Forget about the MT cars only. The new TL Type S's I've driven(about 15) were all Automatics. Slightly less than half pinged and more so at part/light throttle than under full heavy acceleration. (Thats where I got my "Clear" picture by the way

 

Light/part throttle is precisely where engine knock can be expected to occur due to the reasons explained above.

My automatic TL-S hasn't yet experienced this problem (though it may, apparently).

The mystery to me is the RL. The RL/automatic (the only way the car comes) is essentially identical to the TL-S's automatic driveline. Acura's been builing the RL for some time now. Do RLs "ping," too?

Do you know what gasoline was in the tank at the time you drove those 15 cars?

 

I can tell you I've always used 91 in my 07 TL-S MT and it pings somewhat consistently under certain circumstances.

What is a TSB?

 

TSBs are important--without them, factory trained Acura techs only know how to change oil (and make a mess of it).

 

Do you care to give some reasoning behind your totally uneducated comment?

 

I will.

To rouse a response from ass clowns like you.

 

Technical Service Bulletin

Every auto manufacturer issues them on occasion when problems pop up.

Think of it as "recall light."

Do you have a Sunoco station nearby?

If so, try filling up (once your existing tank is near empty) with Sunoco Ultra (94 octane) and see what happens.

http://www.sunoco.ca/default.aspx?ID=2390

 

Not particularly.

 

I live in LA, and I've never seen a sunoco station before. I have always used 91, but if there were a higher octane available nearby, I'd try it just to see how it helps the knock issue.

 

Well I thought I had heard it before, and I have tried for the past two days and heard it ping tonight. I was at a stop sign at the bottom of the hill. I had my ac on and stepped on it a little, it "ping" in first between 3.5 and 4 thousand rpms, then shifted into second and "ping" in the same range by this time I was at the top and let off. The hard part is it's so inconsistent that I doubt I will get the dealer to hear it. Don't have 100 octane here, the most we have is 93. Pilot gas stations used to carry racing fuel, like 105 or 110 but have since then removed them to put e85 in. If I can get it to ping more consistent I will take it in.

 

Run it till empty. Fill it up with 87, take it to the dealer and tell them it has 91 in it.

 

Lets DON'T do that. We need to keep our actions regarding this issue sincere and above board. I know it is frustrating but we need to make sure that no one tries the 87 octane stunt because that will give Acura more room to manuver and we need to pin them down. My lemon law papers were mailed to the state so I'll keep everyone informed as to the progress.

 

I am pretty much resigned to the fact that this will be my last round of acuras. My NSX was nice but need to be fully blown and modded to be really fun. I never heard so much as a squeak from that car...well one. there was a pesky relay behind my drivers seat that would click a bit but that was normal I was told.

I wonder what Bernie has to say up at Davis Acura in PA about this problem with the TLs(my MDX has it also but its hard to hear from additional ambient noise of that model. Any of you guys use Dave and his crew for service?

Acura needs to release the V10 sports car real soon as my buddy just took delivery of his M6 because he was tired of only driving his Alpina B7. He regularly throws me the keys for a drive in both. Too many nice cars to stick with my bag of marbles TLS 07 and my squeaking ass 07MDX tech. Im done with pointing fingers and I dont do loaners which smell like puke and smoke!

later and good luck.

 

That was partially a joke. It's no worse than the techs pretending they don't hear something. If your car pings on 91 yet Acura pretends it doesn't exist there's nothing wrong with making it a little more noticable. I'm not saying to make a car that runs fine on 91 ping on 87. The only downfall is if they decide to fill it up on premium and the ping goes away, they will think that's the problem with the majority of the TL-S people.

 

Still waiting...

 

Turns out the dealer is incapable of doing anything to fix the pinging. At first they blamed it on a cracked heat shield... not sure how a car with 1500 miles can have a cracked anything, but anyway... The heat shield made no difference, as I suspected.

After some tests and observations, the engine RPM, VTEC, and even temperature have little to do with it... While it seems more likely when the underhood components are super hot, it also does it while cruising down the freeway when it's 75 degrees. The car will ping regardless of speed, whether it's 2000 RPM or 6000 RPM, and the intensity of the knock increases with throttle angle. Thus, flooring it suddenly at 5000 RPM produces a really loud and freaky series of knocks before the sluggish ECU takes care of it.

I'm tired of putting my car in the hands of people who only know how to throw parts at it and lack any real problem solving skills. So I handled it the only way I could. Since I can't adjust the timing, I installed some cooler spark plugs (cheap copper NGK for testing) with a little wider gap. It made a huge difference. Power delivery seems smoother, the frequent knocking has been reduced to an occasional "click" under transient load.

Honda either is just too aggressive with their timing scheme, they don't tune their engines using real world gasoline, they chose inappropriate spark plugs, or they positioned the plug in an especially hot portion of the combustion chamber. In any event, they did a lousy job, and I hope that was their only engineering screw-up on this car.

 

Man...that's an eye opener.

Mine hasn't "pinged" yet...

But my XM keeps resetting to Channel 001 (I keep it on 46) and my climate control keeps resetting to "off" (I keep it on auto) after the car sits and for no apparent reason.

I think the "pinging" issue is attributable to faulty software in the Engine/Powertrain Control module(s) in some cars.

MOST TL-S (and current gen. RLs, which use the same engine) cars are not "pinging" on 91+ octane, so what you say here really can't be true:


I still fully believe that you have a real problem with the car and am very saddened by Acura's inability to resolve it.

 

I either wait for my engine to blow and wait for Acura to change it AND then change to colder plugs, OR change to colder plugs now and see if it works.

Let me know if your car is still running better in a week or two.

 

Nothing yet for me. 600+ miles...And honestly, I've been beating the shit out of this thing...

 

If this is really happening, take it back for service (if it's still in warranty). Before you do, when this occur? When you hit the "unlock" on the fob, then get in an start it? Does it reset if you turn the car off, close the door, but don't lock it, then get back in and start it? I only ask because I'm sure you're aware that you have 2 key fobs. If you have 2 memory settings, make sure you're using the correct key for your setting (1 or 2).. just my

 

I've driven the car a little more with the new "test" plugs and it still has a tendency to knock, though it sounds like it is much more gentle--not nearly as hard as it was with the stock plugs.

It also seems like the ECU is able to correct it much quicker. If I find an RPM band where knocking occurs, I only need to traverse it once and it won't do it again in that band for a while. With the stock plugs the car would continue knocking, however each time through the offending RPM band would result in fewer and fewer instances.

I'm going to try something a little different for my next test. If I can find the right combination of heat range and gap where the car exhibits no more than occasional light pinging, I will be happy.

Tonight it was down in the 60s here, and even though the car isn't perfect yet, the power delivery felt soooo nice with that cooler drier air. I really love this car, and if I can get past these little hurdles, I will be very pleased.

 

It is normal then, if your are in WOT(Wide Open Throttle) all the time, there is less chance for the car to have detonation problems and/or to hear it.

Like said earlier in other posts, the detonation occur mostly around 3000-4000 RPM and in partial throttle.

 

I said that and for the most part it's true.

Yet, the guy with the largest problem says it pings under virtually all conditions.

Either he's got a bad ECU/PCM program and/or a head(s) block deck that were mis-machined (resulting in a higher compression ratio and spark knock).

 

I have a TL-S Automatic and it pings pretty bad. It has almost 6,000 miles on it now. At first it wasn't too bad but it is getting worse. I took it to the dealer and they said they can't reproduce it which I believe is true about a month ago. Lately it's doing it every day so I will take it back and hopefully they will hear it.

I have a good review of the service department but stated my problem still exist which got the ball rolling; the service manager called me the next day after the review.

My dealership doesn't have any loaner TL-S which I don't like, they only have non-navi TL's.

BTW: I also have the soft brake pedal issue and I know it's not specific to brembo's as my wife's land rover has brembo and they are solid and responsive.

 

That's good news. However I don't necessarily have to drive it hard... in fact it's easier for me to hear at lower RPM and partial load. If I keep the car in a lower gear so the engine is hanging around 3000-4000 RPM (A/C off, radio off), and then go to 1/4 or more throttle, the noise starts.

If I do the same thing at 5000 RPM, or 5500 RPM, it does the same thing though it is trickier to hear. At times the car will ping quite loud if I do the same tests but go to full throttle, however the car accelerates pretty quickly like that, so I have to pick a road with a good incline.

Also everyone should keep in mind that gasoline formulation and quality varies by market, and I cannot emphasize enough how much of a difference that makes. The gasoline here is notoriously crappy, which is ironic considering that NC has the highest gasoline tax in the country behind Hawaii and DC. If I fueled up somewhere else that had decent gasoline, I bet money that my spark knock problem would not be as pronounced. I'd still have it of course (and it would still bother me), but I doubt it would be as severe.

 

My car used to ping only when going uphill, and believe it or not the pinging stopped by using thicker oil (German Castrol) 0w-30 maybe my TL-S was pinging because of bad fuel or something else, I really dont know,but it does not ping anymore now that I use GC.

 

I test drove a manual TL-S today and purposely simulated the conditions in this thread. Couldn't get it to knock. Just my 02. If I get one it will be auto anyway.

 

Interesting... So the pinging seems to affect only certain cars. Actually, I don't remember my car pinging when it was brand new. It wasn't until after I filled it up myself for the first time that I noticed it. Maybe the factory partial-fill of gasoline is really good...

 

The pinging DEFINITELY affects only certain cars.

My TL-S isn't "pinging" and neither are many (most?) others.

The Acura RL uses the same engine. How many of those are "pinging?"

I don't doubt for a moment that some of our fellow members are having some legitimate issues. I suspect faulty engine management software, but that's just one possibility. Heads and/or block decks that are machined below their minimal material conditions would result in tolerance stack-ups that would produce overly high compression ratios. That's a real possibility - regardless of how good Acura's Q.C. may be.

Apparently Acura has decided that "enough" of them aren't pinging and that no TSB/recall is required.

I'd be BULLSHIT if my TL "pinged" on 93 octane Shell (or even a generic 91 octane).

The last time I heard a car "ping" was my grandfather's '69 "premium leaded fuel only" Chevy Impala back in the very early 1980s. I have never heard a modern car "ping" and I've owned and/or driven more than I care to count.

 

You've asked this about 5 times now You realize we have an RL section to go over and ask, right?

 

I've been there.

"Pinging" is quite rare with RLs.

Go check for yourself.

My question is largely rhetorical in nature.

 

I took a brand new TL-S with the Acura tech and I was able to reproduce the pinging, and the tech confirmed it with his laptop pluged in the OBD socket. The car retarded the timing each time I told the tech that I was hearing the pinging. Same problem on two different cars...

I don't want to say that every TL-S ping, but up to now, I think that we just need to wait for about a year or two so that a lot of TL-S reach enough mileage for some of them to blow their engine if it is real pinging.

 

It might be same engine but not the same air/fuel/timing mapping... that is the important part of the problem. Timing is everything!

 

Sounds like we need to implore Hondata for a reflash

 

One things to keep in mind, Tho is honda engines are noisy So... did you try going to heavier oil? is this more of a ticking, or is it a pinging?

 

also is this Just 07 or is 08 affected as well

 

This is pinging/spark knock, and oil viscosity will have no impact. The engine is actually not very noisy, or more accurately, the noise it makes is very nice--aggressive but very muted. There is the smallest bit of valve clearance noise, but I'm not concerned with that.

I do not know if '08s are affected, but it is apparent that several '07s are.

Speaking of the RL, there is an entry for one on carsurvey.org where the owner experienced spark knock and the dealer could not fix it.

Tonight I'm going to hook my laptop to the car to see if I can locate the most likely conditions for the spark knock to occur. I'm also going to play more with the spark plugs.

 

A block with a lower than spec deck height and/or heads with lower than spec height will result in a higher than spec compression ratio.

The dealer would never find that unless they brought in a true pro and had the heads pulled and the proper measurements taken.

So I'm wondering if the more severe cases of "spark knock" in these engines are attributable to hardware tolerance issues as opposed to ignition/ECU/PCM issues...

MOST RLs don't knock. My TL-S doesn't knock. I strongly believe that's the case with most RLs and TL-Ss.

 

Yeah that isn't happening. My OBD-II software won't connect to my OBD-II Acura. Figures...

 

Hi -

I just joined the forum but I have been bouncing around here since January when I purchased my TL-S. I used to have a BMW M3 but I decided to purchase the TL when I switched jobs in order to travel, entertain customers, etc.

I am experiencing these same symptoms. I am going to take my car to the dealership soon for my second oil change and to get them to look into this problem. Doesn't sound too promising for them finding a fix but hopefully in time some solution will emerge. I am really worried about the long-term hidden damage.