MikeM05TL

I apologize in advance for making this long, but I guess I have a lot to say.
I just want to know what other people think of this situation, and how they would be reacting right now. Im sure u've seen

I'm sorry but I have had the worst experience of my life. I've had a honda for 10 years now, and loved every minute of it. My brother's owned an acura for about 3 years now and loved every minute of it. I purchased a brand new 05 TL in October of 2005, since then i have had about 20 issues w/ the car (i made alist of the problems about 4 months ago in another thread.

-First day I got the car, my passenger door courtesy light was flashing to the beat of the music, so i brought it in the next day and they took the door panel off and fixed the connector.
-Vibration at 2500 rpm - dealer replaced heat shield..
- Brakes squeak - dealer attempted to fix, and the brakes still squeak.
- Navigation randomly reset while driving around a parking lot looking for a spot.
- Key got stuck in the ignition one night for about 30 minutes
- Headlights are different colors. One is blue and one has a yellowish shade to it.
- Feel a grinding from underneath when driving at a low speed and pressing the accelerator lightly.
- Rear deck rattles a lot
- Rattles coming from the passenger door, glove box, seat
- Rattles coming from somewhere near driverside headrest/seat belt area.
- When engine is cold, you feel the car vibrate in a random beat
- Bluetooth works randomly, but doesnt show the battery level or signal strength.
- CD's stuck in the CD changer, they will not play, they will not eject. Every time I turn the car on it cycles through all the CD slots and then nothing plays.
-Navi recently reset on me 7 times in Boston, i'd start moving and it would reset and go back to the disclaimer screen.

Most recently:
-Rattles in rear deck twice
-warped rotors twice
-Seized calipers
-Replaced Transmission (only 9000 miles, problem occured at 1000 miles, but
dealership "couldn't hear it!!")!!!!!
-Service Department scratched my rear bumber cover!!
-Service Department scratched my passenger side rear door!!

There's other issues too, but I cant keep track of them anymore...

My major issue is the Tranny... only 9000 miles and already replaced??? The way i see it, I paid for a brand new car, w/ a brand new transmission. The Tranny that they just put in there is a remanufactured, which means that it has been used before, had problems w/ it, got sent back and rebuilt. If i wanted a used transmission in my car, wouldn't I have just gone and purchased a used car???

At this moment the dealership still owes me money for Tires: I Went to a diff dealership to get my tire replaced. The service department there called Clair Acura's service deparmtment to get the warranty info, and they said.. oh our computers are down right now, just have him pay for it, and bring in the receipt and we will reimburse him. I did just that, paid for the tire and balancing, took the receipt to Clair's service dept. the next day, and they said, "We don't do reimbursments for tire warrantys, you have to call this 1800 number"... It literally took them 30 seconds to pull out the tire warranty paper and give me the number, THEY COULDN'T DO THAT WHEN THE OTHER DEALERSHIP CALLED AND ASKED???? I go talk to one of the sales managers, and he doesn't know what to say, he told me to call the 1800 number and tell them the situation, so i did. Had to call them twice, write a letter of appeal, and all three times the claim was rejected. Finally went to the GM of the dealership, he said he would call the tire warranty place, and if they didn't pay, then he would write me a check. He ends up sending me a check for $220 about 3 weeks later (it was supposed to be for $265). I call him up and tell him, and he's like, "ohh well, umm let me see what I can do." week and a half later, I call him up again, same thing "how about a free oil change, blah blah blah, k, let me see what i can do." Now it's been about another month, and I still haven't seen the rest of the money!!!

Only 6 months and 9000 miles, thats pretty pathetic. All of this and the dealership will not take it back or replace it, and neither will Acura... WHAT A SHAME!!!!

I've gone from a die hard Honda/Acura fan, to swearing that I will never buy another Honda product again!!

By the way, if you live in Massachusetts, NEVER GO TO CLAIR ACURA in East Walpole, MA. They're horrible!!! Their service department is horrible. Everytime I go there to drop off or pick up my car, there is at least one or two other people there that are pissed off because of the service. On 3 seperate occasions people had to wait because the service department lost the keys to their cars (PATHETIC!!!).

If you've gone there for service before, take a look under the front of ur car, theres a good chance that it's scratched, and if you dont think its from u.. then it is prob from Clair Acura. There's a huge dip in the ground, right infront of one of the parking spots out back, and I have seen them time and time again, fly into the spot w/ people's cars and bottom them out!!!




If you guys were in the same situation that I am in right now, would u be pissed off?? Would you want the car replaced??

EZZ

Lemon Law. If thats not possible, get another car.

SouthernBoy

Damned right I'd be seriously pissed.

I'm really sorry to hear of your problems, friend. My '04 manual TL and my wife's '05 automatic TL have been flawless.

I am not a Honda fan historically for a number of reasons. I really don't think that their past record is all it's cracked up to be. My best cars, with the exception of one, have been Fords.. yes Fords.

But my TL is VERY nice and pleases me to no end. So I am really sorry to hear of your problems. Please do keep us informed.

davenlei

Wow, you are pretty pissed off. I can't help you with most of the issues you have but I can tell you some things about that reman. tranny.
I had a v6 accord back in 2000 when the tranny issue was unknown. Well, after 4000 miles on my new car, it started doing wierd things and actually started leaking. I took it in, they had a Honda rep inspect it because they could not believe my trans went out at 4000 miles. Honda approved a remanufactured trans to be put into my new car. I protested but they said either it is this reman. trans or you can pay the difference for a new trans which was a lot! So I took the reman. trans. That transmission was rock solid for 50k mikes before I traded it in for my BMW (I needed a 4 dr. due to a new baby). So I would not be too worried about the fact it is a remanufactured transmission if reliability is your concern.

gcrewzr

Just sell your car and get other one. My 04 TL has alot of minor issues such as rattles coming from the passenger door, glove box, etc...

CLsuperhero

It's time. take it to the woods and it. Don't look it in the eye when you do it. You'll have nightmares.

LuvMyTSX

OMG, you have every right to be pissed. Try the lemon law. You shouldn't have to put up with that crap.

I'm on my first Honda/Acura product and I'm a very happy camper so far. It's really too bad you are going through all this with your car. Sorry to hear it.

You may also want to try calling Acura Client Services or whatever. Maybe they can help you somehow.

Tripp11

I hope after only a few of those problems on your list you called Acura Client Services and started a file with them. I would NEVER leave it up to a dealer to handle your laundry list of problems and then hope they will be in your corner when push came to shove.

Good luck and my sincere apologies for your problems.

MikeM05TL

I've already talked to ACS plenty of times. After the transmission issue, I asked to meet with the Acura Regional Rep. Met with her on wednesday, probably the most pointless meeting ever. We sat there for an hour and a half of me reading all my work orders to her, and in the end she goes "well, i can see that you've had plenty of issues with the car, the most major being the transmission, but i dont see a need for us to buy back this car. I hope that you didn't come into this meeting expecting us to but it back."

Thats when i just got really aggrivated, told them thanks for wasting my time, and walked out. Then I came home and called a lawyer, and now I gotta go through the whole lemon law ordeal.

your_mom

Are you sure you don't have a Chrysler that somebody pasted Acura badges on? That's an impressive list of issues. I'm sorry you're going through that, I've been through it with two other cars.

neuronbob

Dude....time for the Lemon Law. You got a POS TL. Believe me, we are all with you on this.

Moving to "Problems and fixes".....

MikeM05TL

Any advice on going through this whole lemon law process? or anyone know any good lemon law lawyers in or around Mass??

Alin10123

I did have a lemon law issue that was later fixed so it never went too far.
I believe for Ga if you goto www.georgialemonlaw.com it will give you a georgia lawyer. But as far as mass goes, there's a link on that website i believe that will take you to attorneys in other states. I believe the way it works is that you dont pay anything for their services. The loosing party actually pays the fee.

streese

Try this: Mass. Lemon Law

It was referred to me by my attorney that handled my lemon law case that finished a month ago.

Hopefully, they can assist.


Good luck!

Steve

streese

The Massachusetts Lemon Law applies to any new car, truck or motorcycle purchased or leased for personal or family purposes from a new-car dealer in the State. The law protects consumers whose vehicles suffer a significant defect in the first 15,000 miles or 1 year, whichever comes first, and cannot be fixed despite three or more repair attempts. The MA Lemon Law also protects consumers whose vehicles are in the shop 15 or more business days (Monday-Friday) within the first year. These days do not have to be consecutive.

The maximum remedy under the Massachusetts Lemon Law is a repurchase of the vehicle, including taxes, tags and finance charge, minus a small mileage offset. Other remedies include partial refunds and continued ownership of the vehicle and/or extended manufacturer warranty protection. The remedy is based upon the severity of the situation.

Source: http://www.lemonlaw.com

daveyboy1

Hey MikeM05TL,

I feel for you brother! You won't believe it but I'm in the same exact position as you. My backstory goes like this...

I drove a 93 Honda Prelude VTEC for about 12 years and finally put the baby to sleep last year. I was so excited because I had my eyes set on an 05 Acura TL. I loved my prelude so much that I was reluctant to leave the whole Honda/Acura Family. So I went ahead and purchased a 2005 TL with Navi Manual Transmission (missed my prelude that much!)

Since my purchase in May, I have taken the vehicle to the shop at least once a month with no less than 3 problems per visit. I have over 10 acura work orders in PDF so let me know if you want to take a look at it. Most of the issues were squeaks and rattles however, the most recurring problem that I had experienced was shifting into third gear. Now, I understand that Acura's transmission is very special...in fact, it's so special that even with my foot pressing down on the clutch, it will not go into third. Supposedly a double synchro makes it very difficult to shift into gear. Anyhow!!!

Recently, while I was driving on the freeway and I was driving this "Sports Sedan" the way that it was built to drive (all up in the vtec range of course), while downshifting from fifth to fourth, the rev limiter didn't kick in and the car over-rev'd up to 9 grand while I was going 82mph (that's what acura says). From that point on, my check engine light turned on and I took the car to the dealer. They gave me a loaner TL (which is standard procedure) and I left with the car. A week later, the service due maintenance light came on so I dropped off the car to get it serviced. They didn't have another loaner to give to me and they still weren't done with the diagnostics so they sent me to enterprise and I drove off in a saturn. I drove this saturn for about 3 weeks and acura just called me this weekend saying that I have to cough up $2200.00+ for repairs on my bent valves and a whole bunch of other stuff and Acura only covered the first two days of my Saturn rental. Just dropped off the rental yesterday, paid $620.00 for the rental fees minus the first two days that Acura paid, and today...I rode the bus to work. lol, haven't yelled out "Back Door" in years!!!

So now I'm talking to a lemon law specialist and they're telling me to get written documentation from Acura saying that the car is getting fixed because of my misdriving and because I mis-shifted and over rev'd. Unfortunately, Acura won't give me any documentation stating that until I agree with the repairs and pay the 2 grand. Ultimately, including my monthly $340.00 acura payment, $2200.00 for the repairs, plus $620.00 for the rental, I'm blowing well over $3000.00 just on driving this car!!!!

So to MikeM, I feel for you and I'm talking to my lawyer but they all seem to fear Honda because this appears to be a common recurring issue with various Honda/Acura vehicles.

I feel as if I should've gone with the INFINITI G35, which I was going to do but my prelude love steered me towards Acura. $%#%@#
The only good thing about the 6speed Manual TL is that G35's have no chance!!! Also, the suspension and brembo brakes.

I'd like to hear how your case goes...keep me updated and good luck!
David

your_mom

^^^^ I realize that this is too late for you, but the rev limiter does NOT save the engine on downshifts, because manual transmissions are directly linked to the engine by the clutch. So when the rev limiter cuts fuel, the wheels are still spinning and cause the engine to over rev, bending the valves.