blacktl6mt

Hey all,

Just got some bad news that my 05 TL had water in the PCM. It's still at the dealers now, but it will be ready in the next couple of days. Here is the story so far.

July 22nd - I took my car across town (about a 30 minute drive) and back on a hot day. Was using my A/C. It's been nothing but hot and dry around here for weeks. When I got back closer to home, I saw the check engine light come on. I stopped at an intersection and noticed the engine idle speed was kind of erratic. Drove another couple of blocks and all idiot lights came on and the engine was fighting to keep running. I made it the 2 more blocks to my friends house and hung out there a couple of hours. I went to take off and all was fine for a couple of blocks until the exact same process happened all over again, only this time the car died and I had to pull it off the road. Oh, I forgot to mention when all the lights came on I could hear relays clicking like mad on from the drivers side and passenger side.

So here I am on the side of the road with idiot lights on, relays clicking, and I make a couple of attempts to start the car. It would crank, but wouldn't run. At this point, relays are still clicking, and the fans are running on the car even with the keys out! Ok, this tells me the car is effed! I call a tow truck and disconnect the battery. I have the car towed home because it is close to midnight.

The next day it is towed to my nearest Acura dealer. After over a week of troubleshooting, it appears they find the root cause of the problems. Water in the PCM. It wasn't wet at the time of pulling, but it was coroded. They attempted to replicate where the water came from. The windshield had no leaks after a pressure test. The AC line was not blocked with anything significant (their words). So they replace the PCM, also turns out the fuse block on the drivers side had melted and so they replaced that. One ignition coil had melted, they replaced that. Oh, and all the spark plugs got fouled, they replaced all of them. On top of that, the battery tested low, so I asked them to replace that. At the time I wasn't sure if an internal short in the battery led to all of these problems. Its also going on 5 years old.

So I bought this car in March of 2007 as a CPO. I received a card in the mail from the Executive Vice President (at the time) that stated I had non-powertrain coverage until 2-8-2010 or 62,000 and powertrain coverage until 2-8-2012 or 100k miles. The dealership is trying to blame me or the previous owner for the water damage, but they will replace everything 'goodwill' except the Ignition Coil and the spark plugs because they are not covered under the warranty. They want ~$440 for the coil and plugs. The car currently has 56k miles on it.

Who else has dealt with this in-warranty? I'm thinking my next step is to contact the district service manager and have him give to me in writing why I am having to pay for covered warranty repairs. My dad said he would be happy to give it to one of his attorneys to look at. Am I off base here? Should I pay the $440 and be happy?

The worst part in all of this is now I have a car with an unknown problem that could resurface again, because the REAL root cause of the problem was never found (why did water get in the PCM?). This whole event has put a huge strain on my relationship with my local dealer as well. They are frustrated and have put lots of time into the car.

What to do? Thanks in advance.

-jeff

stillhere153

iTrader: (1)

did you run a carfax on the car?

BradE

There have been other threads on this problem. Check and see if the AC drains have been closed off with a bolt or something similar.

You aren't the first person this has happened to, and it's a little scary, this is a VERY expensive repair.

nycACURA

THIS happened to me before. Basically the AC condensation got into the pcm and caused the same problems u have. There are other forum members u have had this problem. Acura cannot give a reason why this is happening or guarantee it won't happen again. I had no problem with them fixing it though....... REad these threads for more info

https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-problems-fixes-114/car-wont-start-ac-froze-up-now-pcm-full-water-736795/

https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-problems-fixes-114/car-wont-start-605035/

DanL

iTrader: (2)

Driving home from the beach last weekend (150 miles each way), there was water occasionally dripping on my feet and my wife's as well. The drains aren't clogged since there was a large puddle under the drain lines once we got home. It was clearly condensation from the A/C due to humidity because even the area between the passenger seat and console was damp (the vent to the backseat runs through there). I'm assuming the reason for the water was a combination of a long trip, A/C on, high humidity, -- and an open sunroof. With the sunroof open, the A/C couldn't clear the humidity out of the car so condensation kept forming for hours.

01tl4tl

make sure the center console vent is OPEN all the time
It blows the air back there regardless of final vent position so moisture can build up there
It also may be able to leak down below the shifter to some delicate electronics and kill them

DIY the coil and plugs- coil 50 bucks each- plugs 12 bucks each x6 and 1 hour to change yourself--dealer gets 25 bucks a plug for the exact same NGK plug you buy from parts store

They cant warranty plugs- they are a wear item and difficult to say how much is wear and how much is from ecu problem--
coils are electrical failure and should be covered part,,IMO
Read the fine print of CPO paperwork

dealer blaming last owner or you? what bs- they were supposed to check it over for CPO certification..not your fault its got a problem costing them time to figure out (maybe they need acurazine~)
Not to mention that other cars have the same problem as evidenced by acurazine

acura usa customer care 1-800-382-2238 x5. ask for a file to be opened and a manager to call you- ignore anything the minimum wage phone person tells you about `its not covered`- their job is to write down exactly what you say and pass it along

01tl4tl

Its important to run the ac on fan only if you get moisture problems
Also switch from recirc to outside air every hour to get fresh air in and some old wet air out of the system
on recirc it keeps getting worse and worse

DanL

iTrader: (2)

Humm...I keep recirc on all the time. Didn't think about that. I guess that contributed to the condensation as well.

nfnsquared

Yeah, check the "Problems" forum. There are at least 4-5 threads over there about this same thing. Find them, print them out, and take them to the dealer. If the dealer gives you the "deer in the headlights" stare, show him the printouts. Then call Acura Client Services a call and let them know this happened. The more people who complain to Acura, the better chance of a TSB being issued.

And $440 for plugs and coil when it probably is an Acura design flaw? That's too much.

Turbonut

iTrader: (1)

Actually running on outside air will contribute to the condensation as the HVAC system will need to remove the humidity and the box will sweat under severe conditions. Running on recirculate will diminish those conditions, but having the air on with the sunroof opens is not a happy environment for the A/C. The system is ice cold, trying to cool down the cabin, while hot humid air is being brought in. You know what happens when hot humid air hits a cold dry surface, you got it, condensation.

blokhead

Call Acura Client Services, and speak with one of the case managers. This happened to me and my car is back in the shop the day after I picked it up (it was in the shop for almost 3 weeks). Acura had to replace my front bank cylinder head, along with 6 coil packs, and 1 ecu. And it still aint running right. Good luck.

Majofo

Not another one.. this is a serious issue.. definitely don't let them charge you a dime!

RENGRASSIA3

Hey,
Let me just start off by saying that Iam a mechanic and also the service manager of an independent garage. With that said, I have an '04 Acura TL that we had just recently done an oil change on and about 15 minutes after the customer picked the vehicle up he called the shop and said that the engine sounded like it was going to fall out of the car. And as luck would have it for the poor customer there there he stuck in the middle of a torrential downpour.

Ok, so the car gets here on the wrecker and it is full of oil. The engine light is on and flashing and I can immediately tell it is running on less than six cylinders. It has popped p0301 p0304 and a p0306 engine codes. They are cylinder 1 4 and 6 misfire codes. I reset the light and start the engine and wait for it to set the code again. Immediately p0301 sets again. I shut down the engine and begin the task of diagnosing why cylinder 1 is misfiring. Much to my surprise, after removing the bolt, the top of the coil litterally fell off of the engine. Let me tell you, the stink coming off this thing was almost unbearable and the metal inside of the coil was so hot that it almost ignited a little oil that had pooled up on my work bench.
This has me scratching my head a bit as I have never seen a coil burn up in such a way. Undaunted I continue to try and diagnose this vehicle when a few things start to happen. First the cooling fan begins to turn on and off at random and all of the relays under the hood begin to click on and off. Second my scan tool begins to lose communication with the pcm. I check the fuses and find that the ignition coil fuse had blown. Thinking that this might be the communication problem I install a new fuse and while it doesnt fix my communication problem it does promptly cause the other 5 coils to start to burn up. I quickly pull the fuse back out and pull the electrical connectors on the rest of the coils in time to avoid another catastrophic meltdown. I still cant communicate with the computer so now I'm leaning quite strongly toward a bad pcm (kinda obvious at his point).
The PCM, as most of you know, is located under the middle of the dash facing the passenger side. When I start to pull back the carpet I find something quite interesting. The carpet is very damp to the touch. As a matter of fact everything in the general are is damp. I check the AC drain and find that the hose is clean and clear with no sign of it being obstructed. The only other places that water could have come in is through the window or windshield, both of which tested ok, or the sunroof. Well wouldnt you know that the drain channels in the sunroof were clogged, and after hitting them with some compressed air they cleared right out. To wrap this up it seems that after some time of this cycle occureing, moisture had worked its way into the pcm and corroded it internally causing all the strange problems. Of course the vehicle was now no longer under warranty and because they dont make the tools available to independent reapir shops, I had to, reluctently, send my customer to the dealership to have the repair performed. They charged him a small fortune and said they couldnt guarantee that it wouldnt happen again because the sunroof could clog up again. Oh well.
Well thats my story, hope it helps.

Majofo

Thanks for sharing. I think there was another member who had a similar incident but couldn't find a clog in the evap line as well. I'll be checking my sunroof channels.

Majofo

tl;dr cliffs?

fr33spirit

So the TL wasnt included in the PCM corrosion recall I'm guessing?! I didn't even pay attention to when this post was written and im surprised that I haven't came across it before now but my 05 TSX had a recall on PCM. It didn't do any good tho bc not even a month after taking the car to the dealership for the recall my car went into limp mode (wouldn't accelerate) and finally realized that the problem is due to the PCM being EXTREMELY CORRODED. I'll add a pic to show u. At the very least the dealer should have added a cover that bolted down with the bolts that hold the PCM but in my case the mechanics only threw the cover in the"hole" where the PCM is located..it won't fit on top of it since they didn't follow the instructions for unbolting the PCM before putting the cover on bc the cover is shaped with a spot for the bolt and the metal bar that the bolt goes into..Anyway..there's NO WAY the corrosion started after taking it to the dealer bc of that amount of corrosion couldnt have accumulated in such a short time esp since it had been dry here that entire time. My A/C wasn't even working so couldn't have been that either.

Well I'll have to come back to add pics bc it's not letting me now​​​​​​
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justnspace

iTrader: (1)

so, what is your question?