New to the forum and looking for advice on whether or not to pull the trigger on a base (non-navi) automatic 04 TL. It has 165k miles and is listed at $7k by the seller (private individual). It has had two owners.

I took it for a test drive today and it ran great, did not notice any transmission problems, but I would have it checked out by a mechanic. Oil has been changed every 3k miles and engine is in fantastic condition. Body also is in great condition, very few scratches. It had the timing belt replaced around 125k I think and has relatively new tires.

This would be my first car and I am a little apprehensive about buying a car with such high mileage, but the alternatives would likely be a similar year Camry, Civic, etc. However, it is a significantly better deal than any TL near me.

So should I pull the trigger?

 

04-06's are notorious for transmission failures

 

04 SSM TL here, bought it last year with 145k, now at 154ish. Tranny is still going strong, and i drive my car hard. lol

 

How do you know for sure that the oil was changed every 3K mi? Does he have oil receipts and/or service records? Has the trans fluid or filter been changed? Come to think about it, that car should have new coolant and brake fluid too. Depending on the date and mileage of the last timing belt/water pump job, you may be due for that too. That year is notorious for automatic tranny failure, and you are near the end of service life for ANY tranny. Not trying to be a pessimist, just some things to think about.

If you are serious, I would definitely shell out 100 bucks to a dealer or trusted mechanic to see if there are any other issues with this car, such as torn C/V joint boots, rust, or any leaks that they are trying to hide with cleaning.

 

Don't believe what they are telling you about the servicing done unless they have reciepts or they show up on carfax. If it was done at a honda/acura dealer than the timing belt/oil seals service should show up on carfax. Check to make sure it hasn't been wrecked and that the title is clean not salvage. Call you insurance company and give them the vin number of the vehicle and they can tell you if any claims have been reported. Listen for clicking coming from the front wheels, could be an indicator of CV joints going bad; it's common at that mileage. If all these things are good and you get a good mechanic to do a detailed inspection then great. These are all things that I wished I had known when buying my first car. Hope it helps! Best of luck and I hope you find a great car.

 

^ what everyone here said and check for rust on the side view mirrors, they tend to age. Check for cracks on the dash. Check all the mounts, engine and transmission. I'm personally not comfortable with the AT and check edmunds and KBB for the proper value. Keep in mind just to be safe you should flush all the fluids when you buy the car. Examine brakes and brake lines. Also depending on how comfortable you are with working on cars if the timing belt change comes up at 205K its $1400 at the dealership or cheaper if you can do it yourself.

Just a couple things to think of. Its not a bad car. Just depends on if you get the special one that want's to break down.

 

This is ridiculous and uninformed garble. What proof do you haven of them having a higher percentage of failures than any other year?

 

The numerous threads with failures in the 04-06. And the fact that the 07-08 has the upgraded tranny from the RL, to stop failures.

 

it was bad enough that replaced the unit entirely after a redesign....the 04-mid 05 driveline was pretty much lifted straight from the 01-03 tl/cl type s.....

 

So your scientific research on the 04-06 transmission being "notorious" for transmission problems is that you've seen more people post about them?

How many people have posted about failures on 04, 05, 06? How about 07 and 08? Do you think this could be contributed to the fact that most people driving an 07 and 08 haven't even come close to hitting 100,000 yet? If this is your basis to thinking a car is "notorious" for transmission failures then you're misinformed.

 

I would just do what you said.
Have a good mechanic check It out.
Happy Thanksgiving and
A MERRY CHRIST-MAS

 

People just don't know how to analyze information. You think the 10 people a year posting on a message board are representative of the 230,000 people who own an 04-06 Acura TL when part of the purpose of the message board is for people to post problems about their car.

That would be like conducting a Presidential election poll by calling only people who are below the poverty line and asking them who they are going to vote for President. Then saying, WOW 99% of Americans are voting Democrat this year.

First tell me how many people have had a faulty transmission on these models? Not just somebody who needed a fluid chance and The dealership said they needed a new tranny. I'm talking about a legitimate transmission replacement. Then divide this by the 230,000 TLs from 04-06. Even if 23,000 needed a complete transmission replacement, that means that 90% of these cars don't have transmission problems. Not to mention there's no such things as a new transmission, they just remanufacture them. So there could be a faulty transmission that gets remanufactured wrong and causes a transmission failure in another car. That's double counting the same failure.

Also, my 04 has 116,000 miles on it, which is probably below average for this year. Many people have 140, 160, 180k on their 04 transmissions. How many other cars go 10 years and almost 200k miles without any sort of transmission malfunction? Probably not many.

So before you start preaching about the sky falling with an 04-06 transmission being notorious for failure, just think about what you're posting.

Don't just look on the message boards. Look at Consumer Reports, MSN autos, yahoo autos, or any other site that actually uses data from maintenance records to analyze how many transmission failures there are. You will see that 04-06 all get excellent marks, while something like an 03 TL gets very bad marks.

Now don't get me wrong, there is still proof of transmission problems and you might have to keep up with fluid changes, etc. more than some other cars, but let's not get carried away with it.

Who's to say that it isn't the Honda fluid responsible for this and not the transmission? Don't forget Honda changed their fluid around 2010, meaning they knew something was wrong with their old fluid. That means an 04 TL was running on the bad fluid for about 6 years. So many other factors to consider as well...

 

Also, the 07 (58,545) and 08 (48,766) TLs were the worst selling years for the TL up to that point except for 99 (56,566), which still outsold the 08. That means out of the 2 years of TL you're talking about there were a little over 100,000 models sold. 04 and 05 each almost sold 80,000 models, and 06 sold over 70k. So you're misinterpreting the facts when observing there are more failures in the 04-06. This is a given, considering the volume of units sold and the higher mileage that an older model year is bound to have.

 

Why are you still going on about this. This is an advice thread for OP, So I will give advice. An 04' with that many miles can work well for the price IF it was maintained well. As this is your first car you probably don't want to spend ridiculous money. If you proceed with this 04' change the pressure switches and swap out the ATF to ensure the tranny shifts good and lives long. If this car has been maintained poorly or you maintain it poorly, a tranny rebuild is crazy money. And Alexns05 take a chill pill.