SADLY that day came, although I thought it never would have since I bought my Type S brand new and always went above & beyond expected maintenance. Paul, our trusted and highly recommended Tech in North Jersey, has worked on the car for years. The dealer always changed the oil with synthetic and although at times I was hard on the car it wasn't to the point of extreme. 2 years ago at about 200,000 miles Paul literally rebuilt the front end, new ball joints, control arms, tie rods etc plus all-new Aspec struts thru a friend of mine that works for an Acura dealer. Earlier this year Paul replaced the leaking steering rack plus all rubber lines, fittings, and a bunch of other parts. "On my way to 300,000 miles," I thought, everything has been just about replaced including the starter and alternator. Well, around July I noticed that when I used the remote start or the key the car was hard to start and run rough the first 30 seconds or so. It would then clear out and run fine. Then the oil quickly turned dark and burning oil. I just figured it was because of the high mileage now at 215,000. I kept driving it and one day in August a few blocks from home it suddenly stalled and was very hard to restart. When it did all dash lights lit up and it had a misfire. I barely made it home & popped the hood and called Paul. He stopped over and pulled the codes, there were many. He cleared them & disconnected a connection under the hood and it ran better, enough to drive it to his house & drop it off. After looking at it he suggested replacing the fuel pump which he did and I drove it home. A few days later the misfire was back but this time black smoke coming out of the exhaust and running very rich. I drove it 3 miles to the store and when I got home it had burned a quart of oil & the coolant tank was empty, uhh ohh head gasket? I had it towed to Paul and after thoroughly looking it over he called me with the bad news, yeah probably a head gasket but a leak down & compression test shows the read head is bad. He could pull it & send it out to a machine shop, but they are expensive, and no guarantee they can repair it. He suggested a used engine from JDM in Belleville, NJ. I met him there and he thoroughly looked an engine over from Japan with 53,000 miles & I bought it for $1,900. Loaded onto his pickup truck Paul brought it to his house and it was swapped in. I also had to buy all new Cats from RockAuto since they were rattling inside with broken components. Paul did a professional installation and everything works perfectly! The engine runs strong, with no oil burning or misfires, and seems tight. Essentially the engine now has 55,000 miles and the car has 222,000 miles. I made the right decision and did it because Paul had previously replaced many parts and it needed nothing. If it had not been repaired with those front-end parts I would have just sold it with a blown engine for $1500, BUT if a junkyard bought it they strip out those parts and sell them with a nice profit plus body & interior parts. The bottom line is that Paul is an EXCELLENT Tech and he has the knowledge to install an engine. Probably could do it blindfolded too! THANKS PAUL!!!!

 

I was reading this expecting that you decided to part ways with the car, but I'm glad you kept it going! A bit of heart surgery is keeping the best generation TL on the road Well done!

 

I wish I had someone like Paul in my area

 

me too

 

Glad to see you had new life beathed into your beloved 3g TL! I love reading these kind of stories.

Best of luck and keep us informed with your car!

 

Wow so glad it all worked out and I always hear amazing things about Paul! Wish we had someone like him local as well. I’m also an original owner not too many of us left!

im surprised you were able to source Aspec shocks I’ve been looking for those for years. Any chance your friend would know how to source some manual type s Aspec shocks? I know it’s a long shot