Does the TL have a black box. I remember watching a show a little while ago about manufacturers putting "black boxs" in their cars. I dont think it is something to advertize because if you wrecked they could tell your final speed etc.

 

Acura went extra miles to save every penny on this car. Do you honestly think that Acura put something that cost like over $1,000? No. This has been discussed a while ago.

 

I would have to disagree with you on this one. I can't say for sure whether the TL has a black box or not, but... the most recent Business Week magazine (June 13, 2005) has a short article on black boxes in automobiles (page 14). It says that "an estimated two-thirds of all new cars sold in the U.S. and 30 million cars on the road already contain these devices that, after an accident, record information about speed, accelerator position, braking, and air bag deployment. They even can tell if the seat belts were buckled." The article goes on to talk about right to privacy and if insurance companies should be allowed to access this information.

If this is now in two-thirds of all new cars, I bet the TL is included...

Just my

 

In the 2005 TL manual on page (i) there is a small blurb that states:

"Event Data Recorders: This vehicle is equipped with one or more recording devices commonly referred to as "event data recorders" or "sensing and diagnostic modules".

 

Yah, that would probably be it. The nice way of saying black box. I doubt that thing would cost 1k to install. The computer already looks at input from everything. A 2kb chip that always has the last 10 second on record would probably cost them 5 bucks more(at most) to integrate into the ECU.

 

I would concur with carguy.. Near all vehicles now day utilizing computers record data at all times. True, some more than others. Given the amount of gadgets the TL has IE VSA, throttle by wire, GPS etc., my guess is it has the capability to record a plethora of parameters.
I have also read it takes a court order etc. for someone to attempt to access this data for "prosecution" type actions...

 

Interesting! The 04 manual does not have this advisory. Can we assume that the 05 has a "black box" and the 04 does not?

 

I used to work for a chip company that made FLASH and EEPROM, a 2K serial EEPROM cost ~$0.20 so it's fairly cheap to incoporate.

The car manufacturer also may use an exisiting EEPROM or FLASH so the cost would be less, the cost for the S/W design and development.

 

Should have finished my previous sentence.

"the cost for the S/W design and development would probably be the main cost amoritized over so many vehicles."


There have been quite a few cases involving car/truck balck boxes and court cases, excellent article in Wall Street Journal earlier this year. The black boxes have been used to great success in the court room, it's proven extremely difficult for any attorney to disallow the black-box data admission to the evidence.

 

I guess this is yet another reason not to be drag racing down the street at 120mph! If you cause a huge accident, you are going to have a tough time saying that you really were just minding your own business on your way to church.

 

I work in the OEM parts business. Namely FMC. ALL new vehicles equipped with airbags have what they call an air control module. It has to be replaced whenever the vehicle is in an accident powerful enough to deploy the airbags.
It doesn't work like a 'black box' or 'flight data recorder' on an airplane that keeps a tape recording or anything like that of the vehicle before an accident. Mainly because it can't predict when/if you are going to have one.
HOWEVER, since it does control the deployment of the airbags it does take a 'snapshot' of all conditions of the car at the time of impact. On later generation cars that have multiple stage airbags, it will control the speed at which to deploy them based on preset parameters as determined by several things which include but not limited to: Speed, braking force, amount of impact force, location of impact, amount of weight in seat(I believe this only applies to passenger seat), tensioning of seatbelt buckle(provided you are wearing it). Of course it does all this in milliseconds.
In all the years I have been in this business, I have NEVER heard of or seen an insurance company ask for the old monitor for any reason. Not to say they won't or can't but I haven't seen it happen.