I was just wondering how long it took before you noticed the first imperfections to appear on your TLs. I'm not talking about rattles or squeaks. I'm talking about things like little dings that appear on your windshield or the body work, or scratches on your wheels, and anything else that's actually happened to the car after you took possession of it.

I noticed today that the rear A-Spec skirt on my car has two dents in it. Someone who parallel parked behind me sank the two screws from his/her license plate into my rear skirt, and now it looks like Dracula's been trying to suck blood from my car. I'm pretty sure the damage is reparable, but I'm going to hold off until the next scheduled maintenance check before having it done.

In total, my car managed to stay "perfect" for almost 7 months.

 

In my first week, I saw a minor scratch on my front wheel. I swear I did not go scratch on curve myself... I should have bought a car that wasn't test drove by others... poor me =*(

 

9000 miles and our car is a mess.
Just today, something flew out of a truck and hit the hood and the windshield.
Nice bunch of scratches in the hood, into the metal (no dent) and some MORE of those impact scratches/pits in the windshield.
Along with the 1 inch crack (safelight glued it), the scratches in the lower front air dam, and the 3 wheels that are lightly scratched.

The wife was driving today, but the windshield crack was while I was driving.

My wife is convinced its something about the car that attracts problems.
The rims yes, the windshield yes, its soft because of the design, but flying objects?

This car is going to look like a mess when its old....

Brett

 

That is bizarre, and not a little bit dangerous.

 

Had my windshield replaced last summer and now the new one has cracks in it as well. My driver's side mirror has a black streak down the side. I guess someone probably scraped it with their side mirror. Waiting for warmer weather to get it buffed down to get rid of the scatch(s).

 

Wife scraped the underside of front bumper apron on high painted curb while doing a u-turn, but most of that polished out, and is invisible anyway.

Yours truly then curbed the TL's front right wheel parking in the street in front of his own house...
Fortunately, the scrape on the wheel rim is pretty minor and probably not visible to most. I guess I should have backed into the driveway like I usually do.

 

Oh, I definitely can empathize with you about the wheels getting scraped. I remember the first time I scraped the wheels on one of my other cars and I was just so upset with myself, not so much because of the money (they were pretty expensive wheels) but because the car was perfect up until that moment.

*sigh*

If there were only a way to go back in time, not a long time back, but just a few moments and relive that period again so that you could avoid these little accidents.

 

Er....when you say "cracks", how serious is it? Are you not going to have it replaced this time round?

 

just today I notice a chip in the front bumper. figured it would happen sooner or later..

 

Wow, it took you 3509 posts to get the first chip on your bumper??

I'm impressed!!

 

no no I got the car in Sept 05, I used to own an 01 CL when I first joined the board.

 

I'm sorry. I guess the right term is pitting.

 

Oh, I see. Still, you're doing well. I hope it'll be another 5 or 6 months before you have another imperfection appear on your car. I doubt I'll have such good fortune.

 

I know what you mean. It only takes that one time when you change a routine and wham, somthing bad happens.
I left late one morning heading to work, so I decided to take an alternate route, which I've nerver taken, and scrached my rim hitting a curb. I thought to myself, if I went to work on my usual path, this wouldn't have happened. I kicked myself in the ass for a few days because of this.

 

My first scratch came at about 6 when a female driver came into the side of me and tore up the entire right side of my car. I must say, it was one heck of a first scratch, heh.


She's all better now tho.

 

last weekend, my gf and i went ice skating when i parked there was noone next to me.. when the session was over i went out to find a suv suzuki. then i noticed that he parked 2 inches from my car and there was a ding on the drivers side door..

 

I know EXACTLY how you feel.

 

Hang on, the female driver tore up the entire right side of your car?? Holy cow, imagine what the damage would have been if it was her car that hit you.

Glad the female driver's all better now.

 

It must have been our TL's magnetic personality that attracted the Suzuki to such close proximity.

Sorry to hear about the door ding though.

 

found two half-penny sized chips on my hood a few days ago. not happy... gonna be noticable even touched up. on top of that i lost my acura touch up paint and now im out another $14 or wahtever

 

There's almost certainly something about giving someone a penny for your thoughts and then getting two cents' worth in that story of yours. J/K.

 

I got a small chip right above the aluminum grill on the hood, about a month into ownership - that was in MI.

Ironically, not a single chip while here in CO, where they use gravel/sand instead of salt. A rock about the size of a penny flew out of a semi and hit my windshield (at about 60, 70 mph) a few days back, but no crack yet. I can see a bunch of pitted spots on the windshield, probably from doing a few MI-CO sprints... don't want to get it replaced yet because my windshield's tinted and don't want to pay another 100+ for it.

I curbed 2 or 3 of my wheels... not really noticeable, but I know it's there.

 

What I dont get, is the passat with 27,000 miles on it looked like new when I got rid of it, as did my wifes 3 year old lincoln LS V8.

In 9 months and 8500 miles, the TL has more crap on it then both those cars combined.

I forgot, the wife also hit the drivers side rear view mirror backing out of the garage and took a 1 inch square piece of paint off the mirror!

I think she is out to get the car, as she is generaly speaking a better driver than I am.

I can blame the mirror and rims on her, but why the TL attracts any flying object within 10 miles is beyond me, never been hit with so much crap in 100,000 miles
with other cars as we have in under 9000 miles with the TL.

This keeps up and it will look like a demolition derby car in two years...

Brett

 

It took me all of two weeks to curb three of the four rims. Stupid low profile tires. Now I'm going to have to get Volks once I save up the cash. Also, there are three or four small dings in the paint on the hood. Stupid lead free paint.

 

Bought the TL in June of '05 and it was flawless until early January '06.

Then I found a couple of small dents on my hood (have to be at the right angle to see them, but they're there). I guess someone dropped something on it?

I also scratched the rear bumper myself trying to get some Christmas wreaths into the trunk (small scratches, but still there due to my stupidity).

My wife's car on the other hand... She has gouges, scratches, dents, scrapes on every damn panel on her car (one is 4 feet long down the rear door and 1/4 panel on the drovers side). All of them from inconsiderate people in various store parking lots and from our old daycare..

The damage done to her car has taught me a LOT about where I park my TL when I go out.

 

Some gravel chipped the hood on a road trip within a week of owning the car. Over it now.

 

Congratulations on your 1,000th post, MB.

 

Well this one is funny but not at that particular moment... about 3 months after i had the car i was at a park and backed in to a porta potty. Well i thought there wouldn't be any damage because the bloody thing is plastic but there is a indentation of a screw from the balsted thing which is not noticeble unless one is up close.

 

After reading about all the things that have happened to our TLs, even in the early months of ownership, I'm pretty much convinced that there's something seriously evil going on at Acura.

Okay, they build a near-perfect blend of performance, looks, electronic-wizardry, and practicality into one car, which naturally attracts buyers who are not willing to compromise when it comes to their car-buying decisions (perfectionists, if you will), then they throw in a bit of Rosemary's Baby's DNA, and it just innately draws evil of all kinds, causing inordinate amounts of damage and inducing birds of unusual size to bombard our cars with ungodly amounts of droppings on a daily basis. In turn, we end up spending more and more money trying to keep the car as perfect as it was the day we drove it off the lot.

This can only mean one thing!! Pure unadulterated evil!!

That's it. I'm buying more Honda shares.

 

I guess this would not be a good time to say "shit happens", eh?

 

I had to chuckle when I read this thread since just yesterday, I took our new TL out for it's breakin cruise. 300+ miles to just get a feel for it, check for any issues and make sure it had some proper breakin miles before handing it off to the wife for good. all day I was driving along, thinking about what was going to be the first scratch in the car. I was sure it would be my wife so thought I might just ding it or something as to not have to worry about it anymore. I thought of where to ding it, how bad to ding it, and even what to ding.

I just couldnt do it...guess it will be hers to do...and I'm sure its gonna be a wheel.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, now THERE's a marriage that works!

 

A few weeks ago, as I was parking my car in the garage, I side swiped my son' bike. Damn, I thought I had enough room. It left several scratches on the right side of the Aspec front spoiler. And worst, the spoiler slightly separated from the fender leaving a noticable gap. I've retaped the spoiler a couple of times but it just doesn't want to line up right.

 

I was washing my car during the remnants of Hurricane Rita, and a tree branch bounced off the hood and left a quarter-size dent. The tree was 30 feet away in my neighbor's yard!

It can be easily fixed by a paintless dent removal place, that's the first time in 30+ years of owning a car that a tree branch hit my car.

Oh well, chalk it up to sh#t happens!

 

Ouch....that sounds expensive.

 

Right out of a Harry Potter movie. Evil, evil, evil!!

 

Heh, the first imperfection was found the next morning after I took delivery of the car. I saw a tiny rock chip on the hood. Then it just goes downhill from there.

I have a few chips on the windshield, a few more on the bumper and hood. I scraped the front body kit. It's not visible unless you're underneath the car, but it's there nonetheless. I put a few light scratches on the plastic panels by the back seat when I was taking the seats in and out. I spilled a little bit of soup in the trunk and I had to wash the trunk liner with soap and water to get rid of the greasy feeling and smell. Lucky me the new car smell in the trunk is still there.

I saw a tiny ding outside on the right rear fender just 2 weeks ago. When it happened, I don't know.

Last night, I lightly scratched the pass mirror because I was entering my garage too close to the garage frame. Another lucky thing, after touch up, it's invisible at 3 ft away.

I just found out last month that the dealer, the factory, the port, or whoever had the car before I bought it, opened the driver's side door panel and one of the round rubber seals at the driver's door frame, right by the dashboard. Dunno what for, but they left 2 nice scratches and lost the rubber bumper.

All of them happen within 13 1/2 months and 8500 miles.

Well, no car is perfect. They all get their first scratch even before leaving the factory. And I think I might be too anal.

 

I'll probably regret asking, but....

Why were you eating soup inside your trunk?

 

^^ I bought some food to go. The soup container fell to its side and the content started seeping through the lid.

 

WHAT!!!!! NO SOUP FOR YOU 1 YEAR!!! NEXT!!!!