the type s is a bit harder on the transmission due to the increased power, and you are getting up there in terms of age/mileage. assuming it passes a dealer inspection, i'd still be wary

good luck! if they knocked the price down, maybe you'll get some more love from Acura

excellent timing

considering i paid a toyota dealership over $700 for new driveshafts/CV boots, i'd say you got a damn good deal. but why did you need the new driveshafts? they are supposed to last for 200k+ aren't they?

 

Both boots were torn and the left one was leaking badly. I probably could have gotten more mileage out of the right one, but I figured as long as I was saving on the labor (from the transmission) I might as well upgrade the drivetrain by doing both at once!

 

03 tl-s navi with 47k miles, and my tranny is slipping now. took it in and the service writer called me back later in the day telling me that acura corp will only go 50/50 ($1800-ish outta my pocket) with me because my car isn't included in the extended warranty, blah blah.

so i call back today and ask him to call them again and try to get a 100% goodwill or something better than 50/50 because i don't have $1800 and its only got 47k miles (i'm an unemployed college student) so he said he'll get back to me once acura corp calls him back.

this is a bitch, knowing acura should step up to the plate and stick by their cars. but i hope that i get good news. in the mean time i'm driving a 09 tl w/ tech package. hate the exterior but love the features, especially the keyless everything . don't have to fish for the keys in your pocket.

 

so they called back and said acura won't budge and i have to fork out $1630. this price includes the 3/36 warranty, so i guess its not toooooo bad. i could buy a set of tein ss-p's with this money!

 

is it worth buying a TL for the tranny problems?

do they all have tranny problems?

is the tranny problem already solved?

sorry, i fell in love with the look of the TL and am considering getting one.. but the tranny failure problem seems pretty bad...

 

same here im am considering getting one, but do all tl-s have bad trannys??

 

look into the 03-04 acura RL. beautiful car with around the same price range, but no tranny problems.

 

i wouldn't recommend buying the TL unless you are financially prepared to rebuild/replace the transmission in the event of failure (unless you have a post 2/05 replacement already in the car). otherwise it seems like a dangerous purchase. the 4 speeds (1999 only) are a little more reliable than the 5 speeds so that is also worth looking into--but you are less likely to get goodwill with such an old car. the tranny problem has been mitigated with post 2/05 replacement units but it's still not 100% reliable..

no, but a lot of them do, and the -s is harder on it.

....dammit i wish i knew that before i bought my TL

 

Just joined the crew yesterday. CEL, VSA, ! lights all on. While D5 was blinking. 100,007 miles. Not covered in 100k/7yrs and no warranty. = (

 

The extended warranty is 109,000 miles/7 years 9 months. So you should be OK unless you've hit the time limit or you have a "non-covered VIN" 2003 TL.

 

do you have a salvage title? otherwise you should get SOME coverage...

 

it's a clean title. where should this SOME coverage come from?

 

ok, thanks for correcting me. But no, I'm not covered under my VIN. I checked with acura already.

 

You're welcome.

And you still might be able to get some amount of goodwill coverage. That's what niju321 was referring to. Read the last 20 or so pages of this thread out for many examples of that. But here's no telling what you might be offered since it can vary from zero to 100% coverage.

 

for me, i just took it into my local acura and said i have a tranny issue. they called up acura corp and called me back saying acura only covered 50% of the cost because it was out of the "vin" range like in your case. i argued to no avail, but i guess 50% is better than nothing, so i took it.

the service writer told me that acura's weird when it comes to these tranny's; they'll cover one guy 100% (out of warranty) and turn around and cover the next guy 50, 30, 70%. seems like they do whatever they want??

 

thanks man.. i'll check it out.

 

I think some of the service writers have better relationships with the Acura area reps who control the purse strings on the tranny repairs.... just my opinion... mine got me another few hundred off the repair just by calling the rep back again while my car was in the shop...see what they can do with another phone call.... Acura knows they kinda have us by the balls anyhoo....

 

I just wondering anybody who bought new tranny or got goodwill from Acura, is the new remanufactured transmission reliable??? anybody experience any problem with it lately with the recent remanufactured transmission?? it be great if i can get some feedback..

 

The transmissions that Acura replaces are rebuilds, they are exactly the same as the trannys from day 1, according to my Transmission Tech they all go at about 120,000km's or 75,000 miles, apparently the replacement clutches in the reman trannys are upgraded.

Even if they are Im not dishing out $5k in 3 years, so does any one want to buy my TLS?

 

My tranny crapped out on last Saturday at right 98,888. Took it in to the dealer on Monday. They did a diagnostics on it and I new a new one. They quoted me $4300. My VIN is out of the warranty extension. Went home depressed but then I went home and called up the dealer and asked to speak to the service manager. He was out to lunch so i spoke to the assistant instead, which made me speak to the guy who took care of me when I was in. I asked about goodwill coverage and he told me he would have to send a request to corporate and that would take about a day or two. I told him to go ahead and do that. I got a call this morning saying that they are willing to do a 50/50 split. I was totally relieved and immediately told them to go ahead and go through with it and now i'm waiting for a call to let me know when the tranny is in so I can make an appointment to bring it in. Just wanted to share my experience with you guys and I will follow up with what happens later on. PEACE!

 

The post 2/05 replacements are supposed to have improved fluid flow to the vulnerable 3rd gear clutch pack, and some upgraded clutch material. compared with the old design, the "new" design is much improved--is it a best of class transmission design? probably not. is it fairly reliable? so it would seem. i have had no issues with my feb 09 replacement, but i've only put 4k miles on it so i'm probably not the best person to comment on that.

some "old" transmissions are making it to 150k+ without the owners ever knowing there was a design flaw. others of course lasted for far shorter periods--didn't someone have a replacement blow up before making it out of the dealer parking lot? my car's first transmission made it to 18k miles, the next one lasted to 98k (so 80k on that) and hopefully #3 will last until i can afford to buy a new car

az is often stumbled upon by people with transmission issues, so we have a disproportionate sample of the population. surely acura did SOME testing on the transmission design before putting it in a production car...if the majority of original transmissions were failing so soon, they would be idiots for missing it during testing or for letting it go into production....

 

Well my 2003 MDX just bit the dust. 64K and the transmission is in need of a total swap out... Good news is ACURA dealer is splitting the cost 50/50. If not the bill would have been $3862 OUCH

 

Please tell me if I'm screwed or not yet.

I just bought a 2002 TL-S 3 month ago from a private seller. It has low 90,000 K/55,000 Miles only on it. About a week ago my tranny started to slip occasionally 2nd to 3rd and sometimes even 4th to 3rd to 2nd. I went to the dealer and asked to pull all the records and they only found whole bunch of work been done 2 years ago under the warranty but no tranny replacement and no regular maintance at the dealer or any sorts of regulat maintance records. They also have told me that my extended warranty was expired 3 month ago and that it'll cost me $8,000 to replace the tranny(I think that's a little too much considering the fact that I only payed 10k for the whole car). They also told me that they will try and talk to Acura Canada and see if they can get me a better deal. I called and registered with Acura Canada and the guy on the phone basically told me that since I'm outta warranty, I'm on my own and there is nothing they can do not even a penny on a good will. Should I shoot myself in the head now or there is still hope?

 

I think post Feb 2005 should be better, but probably not the best. What they should have done is a complete redesign, but it would be too costly and the new design might not fit the same specs to fit in in the available space. so I think what they did is they improved it as much as it was reasonable to do so, better flow, more durable materials. I would not cross out Acura from my shopping list, I think Honda learned their lesson, and I am sure cars they make today have pretty reliable transmissions.... The cars they made in 2000-2003 had transmission issues, Honda/Acura, a lot of people know this, and they still have not fully recovered from this reputation, so for them to have another screw up like this would be disastrous. So when I am buying new car again, I won't cross out Acura.


PS. I had my transmission replaced 2 weeks ago

 

One of the common indications of trans going bad is said to be an "abnormally loud noise from transmission". What's meant by noise? Is it a high pitch spinning, whine?

 

UPDATE: Got a call yesterday afternoon telling me that the transmission is in. Took it in today and got a 2009 RDX turbo with less than 3000 miles on it as a loaner. I was told my car would be ready on Monday after 5PM

 

Hey Everyone, just signed up for this forum as I recently picked up a 2003 3.2TL-S. So reading through this is sounds like I should actually be pretty bummed as there are so many problems with the tranny in this car. Bear with me, it's a great story!

Some relatives of mine actually owned the car, beautiful, black, fully loaded (except no OEM ground fx kit ), older couple, very rarely drove this car (40k original miles). Well they live in Houston, they had some very bad rain storms in April, ended up flooding their house. (Fresh)water got in the car, roughly up to the middle of the wheels, about 3inches in the car itself. They filed an insurance claim etc, in the mean time I was speaking with them they were really hoping the insurance wouldn't total the car as they love it. I informed them that if they do want to save it, the longer water sits in a car the worse it gets so they should try and dry it out. They pulled up the carpet best they could, they even took a shop vac to it and fans. Long story short, car was totaled. The did however negotiate receiving the vehicle back (salvage title) as part of their settlement. And they also did an awesome job of cleaning it out, you can barely tell it was flooded.

Well knowing the history on the car and the fact that I love the style, I offered to buy it, regardless of the salvage title, they ended up selling it to me for $3800. I had it shipped up to me in Denver, pulled out all the interior, cleaned it all up, threw bags of silica gel in the car to soak up any moisture I missed etc (been over a month of cleaning, I'm meticulous!) Ordered new carpets, trunk liners, seats, etc. All of which are in my garage awaiting placement into what I thought was a hell of a steal for a well taken care of sweet TL with EXTREMELY low miles, salvage title be damned.

THEN I started reading around as it has the fluctuating idling problem (thanks ziners for the cleaning out the IACV tutorial) she is now purring like a kitten. But then I ran across this post about the bad tranny's, checked my VIN at the site listed, it's not covered. So far she is running like a top, shifting like butter but now I'm freaked out about this not to mention totally bummed about my new ride having a serious flaw. So thought I would ask for some community help. What should/could I do about this? Is there absolutely no hope for me at an Acura dealer since it's a "salvage" title? Can I have it inspected by the acura dealer and recertified, warrantied? or buy an extended warranty through another company??? Should I just drive it and buy a tranny from Kaleb (https://acurazine.com/forums/2g-tl-1999-2003-98/discounted-oem-tranny-out-warranty-tls-while-supplies-last-721701/) if it dies?

Just looking for some help and consolation from the community as I'm now super bummed about the immanent death of my transmission.

Other then that this looks like a great community and I look forward to (hopefully!) posting more as I continue to work on my TL-S.

 

don't think you can do much with salvaged title, if your transmission goes Acura won't help you either. Common, you got this car almost for free and now you want warranty with it? so what, if your tranny goes you can put a rebuilt one. I don't know if you read this post, but tranny was redesigned and trannys made after 2005 Feb are more reliable, so if you go with new transmission it will be a good investment.

 

Guys, I have been reading these threads for 2 days (guess why :-)) and I have learned a lot. Quite a few of my "feelings now make sense" consequently I am very confused about how to interpret all the symptoms. So I am going to tell the full story hoping one of you guys may help me understand what to do.

1999 3.2TL, 82K Miles. 80-90% commute is on city roads (~20miles a day) i.e., traffic lights and stop n go traffic and no freeway. I have been doing all regular maintenance and do not drive too hard.

Sometimes when shift from Park to R or D, particularly when engine is cold, moving the stick is little hard and I hear a noticable clunk along with a jolt. If car was parked on uphill incline expect a little more resistance, noice and jolt. After this car drives normal. The dealership never could find anything wrong.

About 10 days back CEL was lit. This weekend I got the codes pulled and it's the P0740. As far as I can tell car still drives without any jerks/noises or anything. However, I do feel that pickup is little slower and feel that it stays in 3rd gear little longer. Though I can put it in 4th using Semi-Manual without any issue, haven't driven past 50mph since CEL.

I am hoping one of expereinced guys here can tell me what's the best course of action for me. Is dealership is the best option or a local (Bellevue/Redmond/Seattle) transmission shop can do the job.

 

99TL w/navi, 169k mi. Well I'm finally here to join you people. I knew I'd end up here sooner or later. As many of you know I got my car in 06 with about 130k mi. I've done all the major maintenance, and my car has ran fine with no real problems until very recently. while out last night I noticed my trans started to slip. When I drive its fine for the first two gears then while it gets to third(at around 40-60mph) there's a bit of hesitation and revs get high briefly then it finally goes to fourth and driving becomes normal until I have to stop again then accelerate back up to driving speed. I'm no mechanic but I guess thats what you guys would call slipping right? I just never been in a car and had that happen before. I've actually been going the speed limits for a change. When I feel it rev up and scream in 3rd I take my foot off the gas a little. The first owner had the trans rebuilt @ 108k in 05 with a 12/mo or 12k mi warranty.

 

i cannot recall off the top of my head any noise that comes from my transmission, except when shifting in/out of park, drive, or reverse....

 

unfortunately the canadian TLs are not covered by the juicy class action settlement made with american TL owners (or their lawyers). you are probably stuck as far as goodwill goes. however, i would try another dealership, because $8000, regardless of CDN/USD exchange rate, is WAY too much. someone is paying for a coke habit with those prices

 

good to see that worked out well for you.

especially after getting a goodwill on a 99 with 98k miles, of which i was the 3rd owner, i'll be buying another acura (new)

 

unfortunately he's right, acura is under no obligation to help w. salvage titles....get an aftermarket warranty if you can

 

check mounts

yup, thats the slip of death. strange that it occurs going into 4th tho

 

no, it happens going into 3rd

 

I'm having it rebuilt by a independent shop

 

UPDATE: While they were working on the car they told me they discovered I needed a new front motor mount and ball joints. They originally quoted me $2300 which included the PCM but it turned out that I didn't need it. The PCM was quoted at $500 so the motor mount and ball joints woulD end up to being around the same price.

I picked up my car yesterday and it is as smooth as butter! There is one problem though. There is a squeaking noise coming front what sounds like the drivers side front end everytime I drive and go over a rough surface. Anyone have an idea of what this might be? I'm planning on taking it back to the dealer to have it checked out.

 

it is a loud grinding noise like there is something rubbing against your front driver side tire. i had this happen when i went out for a drive after putting in new hids. and my cars D5 light, chech engine light, and VSA light came on, then my car shut off. had to sit on the side of the road for 10 mins so i could restart my car but the damage was done cuz the noise was still there. thats when i pulled over again and checked under the car to see if i was dragging anything or if i was rubbing my tire against the fender or something but nothing was there. so it had to of been my tranny making the noise. luckily i was only a few blocks from home, but when i got there tried to put it in reverse... no movement.

 

I have a 2002 TL base that had the first transmission replaced in 11/2005 with 23K miles. I knew the first one was bad because I could feel it slipping when it shifted gears. Of course it took multiple visits to different Acura dealers before one finally decided I needed a new transmission.

I actually bought the car on 11/8/2001, so my 7 year 9 month warranty will be up tomorrow. I sometimes felt the second transmission would shift a little rough (and I even thought it had been my imagination because I kept looking for something to wrong), but nothing like the problems in the first. I took the car to the dealer in March and they said they couldn't find anything wrong. Since the warranty is up tomorrow, I took the car back to the same dealer today just to have them check it again. This time, they told me that I need a new transmission. What's really irritating is the transmission is shifting no differently this time than when I took the car to them in March. So why did they decide today that I needed a new transmission?

The good news is that I get to drive a 2009 TL-tech and I get another 12 months of warranty on this transmission. The bad news is that I'm really disgusted with this car needing a second transmission with only 48K miles on it!

So now for the advice. I'm really toying with the idea of getting rid of this car in the next couple of months because I just don't trust it. Am I over-reacting? What are the chances this new transmission is going to last any longer than the first two? Shouldn't I be concerned that I'm probably going to get a rebuilt transmission with a lot more miles on it than I have on my car? If I do decide to trade it in, should I even consider another Acura since I'm a bit sour over this brand after these major car repairs. How about an Infiniti G37? They get good ratings in Consumer Reports and they seem fun to drive!

Sorry for the long message and the rant. Thanks in advance for any advice you might be able to offer.