2006 TL MT
I had a problem last year that I was curious if anyone else had this happen to their TL. Last year, I had about 40k miles on my car. I was on road that kinda had twists and turns and elevation changes. I had the A/C on and was driving along when suddenly, without warning, my car shut off. It seemed only the engine shut off and I saw on my dash I saw "TPS Failure". Everything but the engine worked at this time. I shut off the car, got out and looked around (I don't know what I was looking for really since I didn't hit anything). I got back in and started my car and drove off. This happened again when I was going up a hill, but the engine started to sputter and then crapped out. Check engine light came on and the same TPS error came on. At this point, my car would not restart. I tried a few things at this point, but won't go into that, but I had it taken to a dealer and they said my computer was destroyed and I had a melted ignition coil in cylinder 4. They replaced both and I asked why these things failed and they did not give me any answer that reassure me that replacing these would fix my car totally. The next week, I was driving for about 100 miles on a trip and suddenly it happened again. No warning, just crapped out and I had to get it towed to a dealer again. Subsequently, they found that the A/C unit drainage port was gummed up with debris and was leaking water on to the computer and shorted it out. They told me they fixed what was causing it to leak on to the computer and replaced the computer as well. 20k miles later (today) I haven't had this problem since.

Now, I'm wondering if this is a known issue for this car or if anyone else had this problem. It's odd to me because I thought the compartment that holds the computer would be fairly water resistant or maybe water tight. Did what they tell me even make sense?

Thanks

 

Correction: TPS = TPMS
as in Tire Pressure Monitoring System.

 

Yes, your unfortunate experience has occurred before. If you do a search, you will find several threads where TL owners had their ECUs, coils, etc. replaced because of water from either a plugged A/C drain tube or a plugged/disconnected sunroof drain tube. Here is one of the threads, with a photo of the ECU location: https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-problems-fixes-114/ignition-coil-melted-731045/.

I have not had the problem, but am also surprised that the ECU is not better protected from water given its proximity to drain tubes.

One of the posts in that thread I linked is by an Acura tech who mentioned that a couple of these fried ECUs were actually caused by service people who plugged the A/C drain tubes to keep water from dripping on them while servicing the car.

 

"Don't Rain On My Parade"

1) Ignition coil melted (click here)

2) Car won't start: AC Froze up and now the PCM is full of water (click here)

3) Bad news - Water in PCM/ECU. Warranty advice? (click here)

4) Water Leaks into Control Box (click here)

5) Engine spitting, CEL on/flashing, bad vibration... (click here)

6) HELP! plugged a/c drain ruined the ECU (click here)

7) Car won't Start (click here)

8) A spiders nest cost me $5,000 in engine repair!!!!! (click here)

 

Well I feel pretty good that this problem seems to be not specific to my car. I did make an effort to search for this but found a bunch of threads that didn't match my problem or no threads at all depending on my keywords. Nonetheless, thank you for your support in directing me to the right place for help and reference.

Thanks

 

well, let me be the first to say, " atleast the pcm is not under the hood like the new gen." you want to talk about water damage? try 2k miles and damaged pcms left and right. granted the pcms were not flooded with water but moisture did and will find its way inside. the worst place for a pcm imo...