conester

Well I've owned my car for 27 days and I've actually had it in my posession for 11 of those days! It's a '04 TL M/T. I got it from Linsay Acura in Columbus and it's been one thing after another with this thing. First before I agreed to buy it I had them fix all the curb rash on all 4 wheels, replace the dented/scratched center consol trim, air out the interior becuase it stunk from smoke, check the alignment, and replace one of the rims that was bent that gave me a shimmy at 70mph. They did all that and I bought it.
Three days later, I heard something rolling around in the dash when I stopped, the clock didn't match the nav clock and I thought something was slipping when I first started to move when the car was cold, and the passenger heated seat bulb was out. Took it in and they found a 10mm bolt rolling around in the ventilation ducts, replaced the bulb in the seat switch and told me the clock issue was because the car had a Honda nav disk, not a Acura and they'd have to order it. The slipping issue just turned out to be the Falken tires slipping when they were cold.
THEN the check engine light came on and gave me misfire codes for all cylinders! This was three days AFTER I got it back from the dealer. They did the service bullitin for the PCM software update and said it was fixed. Guess what. The CEL came on again for the same problemthe SAME day! This time I took it to Lindsay Acura in Columbus where I bought it. They said they'd check it out. Well there was low compression in most of the cylinders and they said it was probably due to a over rev situation.
I told them I wasn't paying for the repair since I just bought it and plus I bought the warranty. They proceded to tell me that someone blew the engine. They said that they can say 100% that they didn't do it. Well I said, I can say 100% that I didn't do it. I have NEVER gone over the red line in this car!
So they pulled the head off today and said there were 6 bent exhaust valves!! I KNOW I didn't do that but they are still trying to contact the warranty place to see if it is covered. My luck is it won't be, but I know I didn't blow this engine! I know how to drive a stick!! Anyone else have this happen and what was the outcome? I'll keep ya posted, but I'd stay away from Linsay Acura if I were you!

01tl4tl

Its a little late to say buyer beware, but really- with all wheel curb rash, bent rim, messed up interior, pretty sure signs of inattentive driver... and you are going to have problems.

Get a sample of the oil and send off to www.blackstone-labs.com
Based on Mass Spectrograph readings they can tell how much metal came from where and how long its been doing it.

If the engine overrevs it is supposed to go into limp mode- at least the automatics do.
The manual trans cars have no built in rev limiter on upshift and more importantly - downshift.

The car should have been running pretty bad since day 1 for you if it arrived in that condition. Was it a Certified Acura?

01tl4tl

When you say there was slipping- that you attribute to the tires being cold,
does that mean the revs would come up and the car not go forward,
or they were loose on cornering until a driven a few miles and warmed up?

conester

I know, I know....i should have went with my gut and not bought the car. Believe me, I'm kicking myself for that right now.

Good idea about the oil. I might just do that.

The engine didn't seem to be running bad. It had a rough idle, but I read these cars have that. I know it doesn't have the rev limiter, but I never went over the red line so I can't believe I hurt this thing...if you hurt a car engine by getting close to red line, then it's a piece of crap anyway.

Yes, it was a certified acura. That's one thing that reassured me....well that and the warranty I bought. We'll see how far that gets me.

conester

By slipping, I mean I'd start letting the clutch out and bringing the rpms up and you could feel and hear something slipping. The tires were just so cold they were slick and therefor sliing when I first started deriving. After I got my snow tires, it stopped doing that.

csmeance

Did the CEL come on after filling up the tank with gas? IF so, it just may be a case of bad gas. Also how many miles are on the car. My adivce is that if it is over 30K, go to autozone/kregan/pepboys and buy a can or 2 of seafoam. Add it to the gas, the oil and send some in through the PCV hose. This will clean up the motor.

The TL's 6speed is really weird. Most people who have driven manuals find this transmission to be quite odd and take a bit of time to learn. Also I would have acura give you the results of this supposed compression test they did. Post them here.

01tl4tl

The shop removed a cylinder head and found not 1, but 6 bent exhaust valves!!!!
All the sefoam in the world wont fix that.
Besides the valve damage, the heads are probably damaged- and the pistons, and the connecting rods and crankshaft....well pretty much fries these engine to overrev.

Spinning tires when cold?? on ice maybe? that will shoot the revs and you wont notice thevsplit second it takes to ruin the motor

conester

Why would the heads, pistons, connecting rods and crankshaft be damaged if the exhaust valves are bent???? Come on, that seems like an awful lot of damage to be associated with just bent valves. You aren't making me feel any better about this bad experience I'm going through right now!

No there was no ice. Dry pavement when the spinning/sliping was going on....just very cold temps. That didn't ruin the motor.

csmeance

they only did a compression test, I doubt they pulled apart the motor at their cost. Low compression can be caused by:
1. Lack of oil causing the rings to be overworked. 2. Old (worn) and weak rings. 3. Crack or opening in the head - but that doesn't necessarily mean water in the oil or oil in the water. 4. Cracked cylinder 5. Burned, warped or cracked valve(s). 6. Burned or cracked piston. 7. Cylinder worn or out of round. 8. Blown or leaky head gasket. 9. Sticky valve(s). 10. Broken or worn valve spring(s). 11. Bent/worn pushrod(s) 12. Worn camshaft, or a broken lobe on the cam. 13. Worn or bent rocker arm(s). 14. Collapsed lifter(s).

Cause #9, if the valves are covered with gunk, i'd bet that seafoam would help alot. Also acura could have lied about the compression test, all dealers are known to lie and find a way to make money. It could also be as simple as bad gas. My suggestion is to start with something that will cost 5 -10 dollars and move your way up.

csmeance

after carefully re-reading the thread, I have seen what I misread. Taking the independent side, not to be rude, but the evidence points to user error.

The car left the dealership fine, no CEL, no performance problem. But As you said, the CEL came on 3 days after you got it back. This just released acura of all liability as you justed stated it was out of their possession.

Now on your side, though it may be unlikely
when acura was checking what was slipping as you said, the tech may have over-revved the motor slightly, maybe upto 7000 RPM, causing some slight damage to the valves. Over the next 3 days, the damage continued to become worse as you drove until the sensors realized something was wrong.

In all honesty, I would think that acura would split the cost with you as they split the cost for the transmissions of 2nd gen tl's when they were out of warranty.

01tl4tl

conester- its called force dynamics
In this case- its like a broken timing belt. When in overrev condition of an `interferance motor' meaning zero tolerance-clearance between the valves and piston in normal conditions- do anything to throw off that timing balance and some delicate parts are going to smash into each other at very high speed and several times in a second or 2!!
even for split second-
the open valve hits rising piston top, bending the valve body and shaft. That force is going somewhere. In this case, into the top of the pistons- which channel the energy down to the con rod and crankshaft. On the upper end- it can destroy the camshaft and when the valve stem bends- the valve tries to close crooked- resultant damage to the valve seats requires extensive rework of the cylinder head.....
And they only pulled one cylinder head and found 6 exhaust valve on that side was bent- thats NOT a good indicator of things to come.
The shop should have compresion and leak down test results.
The computer usually picks up an overrev and immediatly reduces power to less than 2500- again thats on the automatics but 6sp should have similar idea. It is supposed to LIMP you to the dealer
I am not aware of any idle problems normally- gen3 guys is that norm for you?
My 01 runs like a 200 hp sewing machine
Check your owner operating book- here is a free link
https://techinfo.honda.com/rjanisis/...01_OMANUAL.asp

01tl4tl

Tires that spin in the dry conditions blamed on tires? What amount of tread was left on the summer tires?
That whole spinning thing is making readers believe its possible it was user issue.
Revs build faster than you can believe under those conditions- you can have 100mph wheel speed at 3 mph forward speed-- then the tractions grabs some road and tire and grabs--- instant rpm surge
Bingo
Without a recording device in the car for RPM there is little proof who did what.
If the cars computer stores max rpm and other data- hopefully is has date code too so you know if it was in the shop at the time of incident.

I cant get my car to even spin the tires in dry conditions~ TCS takes over and says no way duuuuude~

ussi

iTrader: (1)

Sounds like your valves are F***ed but your bottom end pistons n crank should be ok..sucks dude.

conester

Ok I appriciate all the info on this subject guys, but one question I do have is, is it possible to damage an engine when you run it up to 6800 rpms?? I mean if that's possible, then i don't want the car anyway since I can't get every bit out of the engine. I can't believe that.

Well, hopefully there isn't any other damage to the engine besides the valves. I see all your points with who did what and it's really a very hard thing to prove, but I know I didn't over rev this engine.....but good luck to me proving it. We'll see what they say today...I'll keep ya posted.

01tl4tl

whats the posted redline RPM on the car?

conester

7000 RPM is the redline. At least that's what it is on my car.

01tl4tl

I wonder if there is a tell-tale program in the system that records peak rpm

conester

Well, the service dept. said the warranty guys are sending an investigator out tomorrow to determine if it will be covered under warranty or not. Cross your fingers!! I need a little good luck for a change!!

Adobeman

It should be good all the way up to red line but there have been a few unfortunate souls that exceeded that and quickly floated and bent valves. So, no more dancing around the 10000 lb gorilla everyone seems to be avoiding. I'll play the a$$hole tonight.

You ask if you can damage it by pushing it to 6800 RPM and then say "i don't want the car anyway since I can't get every bit out of the engine" I think I hear "I've been whipping the snot out of my new toy and I think I broke it" So, here goes... Did you over-rev and smack your valves ? Be honest.

bmaczo6

iTrader: (1)

First of all, the car comes with a rev limiter so you can not over rev an engine by using the gas pedal. There is a safety margin built into the computer to shut off fuel and/or spark to prevent damage.

It sounds much more like someone downshifted to the wrong gear. For example, if you were to run it up in 3rd gear and get ready to shift into 4th but hit 2nd instead you will have a mechanical over rev condition that the computer can not prevent. I would bet this is what happened. I am sorry to say but this will likely not be covered under warranty because the only way for this can happen is operator error.

bmaczo6

iTrader: (1)

The answer to your first question is no. If you go above 6800 and into redline the computer will shut the engine down.

The valves are bent because they hit the pistons. This could result in damage to both the pistons (somewhat likely) and possibly the connecting rods (not likely).

01tl4tl

Is it confirmed in the owner manual or by one of the gen3 Guru's-
that M/T cars have a rev limiter for upshift?? I never heard that one before!

The auto trans is safe under any conditions- wont allow itself to overrev,
but I was under the impression the M/T cars were totally on their own for rpm control up or downshifting.

I still want to know why the summer tires were spinning on dry pavement- at what indicated rpm and speed, for how long- seconds per incident and how many times it occured- Was traction control involved? etc etc.
And the snow tires solved that problem, then you noticed the rough idle.

Ever watch drag cars go thru the water box and spin the tires, too much rpm for an instant and part$ become projectile$$. Thats 1 reason they use top gear in the burnout- keep the revs down with slippery tires.

KN_TL

iTrader: (3)

There is an entry in the manual (06) that if you get into the red zone on the tach, the engine will cut in and out.

I've got an MT and have hit the rev limiter

If there were 6 bent valves off the lot, wouldn't the engine either be rattling like crazy and/or performing terribly initially? How many miles does this thing have on it?

BG74

Big 2nd on that....I hit the limited many times in my '05. It's there for a reason...the engine will not be damaged by it. Mechanical over-rev is the ONLY way. IIRC, the computer remembers the date and time of the most recent over-rev, which is not reset until the next one (if any). Anyone else know?

If that's the case, it's simply a matter of Acura seeing when the over-rev occured. Maybe they've already done that and determined it was in their possession.

I have a buddy with an S2K, and Honda knew exactly the date and time and over-rev leading to damage occured in his engine, and thereby denied his warranty claim for a similiar issue.

conester

Ok guys. I KNOW what an over rev situation is and that the only way to do it is a missed gear downshifting.....and NO I DIDN"T DO THIS....like someone says....you know when this happens and it didn't happen while I was driving it. I'm deffinately going to see if there is a time stamp when it occured and see if it was while the dealer had it.

As far as the tires spinning....they didn't SPIN, they SLIPPED...big difference. They didn't spin like doing a burn out...just slipped slightly when I started to move maybe around 1500-1800 rpms...so there's no way that would've done this.

I also agree that if there were 6 bent valves off the lot, I would've thought I'd notice....that's why I'm puzzled. Even though I knew something was wrong, the car didn't run "that" bad. Puzzling.
Also the car only has 52K miles...way too soon for something mechanical to fail I'd think. Ok, I think that covers it.
I'll let you all know what they say tomorrow after the "investigation"
G night

DMZ

........................................

Innattentive? Seems to me like this car was beat to shit by its former owner and the problems may have only just begun. Being that it was bought from an Acura dealer, they should have certified it.

I'd just get rid of this car as quickly as possible !!!!!

mickey3c

here here... I was going to say the same thing.. The car was certified by acura before all those things were taken care of?!! Sounds like they did not do a thing or than say it was and jack the price up.

One big problem with buying a used TL (even more so with the S) is that there is a good chance that someone drove it hard. Many people buy them for their performance numbers and as a result try their luck out on the road.

bmaczo6

iTrader: (1)

To the best of my knowledge their is not a single major manufacturer car available for sale in the US that does not have a rev limiter.

I would bet that most classes of drag cars use a rev limiter and the folks that I know that drag race generally use 2nd gear for their burnouts. Watch some of the motorcycle or pro-stock classes and you will see them go to full throttle just before they launch. This is possible because the computer will not let the engine over rev.

BLACKURA_NY

iTrader: (6)

I am also pretty sure you can only damage it by incorrect downshifting..
if i recall, a member did that and also had a couple bent valve... probably no friggin oil in the car from the previous owners neglegant behavior... you said the car smelled like smoke.. i smoke in my car , DAILY, and my cars never smell like smoke... its called CARING for your car lol

Honestly, check your local lemon laws. In NY, there was a certain condition if it spent X amount of days at the dealership while you only owned it for X amount of days.. its a lemon

on used cars, you usually only get like a 30 or 90 day lemon law, but looks like your car started acting up right from the start, and hopeully you kept all your invoices from service/warranty repair, to show the amount of problems you've got

Remember, you didnt buy a $900 `87 Chevy Nova off a guy in the street. you bought a used ACURA, from an ACURA dealer, for probably $20,000 or more!!

and there is always ACURA CLIENT SERVICES or whatever they are called. i wouldnt stand for this kinda shit on a just purchased car from a dealership.. new OR used... that is...

if you can say to yourself you honestly didnt fck it up on accident...

I hate cars

Sounds like this car was run hard and abused.

You can sit it on the revlimiter in neutral for 30 seconds if you like and it won't do any engine damage. Only way to overrev is by hitting the wrong gear.

I have never seen a case where the pistons or any of the bottom end were damaged from hitting a valve. The valve always loses. I've done it a couple times in the Buick when I was playing with spring pressure and different cams and all it did was make a very small mark on the pistons. I did make sure to file off any sharp edges so the car didn't run into detonation problems later on.

BTW, a rough idle is the first place low compression shows up.

DMZ

I have. My old Buick, a '63 Riviera (R.I.P.) shattered a piston from excess carbon buildup on the piston surface. This was of course, back in the days of leaded gas and mechanical ignition systems.

conester

Well the service guy at the dealer said the inspector was looking at my car as we speak, so we'll see how this turns out. Stay tuned....

I hate cars

I would bet that it was from detonation on that cylinder from the excess carbon buildup.

The piston and valve are not going head to head, the piston is exerting force at an angle to the valve. Even if the valve doesn't bend a pushrod will. The valvetrain is pretty much always the weak link.

jime

I bent the valves on my 04 M/T TL at 55K miles. I was getting on the freeway and got cut off just as I was shifting from 3rd to 4th at about 70mph – I didn’t hit the guy but did find 2nd instead of 4th when I jerked the car to the right, and letting out the clutch was just a unconscious response to almost getting hit . I hit the clutch as soon as I heard the engine start to rev. but it was too late.

Symptom: rough idle and “check engine” light. I took the car in and they told me the date, time and overspeed RPM that the engine reached. Not much to argue about. Repair was 13 bent valves – no other damage to my knowledge. The quote was $3700, but the final price came in at $2550 – I think they gave me a break. I then went to AcuraCare and got them to pay 50% “good will” because this is my 4th Acura. So my “out the door” cost was $1,275.

I think you are going to have a problem proving that you didn’t do the damage, because they know how the damage was done. I also think that you might be able to get some help from Acura, but it is going to cost you.

jackasswhy

they should do the same for him then, if they can tell you that info why wouldnt they tell him that?

conester

Well they checked for the time/date/rpm stamp but because they re-flashed the pcm with updated software which "convieniently" erased the time stamp so there was no proof or evidence of when it happened if I did or not. I still argue that I didn't do it due to the statement by jime that he KNEW when it happened because he heard the engine rev up like that....that NEVER hapened since I owned the car.
Anyway, the service dept called and it isn't covered under warranty. They said the repair estimate was $3080+tax. I asked if they'd be willing to split the cost at least since I've only had it for 3 1/2 weeks and I've only had it in my possession for 11 of those days. They said that the sales manager will call me to discuss that possibility. If they won't agree to it then I will call the Acura Client Services in CA and talk to them. I was told that if I do that it bypasses the dealer, inspector and goes right to the top. So we'll see what they offer to do. The saga continues.....until tomorrow.

01tl4tl

Thats BS, they are trying to keep you from calling Acura Corp so they dont get in trouble for FAILURE to follow procedures and document the car.
When you make a report to Customer Care- they open a case file- claim number and emails go out to several levels of managment INCLUDING your service Manager- right to their Blackberry- so its instant info.
When you tell Acura what has occured, and the Managers exact words, you will get a supervisor callback within a day or 2- they will call the dealer and say - why is this customer complaining- whats happened- why was no record of date time stamp made and research everything before they talk with you- they need to know their side first.
When you make the report- its a minimum wage phone answerer- not techs or car people in general- All they do is write down every word you say and put it in the system
1-800-382-2238 x5 6am to 5 pm pacif m-f except holidays like this coming monday.

By reflashing the unit without documenting the time- It is my belief they are covering their mistake by a tech on test drive.
It is their responsiblity to log that info or the car wouldnt bother to record it.

ACURA absorbs the cost differance, NOT the dealer as many would like you to believe.
GOODWILL has nothing to do with using thier service dept for oil changes, its about
you are a nice person with a problem- and the Manager wants to help you out.

It really does seem odd that they reflashed with documenting the all important info.
If it was me, I would be talking to a lawyer about THEIR Negligence and possible FRAUD,
(why does the white house destroy emails they are ordered to preserve????)
or at least looking at small claims court. But with their attitude of it wasnt us and we washed away the evidence- you need a lawyer because they have one!

bmaczo6

iTrader: (1)

If you are sure you did not do it and it sure sounds like you are then it must have happened while it was in their possession. They should pay for the full cost of the repair since they did it. Do not offer to pay anything for their mistake. Have them proove that they are not at fault.

nibalm3

Lemon Law?
Under 30days.. Lawsuit!..

BLACKURA_NY

iTrader: (6)

yea thats what i am saying. just scream lemon law, and fight then for a new car. then they will repair yours for ya... i wouldnt pay for this