Long story short. I am an inexperienced car owner, and bought an 07 TL-S over a month ago. I took my car to my local Acura dealership for a pre-purchase inspection after purchasing my car. It has 48k miles when I took it to the dealership. Hah.

At any rate, they found several problems, for example: the light on the "Audio" button doesn't turn on, etc. There apparently is a TSB for that same issue, but at the time, the dealership said that NOTHING they found in my car was covered under the bumper-to-bumper 50k warranty.

Another example - I told them my back speakers were not working. I know this for a fact that something was wrong (I think at least the sub was out). Tech put on the sheet that they were working just fine...

My mirrors make loud noises when I reverse - they didn't even notice that in the inspection.

Obviously now my car is over 50k miles, and after joining and researching stuff on this forum and all over the net, I've found several TSBs about the same issues I had. Acura fixed none for me. They wanted $260 to replace a light bulb in my dash.

My question is, what would you do in my situation? I'm going to look up as much shit as possible, and talk enough heads off at every phone number I can find for Acura till I get some free work done. I am not pleased.

This is kind of rant-ish, let me know if I need clarify.

Also - does anyone know where I can view TSB details for free?

 

Im sure one of the Mods will step in with the TSB details. As far as the other stuff, I would recommend on DIY projects. Personally I would recommend adding an aftermarket subwoofer. I disconnected my factory sub and added an aftermarket sub. The mirrors I would try to find a set of 07-08 mirrors on ebay for find a DIY thread on here. As challenging as all these task seems, AZ has always pulled through for me on my DIY projects. I really not too car savy myself.

 

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There is list of TSB's at the link below, but we've lost access to the files (at least for now). At least you can get the description and TBS Number to try searching elsewhere.

https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-2004-2008-93/3g-tl-technical-service-bulletins-tsbs-3g-garage-j-016-a-613659/

I understand your frustration - it would've been nice if Acura had helped correct issues before the warranty period expired. OTOH, getting a "pre-purchase" inspection and doing research AFTER you bought the car was not the best approach.

Pursue what you can BUT to so calmly, rationally and professionally. You may still get some of these issues resolved under "Good Wil", but if you piss everybody off, it'll be less likely.

GL.

 

Yeah I saw they took down the TSBs from that site. I was hoping there was a more updated version of this somewhere:

/index.php?page=tsb

 

If you place the mirror selector switch in the neutral position after you adjust the mirrors they will not chatter. If you want the tilt down feature try a little sugar when you go into the dealer. I got both actuators replaced under "good will" at no charge at 63k.

I too have the extended Honda warranty on my'07TLS and unless the only ones they will repair are those in the instrument cluster.

 

For the record, blocked TSBs are still accessible (somewhat) via the Google cache of the pages. I just pulled a few I wanted by grabbing the URL from the list on AZ, plopping it into Google, and either viewing it in HTML or viewing the cache. Cache will be deleted and updated soon though.

 

OP -

There are no bulletins in regards to the audio light being out. In fact, it's quite common on the 3Gs for misc steering wheel, audio/navi, etc bulbs to go out. I have already replaced my hazard illumination bulb, driver's 1 illumination bulbs, and map button bulb. Sucks, but it happens. Again, no bulletins.

There is a bulletin for the mirror chatter, as that is just one of the potential problems (others include not returning up after reverse, DPMS settings not setting, etc). Bulletin 09-047, applies to 06-08 TLs and 07-09 MDXs.

As for the speakers, they just flat out don't work? Like blatant, no sound, etc? And the sub? Have you checked your fader settings (not set to front? and/or made sure the sub isn't set to max low (it'll turn off altogether if set to the max low).

Some other members were right when they suggested looking up the DIYs. The bulb(s) and actuators aren't that expensive, and both aren't that hard to replace (especially the actuators). FYI there are a bunch of threads about the noisy actuators, and I have commented in many of them step by step how to replace them, or lube them to get the noise to go away (usually lasts at least 10k miles).

Hope you can find some answers to your issues. And and I'm not sure why they quoted you $260 to replace the bulb for the audio, as customer cost on that is about $6, and labor to remove and reinstall the audio unit/navi display shouldn't be anymore then an hour max. Good luck

 

Thanks for the response. Coincidentally enough, I am sitting at my local Acura dealership right now. They are being pretty polite on it - I just hope they do the work.

I swear the audio light bulb has a bulletin. 07-028 - "Audio panel button lights do not work". Its only for 07 TL-S's. Their initial quote for repairing it was $10 for the bulb(s), and $200 or so for labor.

They are at least saying they will cover the mirror issue and the bulb issue, and I am going to press for them to fix the speakers. At any rate, I am happy I am getting anything for free at this point, I still have to spend like an extra grand that I don't have doing other BS.

 

Oh, and regarding the rear speakers - the stock subwoofer is definitely out. I shift sound all the way to the rear, turn sub on and off - no bass in the rear.

The other two speakers in the back play sound, but it sounds crappy. But that maybe is due to the fact that they are playing no bass since the sub should be playing that. I am not sure.

Front speakers all sound great though, hah.

 

OP -

07-028 is a bulletin for the bulbs for the audio unit itself (preset numbers, CD/XM/FM/etc, etc). And according to the bulletin, it would be all the lights not working, not just one. Plus it's a small VIN range, 000001 to 013740. Not that you aren't in there, but it's a small range. Since the "audio" button, below your navi display, far right, isn't lit up, it isn't at all related to this bulletin. Sorry man

That being said, warranty flat rate time for replacing the audio unit for the above bulletin is 1.0 hour, so I can see why they quoted you for two hours (typically, a rule of thumb is double the warranty time for customer pay-this doesn't hold true for everything, but is a starting point for estimates).

And as you mention about about the sub, I know this is the obvious starting point, but is it plugged in? I only ask since you mentioned that car had light mods; there could have been a system installed. Or, since the sub doesn't work, and the rears sound like crap, the amp may have been damaged by the system that may have been installed? I know it's a lot of maybe's I'm just typing what comes to mind.

Let me/us know how things turned out since you were there at Acura.

 

If you balance all the way left or right the sub turns off automatically. I have never tried front to rear. Just a thought.

 

I have to replace the hazard bulb and drivers side temp light around the Navi cluster. If I'm gonna go that far, I might as well replace all the bulbs around the cluster anyway as the car is 6 years old. I haven't found a DIY here that shows how to do it, however I have the factory service manual which shows a special J shaped puller to remove the a/c panel vents above the Navi display. Can that puller be purchased at the parts counter? Is it easy to fuck up if you don't know what you're doing? Dealer's service advisor says IT IS while quoting $170 parts & labor to change that whole group of bulbs.

Then there's the matter of the Cruise Main, the audio Mode, and Phone button lights on the steering wheel ... not to mention the driver side seat heater button light on the console.
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I'm getting the light replaced for free since it apparently would have been covered under warranty and they didn't do it when I went to the dealership with 49.8k miles, hah. They ordered the part and gave me a 2010 TSX loaner for the weekend.

Bad news - previous owner voided my warranty - added aftermarket tweeters in the back of my car apparently - and tied them securely to the speaker shelf in the back. Dealership couldn't even check under to see if the stock speakers are still there, plugged in, or what. They suspect that he added aftermarket subs + other speakers after the stock shit broke down. They quoted me a minimum of 3 hours to diagnose - obviously declined.

I'm going to talk to a lawyer about seeing if I would have a case against the dealership that sold me the car. Its the first car I purchased on my own - and I don't think that I should have to spend so much money on it as soon as I bought it.

 

DMZ -

Yes, you can purchase that special tool through the parts counter. You can pretty much buy any special Acura tools through parts. It will probably take a little while for it to come in. I'm not sure what other people attempt to use to remove the vents. Overall, if you know what you're doing (aka have common sense and a bit of car know-how, you can remove the navi display/audio assembly pretty easily, especially since you have the manual. There's not much you can mess up as long as you're careful. The manual has a few extra steps that you don't actually need to do, but since you don't remove these often like I do, I would recommend following the steps. By the way, if you choose to do this yourself, you'll have access to the seat heater bulb anyway as you'll be pulling the armrest/center console back a few inches.

The steering wheel bulbs, you def need to pull the airbag, and then you have two options. You can try and loosen the screws that hold the switches in by turning the wheel to where you can gain access to them, or, you can pull the wheel off. I always pull the wheel off because the screws are usually a bitch (tight, and a small sized head), and typically take a lot of pressure to get loose, etc. So for the extra 30 seconds it takes to remove the wheel, it's totally worth because you save some decent time in the long run since you don't need to fight with the screws. Again, something you can do with basic tools, as long as you have a T30 Torx for the airbag.

OP -

Sorry to hear about the voided warranty. As mentioned in my previous post, I figured something had been modded/changed/etc back there, and it turns out that was the case. Looks like you'll be messing with that on your own. What all are you going to try and fight if you get a lawyer?