miner

On Tuesday I was returning home from a doctors appt. Traveling on the local interstate a car ahead of me in the adjacent lane hit road debris and knocked it over into my lane - could not avoid it due to traffic congestion. The debris, a piece of concrete the size of a toaster, hit my front passenger tire/wheel. Immediately my low tire pressure light came on. I pulled over to the side of the interstate and called Acura Roadside assistance. No one answered. I then hit the Assist button on the overhead console. It was answered immediately and a flatbed truck arrived within 30 minutes. Car is currently at dealer awaiting new tire and wheel. My afterthoughts about this, even though it is a disruption in my daily life, things could have turned out much worse. Hitting the tire/wheel was probably the best place to hit - did not go under the car and cause damage; did not hit body and cause body panels to be replaced; did not bounce up and go through the windshield. When the truck driver was taking me to the nearest Acura dealer we noticed the highway clean up crew was stopped, blocking the lanes and picking up some of the debris I had hit - I am sure others probably hit it to.

George Knighton

I am sorry about your trouble, and thank you for verifying that the AcuraLink assistance button works the way we all want it to work.

I'm sure that we've all worried about it.

weather

miner...Wow! You got lucky for sure...Glad to see that neither your, nor your RLX got injured You are handling better than I would....I would be cursing up a storm, in both French and English *lol*

miner

Here is a pic of the damage - ouch.

Can you believe this - dealer is charging me $398 for the tire - they had to order from Tire Rack which lists the price as $277 - a 44% markup. AND...the wheel is priced at $989. I am awaiting a call back from the service manager to ask why the high prices.

Fabvsix

Dealership tried the same crap on me wanted an arm and a leg for new tires....I told them to hold off....called TireRack.com got quoted VASTLY less and they matched! They know they will make up with the excessive mark up on the rim because the vehicles too new....you can private email me for a source that i can't mention here....

weather

miner.....Ouch!! You are lucky that you never lost control of your RLX and cause more damage. Its unfortunate that the dealership would try and make profit from someone's misfortune. I can see if you had your car for a while and the tires needed to be replaced but in this case, you were victim of an "accident" and you would think they would cut you some slack....See if you can get better luck by using "Fabvsix" contact....

miner

Talked to the Service Manager and here is the scoop; tire for $283 (their cost with shipping), rim will be $705 (still high but better than $989). The OlympicCare coverage I had for road hazard will cover $250/tire and $400/rim so I will get done for about $340 OOP. Could have been worse no doubt.

miner

I was traveling about 75mph when the tire gave out - the car handled extremely well for basically riding on the rim until stopped. This is the second high-speed blowout I have experienced. First time was with a '79 Hurst Olds Cutlass W30 on Dunlop tires - was not as easy to get to the side of the road.

weather

^^ Glad you got a better deal. That seems more reasonable.

Just curious....when you had your blowout on your '79 Hurst Cutlass W30, did you have your VSA button off by any chance? That could have been the problem! *lol*

miner

Got the car back finally. UPS was slow on delivering the tire. Required an alignment, too, this after I had a new alignment the prior week from the suspension recall.

miner

The dealer I had the car at (was closest Acura dealer tot he mishap) tried to tell me a wheel alignment AND sub frame alignment would be required to get steering wheel back to center - I immediately called BS and asked to talk to the service mgr. I have an engineering background so I understand the equal and opposite reaction for two colliding bodies (a 4000 lb RLX versus a 20 lb chunk of concrete) that bounced off of the wheel/tire. I figured a wheel alignment would be required. BTW the sub frame and wheel alignments would have been $350.

George Knighton

That's disappointing. :-(