chayos00

Car: 2007 TL 3.2L Auto Tranny just shy of 75,000 miles.

Hey guys, so first off with the rear main seal leak. The car started to leak from the rear main seal (based off where the engine oil is coming from) around 25-30k on the car. But it was only just a small oil residue, nothing that resulted in dripping till this week. I suspect this started along with the noise I'm about to explain below. Acura quoted $1200 to fix the $10 seal due to removing the engine/tranny. Gonna try some different stuff first to resolve it, like going from my current Mobile 1 Synthetic 5w-30 oil to their M1 S High Mileage oil (supposedly has seal conditioners), and if that still doesn't work gonna try non synthetic Mobile High Mileage oil to see if any of this slows down the leak to something manageable. As my 94 Ford Ranger from the early 2000's was switched to synthetic and started to burn oil but going back to regular resolved that.

My wife noticed a sound coming from her car, when I drive it it seems to be coming from the engine bay or under the front of the car somewhere. I figured it was a broken engine mount after talking with Acura service over the phone. I found the upper transmission mount to be have one of the 4 rubber pieces split in the middle. So I replaced that today and the car is still making the sound.

I have taken apart the passenger side top and that is 100% in tact. The rear mound I don't see how to really check it beside visually due to the location it is in. I tried to then get the top bolts off the front engine mount, but could not get it apart to really tell, just got the top bolt and the cross bracket off.

So I had my wife get in the car and put it into drive and while power braking it rev the engine up to around 1.5-2K to see if there was much flexing going on (Acura service guy suggested this part) and nothing seemed too bad. The front and rear mounts shifted about the same amount, I'd say about 0.25-0.5" of flex. This was done in drive and reverse.

So does anyone have any thoughts about this? I'm gonna try later see if I can record the sound while driving after I go and run a few errands (driving my truck not the car) then drive the car around the neighborhood and record it.

alexb92

Is it a rattling sound? If so, it could be one of the heatshields above the exhaust (can't remember which one it was on my car, but one of the washers had worn down allowing a little bit of play in the heat shield, I verified it by wiggling it with my hand.)

chayos00

It is some sort of metal on metal sound, not sure if I would call it a rattle. I had this similar rattle on my old ford ranger and this sounds nothing like that does. This is hard to describe and unfortunately I didn't get a chance to try and record the sound. The best I can describe it is like 2 pieces of metal coming into contact, not like being hit/banging with force into one another but like a lighter bumping/collision. A bit of a groaning clanking sound. Sorry for the horrible description I'll try after work to get it recorded. I'm trying to avoid driving the car as much as possible so since I have a much shorter drive than my wife for work I drive that on the nights she works.

djdonte

Yeah check that heat shield... mine tore around the mounting bolt holes. And if your "Acura guy" is a service advisor, he most likely pretty clueless. Those fools are salesmen.

chayos00

When checking the mounts yesterday I also banged on the heat shield and I don't think it sounded odd like being the source of the sound, but I'll check it out and even try removing it if I don't notice anything.

But yeah the service guy probably is semi clueless. Gonna try taking it to an actual mechanic next if it's not the heat shield.