So I own a 2005 Acura TL, I have 170k miles on it and yesterday I was driving when I noticed my transmission was slightly slipping. I enjoy driving in manual mode, and I noticed when I would put my foot down at around 60 MPH while in 5th gear (in manual mode) my RPMs would go higher than usual, to around 4000 RPMs instead of 2500 RPMs. I found this would also happen in 3rd and 4th gears to a lesser extent. I tried sitting on the side of the road for a few minutes with the engine off before restarting the engine, and found I had the same issue while I drove to my scheduled dinner. After letting the car sit for 2 hours at dinner, the car drove normally for around 5 minutes before the RPMs began to fluctuate again, this time the RPMs would move anywhere between 3000 and 4000 RPMs while having the foot down in high gear. I switched to the normal drive gear for the rest of my drive home (I am 2 hours away on vacation so I only drove to the place I am staying) and later on my drive a CEL popped up. I decided to check it this morning and I got a P0741 code for the torque converter clutch. I checked the transmission fluid and the level was good. I had to drive this morning to make a quick stop at Walgreens and on my way there my tachometer suddenly shot up to around 5000 RPM (in drive mode). I went into manual mode and shifted from 4th to 5th gear, I shifted back to drive and a few seconds later the RPMs went back to normal. I have a 2 hour drive back home ahead of me and I think I'll be fine, but I just want to see what other people's opinions are. Thanks!

 

Hey @mrbreadcrumb , have a feeling that nobody has responded to your post because they fear the worst for your tranny and don't want to be the bearer of bad news. That said, much like @thoiboi who always tells people to never buy Bosch O2 sensors and to only buy Denso instead, I'm going to suggest you do a targeted search of this site to gather as much info as possible about your situation.

The native search facility of this site is, shall we say, "less than optimal," and doing general Google searches for this code and "Acura TL" still won't surface everything you should probably review. So try this in a Google search:

site:acurazine.com p0741

and comb through the results. Hopefully you will find some things you can do to either resolve your issue or prolong the life of your tranny so you can better prepare for its eventual failure.

BTW, looks like you're new here, so welcome! Just in case you weren't aware, the 2004-06 TL's have a LOT of reported tranny failures. Often seen them referred to as "glass" transmissions given their propensity to break/fail. In addition to several cosmetic tweaks, Acura put a different transmission in the 2007-08 models in an attempt to address this issue.

Best of luck and please keep us posted.

 

Sounds like the trans is toast. Once the fluid gets hot it'll start slipping. You can try band-aid fixes in the meantime but it will not be a long term solution. Any time the torque converter is unlocked, the fluid gets very hot. Keep it in a range where it stays locked to minimize the chance of something going wrong.

 

I have a dealer appointment scheduled for tomorrow morning, and I will update this thread as I find out more information.
Thanks for the welcome message, and yes I have heard about the fragility of the 04-06 transmissions.

 

As an alternative to taking it to the dealer, you might consider getting the $100-150 they're going to charge you for diagnostics in $1 bills, light 'em up in your barbeque, and cook some hotdogs or s'mores instead. At least you'll get something you might enjoy from the money spent.

Sorry, couldn't resist, but I think most on this forum would agree: they're going to use HDS to pop the same code you did, perhaps give you some more detailed diagnostics about how bad it is, and then tell you that you need a new transmission. Also, I'm sure the repair estimate they provide will be very reasonable! Genuinely hope it's not the case, but that's what I'd bet...

Good luck and keep us posted!

 

Haha understandable, luckily I've had connections with this dealer since before the 2000s (had an Integra before getting the TL) and to my knowledge they've always been reasonable. But yes dealer markups can be ridiculous depending on where you go.

 

Inquiring minds want to know: how did things go at the dealer?

 

Apologies for the late response. They did a transmission fluid flush and the CEL is gone, but we presume the light will probably come back soon, and transmission will effectively cost more to replace than the value of the car. Not really sure what to decide on currently.