SouthernBoy

This morning, I noticed that my OUTSIDE TEMPERATURE display went "---F" (sorry, no degree symbol on the keyboard). Any ideas?

żGotJazz?

I've seen it quite a few times.

I don't think that it's a problem, though. There's a moderately complex equation that the TL uses to determine the outside temperature that was posted here by RavenHwk:

http://www.acura-tl.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67481

Maybe when the TL is unsure about one of the many variables, the outside temperature goes to "---".

After driving around on the highway for awhile, you should see the temperature appear again. I've only noticed one time where the temperature never was displayed while I was driving.

I'm not going to be worried until the MID almost always shows "---" for temperature.

SouthernBoy

Ok, thanks.. I have to take a 50 mile trip this afternoon (each way) so I hope that gives it a chance to correct itself. I have the shop manual and it gives a simple test with cold and warm water and checking that the resistance is within an acceptable range. If not, you have to replace the sensor. I DO NOT want to take my car to the service department of the local Acura dealer.. much too anal and paranoid for that.

kosh2258

I've had it happen 3 times so far. The first time it cleared itself by shutting off and restarting the car.

The 2nd and 3rd times it stuck like that for two days and required removing the battery ground cable to reset it. I also understand that removing fuses 7 and 21 from the fuse block might work too.

I found that if you disconnect the ground cable for a count of 5 and reconnect it, you can avoid having to rekey the radio and NAVI (if you have it) security codes as well as resetting your XM presets.

It hasn't happened again for about 2 months now.

SouthernBoy

Thanks, kosh2258. Like I mentioned, I absolutely hate to take my car back to a dealer for service work. Hard enough when the time comes to buy tires or have it state inspected.

domino

Took my TL in today for outside temp readout problem (blanking out or, when it does read, it's about 3-5 degrees over actual). The service advisor said that the factory is developing new software to remedy the problem. I asked him if I would be notified when the new software was available. Said he didn't know, but would check into it. I'll let you know what I find out.

kyle-wdp

My temp usually says it's 101 degrees or something real high........

rets

why. Twice ever at the same day. I'm sure that day the temp was higher than 100 at that time.

RiverRunner

I've seen the problem quite a few times. It gets hot here in Az and it seems like the readout only goes to 115. Once it thinks it's above that, it goes to ---. Since it reads higher than it really is, as other posts have indicated, it does this frequently. Eventually, it seems to drop down to 115, 113, etc until it gets somewhere close. But, that could take awhile.

Basically, it seems pretty useless since it's typically higher (when it isn't ---) than it should be and you have to press some buttons to get it to show up if you have the trip computer on. I've had several cars with outside temp readouts, and they've been much better. And, with a continuous display you can see the temp at a glance.

SouthernBoy

It's still reading flatline. My last car, a 2002 Altima SE, had an outside temp display and it worked flawlessly.. and quite accurately at that. My shop manual has steps to check the impedence to see whether or not the sensor is operating, which I will do tomorrow. What I would really like to do is go by a dealer and remove one from a car on a lot and install it on mine to see if that worked. Then I could just buy the part while there.

Aquineas

I had the same problem on my TL, but it seemed to correct itself after a day or so. And you're right, the Altima never had a problem with displaying the correct temperature outside.

mook

Mine has gone to --- quite a bit lately, but it has been pretty hot here in Houston. This happens usually in the afternoon or evening when I'm stuck in traffic on a day that is hotter than say 95. Like other folks have said, the display only goes to 115 and usually is 3-7 degrees hotter than actual outside temperature. So it is no wonder that it does this often in the summer. It usually corrects itself once I get rolling and get some air cirulating around the car.

Just think of the --- as a way for your TL to tell you keep the windows rolled up and the A/C on!

SouthernBoy

It has not corrected itself since it flatlined. This morning (4:45AM), the temperature outside of my house was 56 degrees. Still flatlined. And that little sensor is over $35!

I know, just take it in and let them fix it under warranty. But I'm so anal about my car, that would be a really hard thing for me to do.

DWP

You're not anal, you're clearly in love. You don't want any other hands on your precious!

SouthernBoy

To DWP;

Yep, yep, yep. Let's face it. No one is going to drive or treat your car the way you do.. assuming you're a gearhead and love fine machines. At least no one at an automobile dealership.

kosh2258

Interesting. I suspected that it might be a software issue when the problem can be cleared by removing power to the display module - essentially clears the memory and reboots the module. It's probably getting stuck in the calibration loop at high temps.

Looking at the manual, the sensor is basically a thermistor thats resistance drops as it heats up. The diagram they show of the resistance to temperature curve in the manual essentally bottoms (or is that tops?) out at 104 deg.

I've tried testing the sensor from my TL, using the service manual instructions, when it was flatlined and the sensor was working fine. I also ran the HVAC diagnostics routine which would identify a open or shorted wire to the sensor and it passed the test with no errors. It was at that point when I started to suspect a software bug.

SouthernBoy

To kosh2258;

I tested the sensor this morning as outlined in the Service Manual with ice water and warm water and the impedence was really close to the ranges in the graph (4.32-4.38 when cold and 1.5 - 1.7).. and it's still flatlined. It has stayed flatlined since first going that way. So I set up a service appointment for a few weeks away ('bout killed me to do this). I'll wait while it's fixed.

For some reason, I have been a little disappointed in my car since it happened. Kinda like it's not "whole".. that it's been broken. Crazy, but I hate like hell when I have a car and everything is not operating perfectly.

Ron A

Southern Boy:

I strongly suspect we are twins separated at birth and by a few years, because we think so much alike. It can't be coincidence.

I hate when something doesn't work, I hate to take my car to the dealer, I hate for anyone else to touch it. The similarities go on and on.

Keep up the good work. I admire your thinking, for some strange reason.

SouthernBoy

To Ron_A;

Hey, who knows.. you may be right, eh? My brother (4 years 3 months to the day older than me) died on Christmas day, 1979. If you're younger than that, maybe you are him reincarnated. Consider yourself a lucky man if it were true. My brother was a fine, good and decent man. An honor to have known such a man let alone be of the same flesh and blood.

Now where we really find out if we're "twins separated at birth" is how you stand in the socio-political climate and in other related hot topics (heh, heh). Guess we won't go there, but I see you're a Floridian so that's a start.

kosh2258

SouthernBoy,

Just curious, have you tried disconnecting the battery ground cable or pulling those two fuses and replacing them?

I'm mostly curious to know if you did, and it didn't work for you.

Of coursing disconnecting the ground cable is a bit of a hassle because if you have it off long enough you have to reenter the security codes for the radio and NAVI ( if you have it ) and reset any XM presents you have.

One word of warning about going to your dealer with this.
There was a member here who went to the dealer for this problem and, in the process of diagnosing the problem, the tech managed to flatline the guy's odometer reading. That can happen if they upload the odometer memory to their diagnostic system and then forget to reload it.
He ended up having to get a new module and the complications of incorrect mileage on the vehicle to boot.

I don't think this guy ever did post back here on how it turned out for him.

SouthernBoy

To kosh2258;

No, I haven't tried either one. I am reluctant to pull the negative battery cable for the reasons you stated. I used to do that with my '02 Altima SE whenever I was removing or changing around the intake since I had to unplug and remove the MAF for that. But this car would be a pain.

As for the fuses, I just went out to check them (I didn't remove them yet). I see #7 is for "backup" and #21 is marked "IG Meter". These designations are rather meaningless at best and outright misleading at worse without the Service Manual. #7 marked "Backup" protects a host of things, including the HVAC display module. Since the other items listed in my manual work, I know the fuse has not failed.

As for your remarks about "One word of warning about going to your dealer with this", that is scary for sure. The service writer I spoke with yesterday said that most likely the technician would first replace the sensor. Then if that didn't work, he'd trace it back diagnostically. Sounds in reverse to me, but they just want to fix the problem and get the car out the door I suppose.

SouthernBoy

To kosh2258;

Oh, by the way.. thanks so much for your input. I really appreciate you comments and suggestions.

kosh2258

SouthernBoy,

It isn't an issue of the fuse failing. Pulling and reseating the fuse(s) simply removes power to the circuit protected. It would have the same effect as removing the ground cable on the battery but limiting cutoff of power to those specific circuits (#7 & #21).

I can understand your hesitance. I tend to be the type to who goes where angels fear to tread if I'm confident I understand the path.

I do agree that, for some reason that escapes me, Honda seems to have a thing for obscuring their electrical information. The fuses have weird designations and bulbs are defined in watts rather than the more traditional, standardized, numeric description. Makes it kinda hard for the DIY'er to work with bulb replacements, fuse troubleshooting, and so on.

Good luck at the dealer and let us know how it turns out.

SouthernBoy

Thanks, kosh2258. I hope that the fact that I intend to wait for my car helps the situation. Boy it's hard being anal sometimes.

gldman

This happened to me. I Left the car on a vacation for a week and the battery drained. When I had the car jump-started the temp came back. When I went on subsequent vacations the battery did not drain. Note, I believe that your battery will drain if you do not start your car at least every other day until the temp problem is fixed.

SouthernBoy

That's discouraging. I was not going to drive it all this week because of the rains and I plan to try to wax it today.

bef

Today the dreaded flatline occured again (2nd time for me). The only thing I think I did differently in starting the car is that I paused at II rather than immediatly starting the car.

I checked the service manual and didn't find anything useful.

Page 21-9 described how to run the climate control diagnostics without any tools so I tried it and no problems were found.

Page 22-112 mentioned checking fuses 7 & 21 as part of the MICS troubleshooting procedure. Since these were the same ones mentioned earlier in this thread I decided to pull them out to see what happens.

I removed the lid to the driver's side under dash fuse box and discovered that there is no fuse puller (or at least I didn't see one). A needle-nose plier was used instead.

Based on the fuse descriptions on page 22-68, I decided to remove Fuse#21 first because the XM receiver unit was listed for Fuse #7 and I wanted to avoid keying in the security codes.

I removed Fuse #21, counted to 10, and re-inserted it. I started the car and the flatline was still there.

I tried Fuse #7 and the flatline went away!! Navigation and XM worked without asking for codes. I checked the XM presets and they appeared to be right.

The next person who gets the flatline should try removing Fuse #7 just to make sure we don't have to remove Fuse #21 first as part of some arcane reset sequence.

AChan123

Hi,

I took my car to the dealer yesterday for the "flatline temperature" problem. They called me back and said they have to replace the fuse box that was blown. Does that sound right to anybody?

Thanks,
AC

SouthernBoy

No. If it were true, a whole heck of a lot of things would cease to operate.. including your engine depending upon which box.

Perhaps he meant fuses, not fuse box??

Cloudsplitter

I read a number of complaints about this. There were a number of work-arounds including pulling the #7 breaker on the internal fuse panel.

From what I read in other threads, this is also accompanied by the loss of rear window defrost and radio presets.

This happend to my 05 TL last month. I took it into the dealer and they replaced the fuse box to fix the problem. I have had it a few days since with no further problems. This may be the source. I have read that other dealers have replace a navi module.

kosh2258

Sorry to say, I don't believe what they did will fix the problem.

This issue is very intermittent and difficult to reproduce.

I last had it happen towards the end of last summer and haven't had it occur since then. All I did was remove the negative ground from the battery for 4-5 seconds to clear the error on each of the three occasions it happened. I even ran the internal diagnostic routine for the HVAC per the repair manual and no problems were identified.

I've been reluctant to take it to the dealer because one, it's hard to reproduce and two, it appears that Honda still hasn't identifed the true cause of it yet. I'm not going to have my vehicle touched until there is a definite cause identified by Honda and a definitive fix published.

It's my opinion that the difficulty is software related and involves a subroutine that's getting caught in a loop because certain conditions aren't being met within a specified time.

I believe firmly that those who've had their cars worked for this problem will see the problem return, because it isn't mechanical in nature.

Repecat

My outside temp gage flatlined last fall shortly after I bought the car. I disconnected the neg battery terminal for a few seconds and all was fine until the other day. I had parked at Lowes to pick up some things and when I started the car noticed that the temp reading had flatlined. I thought, "Oh s--t, here we go again." About the time I was leaving the parking lot I again glanced at the temp reading. The darn thing had reset itself and has been okay since. Very odd!

Legend2TL

I also had the temp gauge flat-line today and radio presets and climate control memory reset. I turned off the car all the way and re-started to no avail, I tried again this evening and everything is back to normal.

My first anomaly on my 2005 TL, hope it's the last.

SouthernBoy

I believe kosh2258's assessment is the source of this problem.

Legend2TL

Sounds logical. I agree it seems like some S/W gets lost in some routine.

SouthernBoy

Can be a number of things. Memory leak, error code not being handled..

The fact that removing then reapplying power seems to solve the problem is similar to bouncing a box (computer).

WOOCHOW

yes, about 6 times. dealer denies any problem

batdude

Guys and Girls...

I would like to at least share my thoughts/opinions/experience on this issue.

My 2005 TL was re-purchased by Acura about 2 months ago due to this problem.

Synopsis:

6 dealer visits.

Gauge would intermittently, sometimes while in motion, display --- for outside temp.

Gauge would intermittently max out at 115 degrees, then go --- then stay at 115.

Gauge would intermittently not function at vehicle startup, regardless of outside air temp.

Vehicle is a north florida car, not exposed to abnormal temperature extremes.


Dealer replaced:

NAVI x2
wiring harness
sensor
and about 20 other items...dash ripped apart on numerous occasions...

i know this is a VERY picky item on this otherwise fine car - but we are talking about 35,000$ here.

lemon law'd the vehicle under florida lemon law (*THIS* brought some action)

acura sent a guy out from California to work on the car. screwed with it for a week - no luck in fixing the problem.

entered arbitration vice the lemon law statute.

started dealing with a company called "ISG" - Impartial Services Group - out of dallas, tx. this company is the go-between for the manufacturer, dealer and vehicle owner.

total owed on vehicle at time of buyback: $29k and change.

buy back was 100% of total owed - a steal - vehicle had almost 40k miles on it.

new 2006 TL (same options as mine , except this one is a M6 (!!!!!) - including the tint and roadguard) was supplied by acura for $31k. i am sure that someone somewhere ate a few thousand $$ on this deal....

put down a few thousand, got a new car for the same amount owed on the 1 year old car.

new car is functioning just as i expect an Acura to function - no problems.


bottom line here: STICK TO YOUR GUNS.

kudos to Kevin Snyder (sales mgr) at Duval Acura (jacksonville, florida) making this process as painless as possible.

as one long time Acura sales rep told me (in confidence) - "i have never, EVER seen acura buy back a car in the manner that yours was bought back".


bottom line after the fact: this company took care of me. i'll be back when this TL goes to the grave.





doug

rt4563

Since this rather old thread has been revived I have experienced the exact same situation Legend2TL describes. Temp flatline, radio presets gone, climate control memory reset. Turning off and restarting the car had no effect. Then later (next day) everything back to normal. This has happened to me three or four times.

Other than getting an entirely new car like batdude, do any of you have any suggestions? Has this been recognized by Honda as an actual problem? I don't want to take my car in and have them just screw around with it if they have no idea what they're doing. Any ideas?

Watch me go

Ok, this happened to me tonight. Drove about 200 miles today and all of a sudden I lost my temp gauge, my XM presets, climate control and the phone icon on my dash for the bluetooth connection will not show up when the phone is connected and the HF link can be used.


Maybe the TL needs to sleep on it. But it's encouraging to see that Acura bought one back. I've heard of wuite a few stories like that. It's a great car, but the build quality (dash, headliner, all the sqeaks and rattles) make it difficult to enjoy.