victorber

Has anyone received a call from their dealership, requesting owners to bring their vehicle in for a quick inspection, in regards to the recent tie rod failure...???

miner

I have not and I recently called myself to check up on the possibly and the service mgr had no answers for me.

victorber

You would think Acura would care enough to request their dealerships to ask their customers to come in for a quick inspection, The problem was only on a major supporting element of the Suspension System.
You want to be in front of this instead of behind and trying to play catch up with negative PR.

Wake Up Acura!!!! Their is nothing more important than "Your Customer"!

beach109

Is this a more than 1 thing, or a one time occurrence? I've never heard mention of any such item regarding the RLX other than the one post here.

victorber

beach109^^
One time failures is all it takes to provide lose of confidence from the customer base. Customers feel that their manufacture is watching their backs by asking the customer base to drop by for a "Peek-A-Boo" is a reassurance to the customer.

It's always better to get in front of a problem then trying to play catch up later on...

holografique

I agree with this, but only when there is no root/cause to determine why the issue happened. However, I think based on the details provided, they have enough facts to determine that this is an isolated issue that likely does not point back to faulty processes or manufacturing issues.

I'm not aware of Acura being known to be a car company that puts it's customers at risk or hides issues that are clearly known to be safety hazards to it's customers. I trust them just as I have since the day I bought my first Acura. Let's not jump the gun and and come to conclusion on what Acura should or shouldn't do here. Asking every dealer to notify every RLX customer to bring there cars in for a check isn't a decision you just make at a whim without making sure it doesn't cause unnecessary work and/or impact to the service-centers responsible for handling those requests. It's easy for us to say what they need to do, but when you are the one behind a major car manufacturing company having to make those decisions, it can come with a lot more planning and consideration on the overall impact to employees, workload, and it's customers.

Edward'TLS

One or even two occurrences of the tie rod failure will not warrant Acura to do anything, especially that this type of publicity will negatively affect the top-rated quality/reliability image of the Acura brand and the flagship RLX sedan.

Besides, even a couple of isolated failures is acceptable for the many thousands of RLX units having built, given that no product manufacturing can guarantee ZERO percent manufacturing defect. Even the top-quality Lexus will sell a "lemon" vehicle once in a while.

Only when they are a lot more reported failure cases, will Acura start to implement remedy actions.

victorber

Just food for thought, I'm not advocating that we as RLX owners push a panic button, but what if the same failure happens to you with your family onboard and this failure happens at highway speed? Does that loss of "Directional Control" force you run off the road or to cross a medium into the oncoming traffic, with a combined speed of 140mph (assuming the legal speed limit is 70mph), will that change your opinion?.
Safety and Quality begins with Design and spins-down to Engineering studies as "System Failure Analysis" (The What If's) of all potential critical failure points and these Failure Analysis's are provided and developed as Engineering Specifications for vendors to build to. Being that this failure was a tie-rod and it provides directional control and stability in the vehicle, I don't think it is to much for the manufacture to follow up to ensure the highest level of quality is being maintained, for it's customers.

Has anyone been contacted by Acura in regard to this? I hold my family to a much higher standard than what it may cost the manufacture, anyway those costs are calculated into the warranty program...

I have been a dedicated Honda/Acura customer for 25+ years and have the highest regard in them, but I have seen quick poor decisions made that can and did compromised the safety of not only the vehicle in question but the secondary vehicles, and their occupants.
I think it is incumbent upon us as customers to ask the hard questions, which will keep us and the manufacture safe from those decisions.

The amount of time it takes to inspect the vehicle is negligible, in manhours compared to a scenario above..

Who knows what you'll find ...If you don't look.

Edward'TLS

^^^^^

It is fortunate that Victorber is on Acurazine and gives all RLX owners a head start warning to do preventive inspection.

Many of us as Acura owners, especially those who have lived through or still owning the 2G TL/CL with the faulty-designed 5AT transmission, will understand your concern and helplessness.

The 5AT tranny was badly designed right from the start. Insufficient heat dissipation and cooling caused the 3rd gear clutch pack to disintegrate, creating debris that clotted the tranny oil filter, thereby further restricting the oil flow (required for cooling) and accelerating the demise of the failing 5AT transmission.

In many cases, the 5AT tranny would fail intermittently with no prior warning, and would suddenly drop the engaged gear from 5th into 2nd, locking up the tires in the process. However, the 5AT would go back normal the next time the car was started, which made it all the harder to diagnose. There had been many such-related accidents on the highway due to the 5AT locking up at highway speeds.

Initially, Acura refused to acknowledge the problem. Not until many thousands of TL/CL's were in the dealerships waiting for dead tranny replacement, and NHTSA started a formal investigation, then Acura admitted that the 5AT tranny had problems.

But before Acura voluntarily acknowledged the 5AT problems, we as 2G TL/CL owners, were utterly helpless and in despair, with no info of WTF was going on, while everyday having serious concern that we could be the next highway victims when many other 2G TL/CL's were locking up and losing control on the highways.

So unless the tie-rod failure becomes a big deal, otherwise it is up to the owners of the potentially affected vehicles to act proactively.

ScottBjorn3D

Also it may of been added as a TSB to look at when cars come in for normal service. We are going in Saturday for our first B-1 and will ask about it.