sami786

I am looking to purchase the 05 TL w/navi and am concerned about the rear tire wear problem. Does anyone know if this problem has been corrected on the 05's? Also, has anyone had any bad experiences with the manual tranmission yet?

Acuraluvr

iTrader: (2)

i dont know the problem..... the rear tire wear??? the tl is fwd and front tires usually get thinner quicker but with the mich. u should be ok.... havent seen it in person tho instend of the el42.... since u live in de, i believe price acura in dover will replace ur tires for u altho i didnt..... ask for M. Jacobs

VTEC=happiness

There is no known tire wear problem to speak of

sami786

Based on other threads that I have read, I was lead to believe that if you have rear passengers, you have to change your rear tires very often. I believe a member said that he had to change every 5k. I beleive the cause of this is that their is a geometry problem with th car. Please let me know if this is not correct, because this is one of the main reasons that is deterring me to not buy the TL.

VTEC=happiness

I'm pretty good about keeping up with the threads on this forum and just must have missed those threads...
I even have low profile tires that tend to wear out fast and have never had this problem.

sami786

Do you normally carry 4 passengers? How long have you had your TL for and how many miles do you have on it?

lakeman

The problem reported has been very rapid wear of rear tires due to a full load especailly on long trips. Search the threads. Apparently the 04 and maybe the 05 TL have a rear suspension geometry that can cause a lot of camber when loaded. My guess is that if the factory camber setting were on the "high" side of normal, the load would make it even worse and casue really bad wear. I have the HPTs with 13k miles and have had no wear issues, especially considering they are performance tires. I have not had loaded trips, however.

Lore

Yeah, that's the thread I read too, by "bluenoser" I think. Although I do not always carry 4 passengers or a lot of cargo, this concerns me because one of these days I might be taking a long road trip and don't want unusual tire wear to be a problem.

I also have HPT (Potenza RE750s) and haven't seen any odd wear, yet.

Ron A

Here is the thread by bluenoser https://acurazine.com/forums/ramblings-12/good-shot-britney-bikini-lifting-her-leg-99768/

Brokedoc

I just wanted to point out that a couple of isolated reports doesn't constitute a design flaw.

User boards like this are great for people to bring up problems and share experiences and fixes but any mass-produced product is bound to have a few bad apples in the batch.

Acura itself doesn't issue TSBs until a problem has been reported in 2% of it's vehicles.

bluenoser

I think rear tire wear has a lot to do with carrying loads and undulating roads. If you drive with light loads or on smooth roads you won't have a wear problem, but my road conditions are very undulating and I carry passengers on my annual trip from Nova Scotia to Florida. I've never had any problems with tire wear on my 99TL, but my 04 has a serious rear tire wear problem in the conditions I drive.
I've now started to look at the rear tires of other 04TLs and have noticed way more wear on their rear tires as well.
According to my dealer, my file is still open with Acura and currently my rear alignment (unladen) was set negative - meaning toed out - which is outside the factory specs which call for positive toe in.

A-TLvic882

Same with my r.tires after vacation trip to YSNP. My next trip was to dealer with Rear Tire Wear . I e-mail service manager this tread and got new set of el42(but right on time --- first snow)

bluenoser

Same with my r.tires after vacation trip to YSNP. My next trip was to dealer with Rear Tire Wear . I e-mail service manager this tread and got new set of el42(but right on time --- first snow) [/QUOTE]


On tire replacement my dealer has been outstanding. In 11,000 miles I've worn out the original EL42's, BS 750 (had to buy them in Florida to get home - dealer paid for them), RE030 (dealer installed them when I returned home because the rears wore out on the return trip, ordered a set of Michelin Sport A/S (but actually installed the Sport summer) and have reordered the Sport S/S - which I should have shortly.

My dealer claims Acura is aware of the problem, but does not have a solution yet.
Acura told the dealer to set the rear toe negaative in hopes to control the situation until they have a solution.

Bluenote

If you drive high miles with heavy loads, my advice is to have the alignment adjusted to sped while under that load. I've done it before.

Lore

Please definitely keep us posted on this issue. I am very interested in seeing what they have to say. I've already replaced 2 of my BS 750s tires because I had significant tire pull to the right, but I've never been able to solve it. I'm having the dealer look at it again tomorrow.

A-TLvic882

What do you mean? :wtf: I have to pack a car :wtf: , drive to dealer for the alignment adjustment :wtf: and it will not be done right away :wtf: with a family on board :wtf:, and then on vacation? :wtf: Or I miss same thing? :wtf: Or when I came to YSNP(Yellowstone National Park) and unload a trank , I have to find Acura dealer for the alignment adjustment? :wtf::wtf::wtf: I never have this problems with my 95 GS-R, wich one saw all US and SE Canada!

A-TLvic882

:wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf:

Could you explain PLEASE as Ex-Acura Service Manager, why my brand new tires on next morning, after dealer installation, show me just 30, I have 6MT, should be fr. 35 & rear 32 read
https://acurazine.com/forums/ramblings-12/smilies-102314/ Post #7

dsc888

Bluenoser,

Setting the car with so much toe out may lead to an increased tendency to oversteer during aggressive maneuvers, if I remember correctly. I believe toe in is set by default to help the car's rear end stick a little better. I am no suspension specialist but I wonder if the toe angles come into effect more when the rear is loaded both with rear passangers or during aggressive cornering. Someone with more knowledge can jump in here.

dsc888

A-TLvic882

Bluenote

Oops, that should say "to spec" not "sped."

Anyway, yes, I am suggesting that the car be loaded with the approximate weight of your passengers if you plan on driving alot of miles with weight in the back.

Years ago, I had a carpet salesman who had a few hundred pounds of samples in the back of his car. The tires kept wearing funny, and we did multiple alignments on it. Every time he dropped it off, he pulled the samples out of it & threw them in the trunk of the car that picked him up.

Finally we had the forethought to ask him if he drove with load everyday. "Yes" was his reply so we had him sit in the car with the samples in trunk, on the aligment machine while we set it to spec.

Never had another problem.


(edited because i can't type)

A-TLvic882

It's a luxury division of Honda $30K+ car, I did't drive with load everyday, but I have to do alignment first if load, family, friends in this luxury division of Honda $30K+ car????

It's F---N BS! HAH? :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf:




I never have this problems with my 95 GS-R, wich one saw all US and SE Canada!

bluenoser

dsc888,

My service manager said the same thing and claims the 3rd gen suspension was designed (with rapidly increasing toe in as the rear suspension compresses) to help start the rear end of the car into the turn and to prevent the back end from gumping out in spirited cornering. These driving concerns were not high on the 2nd gen's design agenda since it was intended to be a lux cruiser and not a sport sedan.

Bluenote,

As an ex Acura service manager you understand, more than most, the inplications on tire wear driving with 1.3 deg. of toe in has. Acura claim the proper toe in is .09 deg. total toe. Mine was set at that, but when my dealer put 5 passengers in the car the total toe measured 1.3 deg. My service manager claimed that much toe in was the same as dragging the tire sideways, in tire terms, and will actually rip the rubber off the tires - which is exactly what happens on my car.

Bluenote

Bluenoser-

Yeah, that toe issue sounds like a problem to me. Modifying the suspension to eliminate a geometry issue is unlikely. Hopefully setting the toe out of spec to counter your issue will help. That's something that would take a real 'cerebral' type of technician. I don't turn wrenches myself, but I had an excellent alignment man when I worked for the Acura dealer.

Did your toe go from .09 to .13 or 1.3? if it went to 1.3, that's a HUGE difference.

A-TLvic882, not sure I understand the question, but I'm assuming your tire pressure was at 30 psi & not at the spec it should be? If that's the case, either the tech didn't set them correctly, or you have a leak (leaks?) in the tires. I'd set them to spec with a good quality pressure guage (one that's accurate and consistent when used multiple times on the same tire) and keep an eye on them.

bluenoser

bluenote,

It's 1.3 deg. and that's enough to wear out a new tire in 2,200 miles - which it did twice.
Early on Acura didn't have much to say, so the dealer said they were going to put 5 people in a new TL and see if they get the same 1.3 deg. toe in. Later when I asked them what they found they were evasive and said Acura said to set the toe slightly out. What they didn't say now makes me wonder if the problem is only in a very few examples, or in fact it's in every car. It sounds like Acura wants to keep this quiet and instructed my dealer to hush up and keep me in tires until they can figure out what to do.

Bluenote

It's very possible they do not yet have a fix if indeed it's occuring on multiple cars. At least they are keeping you in tires, which some manufacturers wouldn't do. They make it next to impossible to do the right thing sometimes with policies & procedures, basically making the dealer jump through hoops to take care of a customer.

Hope it works out for you.

PoochaKannInc

Interesting. I traveled down to Atlanta over the summer, with a total of 4 people and their luggage for 5 days. I put a little over 2,000 miles on the car on that trip. I didn't notice any abnormal tire wear on the rear tires. I will pay closer attention to that.

Bluenoser: I hope Acura will figure something out for your car. Keep us posted.

A-TLvic882: I've never seen so many "emoticons" in posts until I came across yours...

Bluenote

Just to make sure no one misunderstands my comment about manufacturers making the dealers jump through hoops-Honda & Acura are not among them. They have been relatively easy to get out of the ordinary claims paid.

dsc888

Bluenoser and Bluenote,

I just had another technical revelation. With the rear toe set to toe-out, wouldn't that now cause excessive wear on the OUTSIDE edge of the tire? I always thought that you want 0 toe ideally and setting it too much in or out will cause increased tire wear. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

dsc888

Bluenote

Honestly, I dunno. Maybe in theory, but I've seen inner & outer edge wear with toe issues.

bluenoser

Only if it's excessive, a couple of 100ths of a degree won't mean much to tire wear.
Toed out is expressed as a negative number and it can cause wear to the insides of the tires, toed in (positive nunber) will cause wear on the outsides. Acura's specified range for total rear toe is 0.00 to 0.32 deg., but Acura saya that 0.09 deg. total toe is optimal.
When new, my TL was set to 0.05 total toe and wore out two sets of rear tires in 4,300 miles (with passengers and luggage). When I got back home my dealer set the rear toe to 0.20 deg. total toe. That cause significant wear in a 1,000 mile trip, again with four people and luggage. This was on RE 030 tires which don't have much tread life anyways.
At that setting, my dealer pet five people in the car and measured the rear toe and observed 1.3 deg. of total toe. That's why my rear tires wear so fast. The geometry creates too much positive toe in when the rear suspension is compressed by carrying loads well within it's stated capacity.
Even though my car is set a couple of hundreds negative, I don't expect much change in the excessive positive toe in that occurs when carrying loads.

Bluenote

Well, there you go

dsc888

bluenoser,

Thanks for clearing things up.

dsc888