it back in to him. Should i dump this car off?

* I was told by the Acura dealer that i will only get a rebuilt tranny. Is there a way to get a new tranny?

* Most of the posts over here say to get a post Feb 05 tranny where the issues are fixed. The Acura dealer said he has no way to control what tranny gets sent over for replacement and mentioned it probably will be a post 04 tranny with an updated PCM . How can i get a post Feb 05 tranny?

Thanks for any help you can provide..

 

If the dealer is offering you a full refund--- jump on it quickly Otherwise you will be driving your (post repair) TL around wondering if the tranny is going to blow....
I do not find those dealers comments very re-assuring

 

It doesn't sound like a full refund. He did say "trade". So basically, he has to buy another car off the lot from the same dealer and getting 100% credit on his purchase price.

But then the dealer will be reluctant to go down much on the *new* car he's getting. But still better than being stuck w/ a rebuilt trans car. Sure it might go years and miles w/o problems, but I would still get a *new* car.

 

Thanks for the responses guys. But, i still haven't got a response for the other questions. It might be invalid if i decide to dump the car.

At the sametime, i can't think of another similar car to buy. I bought the TL for mostly it being a Honda and the sequential shift. Any suggestions?

 

Yes to the Honda part, but sadly the auto manual in the TL is a far far cry from being sequential shift.

But in the end DSG from VW/Audi have them all beat anyway. There's rumors the next gen TL will have a DSG type transmission.

Ok.. back to topic..

Some of the threads I read here says that there's no way to get new tranny. All of them are *new*. It is not that they take an old used trans, change out the innards and give it to you. I believe following the threads here, they are all newly rebuilts of the old trans.

See post 1070 by fsttyms1.

 

My non-warratied 03 had 67K on it when the tranny went out. I called Acura Client Services and they gave me a transmission but I paid $508 out of pocket for labor.

 

hey guys,

I have a question. The 2003 3.2 TL's that DON'T have a warranty, does that mean that Acura was able to fix the tranny problems ? If that's not the case, then I would simply mean that TL's that have a warranty extension are lucky.

 

No, the general consensus on this forum is that Acura did not correct the primary cause of the failures until February of 2005.

Bob

 

For some stupid reason honda at that point made some updates that they claimed solved the problem but didnt and they didnt extend the warranty for those. They are just as likely to fail as the rest

 

I just bought an 2003 acura tl 3.2 type s w/ 35k mileage and it was recall in 04 for a oil inject fix and i am covered under the tranny warranty. Its sad that I never knew about this issue with acura till now. I just dumped my 2003 Pontiac grand am se for this. I am crossing my fingers that i wont be part of the tranny failure crowd. It's not a good look for the company. It's so dumb that these corporations don't/won't satisfy their customers need. Why not invest in brand new trannys so the customers can have a peace of mind. They say the defect only affect some cars yet majority of the folks on here seem to have a tranny failure.

 

When you wrote that your TL is "covered under the tranny warranty" did you mean the 109,000 mile/7 year 9 month extended warranty? Not all 2003 TLs have this coverage. Coverage depends on the VIN number.

If your transmission is covered by the extended warranty I wouldn't worry too much about it. You would have a significant amount of coverage left.

And Acura may have corrected the major reliability problems with the transmission with changes made in February of 2005. So if your TL does need a new transmission, the replacement might last a long time.

Bob

 

anyone know the warrenty on transmisions that where replaced out of warenty? i had mine replaced 1 year 20k miles ago and i think its gettin iffy.

 

If you mean replaced at no cost to you under warranty
Then there is the 12 month 10k miles the replacement unit has
Plus you still can get coverage under the 109/7

When the dealer/Acura helps you when out of warranty, meaning you shared part of the $4000 cost with them, usually in $1000 increments- you get 1 year warranty per 1000 you paid up to 3 years for you paying 3000

What warning signs is the trans giving?

 

DAMMIT! this blows, i paid about $1100 last june because i was out of warenty by 3 weeks. that was before the warenty was extended 7y 9m 109k, then when i found out it was extended i couldnt get reimburesed unless i had paid for a new tranny after august 06. which means that i was too late for the original warenty and to early for the extended warenty..sigh..now its been one year and if this thing goes im gonna be pissed.... /rant
oh and i just turned over 109k yesterday not that it matters.

lol i might just be paranoid but it jus t seems to be acting odd, rpms dont moove and smoothly. im going to try changing the tranny fluid and see if that helps.

 

Did you ever contact Acura's national customer care folks? If not, there's some chance that you could get some level of reimbursement. Read through this thread and you'll see many examples of "good will" out-of-warranty repairs. Some of the cars were well beyond the 109,000 mile limit.

Bob

 

Before jumping to conclusions does this have any thing to do with your other post of roughness at 5%?? If you cant figure it out or suspect something bring it in before you get too many miles over teh limit.

 

already tried getting reimbursed for the work but they told me to go f*%$ myself lol. i think bringing it in would be a good idea, ill do that thursday. i might try going to a different dealer, i dont like the people at acura of turnersville.

 

I want to thank everyone for their input and suggestions. Acura agreed to pay for my transmission replacement and towing cost. I was very pleased to hear that and should be getting the car back today! Now I am wondering if I should sell the car now or keep it.

 

Thanks for the follow-up. That's great news! Especially after you were initially told that you were not covered.

Were you helped by Acura's national customer care group?

As for selling or keeping the car, note that Acura may have resolved the major reliability problems with the transmission with changes made in February of 2005.

As a result, your new transmission may very well last a long time.

Bob

 

Just a closing post to my original post. Got the car back for a week now. Wife's car, but I did drive it a couple of times now. The shudder I experienced in the past is gone. So, that's the good news.

I looked at the work order.. it appears they changed out the PCM also??

Anyway, I'm glad this is over. Hopefully the *new* trans will last us till about 150k (we are close to 100k now) or 3 more years.

Got the new rear view mirror in last week w/o much problems. Was easier than I thought to get out the old and pop in the new.

Will change out the rotors and brake pads this weekend. It's shaking/vibrating like crazy (steering wheel).

She (car) should be as good as new soon... after the timing belt (at the dealership) soon...

 

OK, i got the car back with a rebuilt tranny. It drives fine now...

What is the general experience of people who have got rebuilt trannies the last few months?
Have they broke for anyone?

I'm still deciding if i should keep the car or give it back. But, time is running out.
I really like the car, but should i keep it knowing it might break again?

 

MY TRANNY ISSUE UPDATE:

Incase you skipped over my posts, I have a 2003 Type S that the tranny went out in at 67000 miles. My VIN does not fit into the VIN categories that get 100% replacements. I talked to Acura client services and they agreed to give me a good faith repair aka a free transmission but I paid $508 in labor for it. I wrote a two page letter to Acura Customer Relations and American Honda Corporation saying how disappointed I was with the outcome, however being very appreciative of the transmission coverage, but that I had to pay anything out of pocket for the whole ordeal.

Today I recieved a call from a gentleman at Acura Client Services. He said he had been forwarded my letter and understood my situation and told me Acura would give me a $500 service voucher to either of the local Acura dealerships in my area. This covers oil changes, brakes, anything I want it to! I am more than pleased with their response as the letters were sent out not even two weeks ago. As much as I wish I didnt have to pay the money at all, I am glad to say that Acura was quick to reply and offer me a gracious resolution.