Has anyone had an issue with excessive rear-tire wear on their 2004 TL? I just completed a 5000+ mile trip in my TL with tires that had around 6000 miles on them when I started. When I parked the car in the garage I noticed that my rear tires were run down beyond the treads (I couldn't see any tread left at all), the front tires were in perfect shape.

There is a Technical Service Bulletin that discusses excessive rear tire wear when the car is loaded (which it would be on a road trip), the issue seems to have something to do with the amount of toe-in on the rear-tires. Notice in the picture below that you can see the fabric that is under the treads, it concerns me that I had my family in the car and a blow out at speed could have caused a bad accident.



Acura is investigating this issue now, but they are giving me the "it's not our fault" response.

 

holy shit, give acura the invoice at what miles the tires were installed and on what date and give them the TSB for it, that is very unsafe to even drive 100 feet on.

 

WTF?!

 

Whatever happens DO NOT DRIVE THAT CAR till it has new tires on it!! Very unsafe. Good luck on the dealer covering it for you. They have done it for a few people way back when but that was 4 yrs ago. Are those the original tires from the dealer? Your car must have gone through at least one set of aftermarket tires already. The TSB covers those old crap Bridgestones NOT the Michelins. Most of the autos had Bridgestones and some 6-speeds had Michelins. Check to see which tires you have.

 

The TSB is to install rear bump stops that limit the suspension travel, especially when the car is loaded with people. They help a lot but I still get some abnormal wear. We (myself, wife, two kids + luggage) just returned from a 1100 mile round trip visit to Canada last weekend and I noticed quite a bit of rubber granules coating the inside of the rear rims.

 

I had the car towed to the dealer and they are looking at it now. The first dealer I spoke with (where I purchased the car) said that if I would have brought it in for oil changes with them, they would have fixed the issue before it happened. I spoke with Acura and they said that the dealers never fix these TSBs until they become an issue and then only fix them if the car is under warranty (given the severity of this I would have hoped they would have fixed it sooner), the second dealer said the same thing, so I'm assuming that the service manager at the first dealer is lying to me.

I'm sure most people don't go putting 5000+ miles at highway speed on their cars all at once, so they think that the car is just hard on tires. I'd suggest that if you have a 2004 or 2005 TL you should have your rear-end inspected by the dealer. I found this website with further TL issues:

http://www.aboutautomobile.com/tsb/2004/ACURA/TL

The second dealer I spoke with is looking at the car and will put new tires on (at my expense), I'm currently getting ready for a yelling match with Acura to get them to re-imburse the $450 for the tires (they are Eagle F1 all weather tires, and handle great when they have tread). Acura is in the loop right now, but I'm assuming that what ever the dealer finds is the cause will be in Acura's favor.

I will contact the NHTSA to inform them of this problem, if someone dies due to this issue I don't want Acura being able to say it was a fluke, from what I've seen and from the roads I traveled at highway speeds, I know I would have either sustained serious injury or died if the tire would have blown at the wrong time (needless to say having had my family in the car only makes it worse). I don't mind the idea of killing myself in an accident, I do mind the idea of killing my 12 year old daughter in one, this issue has me very shaken about the safety of any vehicle. Acura is one of the safest cars out there and they have a sterling reputation, hopefully this is just a fluke.

 

I had my rear bump stops replaced for free after going through 2 sets of rear tires in 9 months.

Print out this TSB and take it to the dealer:
http://www.in.honda.com/Rjanisis/pubs/SB/B05-050.PDF

If your tires weren't the original Bullshitstone Turanzas and they try to give you the argument that they won't cover it because of that, don't let them get away with it. They probably won't cover the tires, but be thankful the problem won't happen again. The 2 sets I went through were Falkens. Acura of Ramsey called Acura and got authorization to do mine anyway.

Good luck.
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Unfortunately it’s not. It is serious design error. Rear suspension geometry is wrong. To fix it they would need to change design and replace few parts there. Since it would be extremely costly they decided to address it by limiting suspension travel, making rear end to stiff. Also they want us to rotate tires all the time in order to cover extensive wear. I am not sure about front either since it pools left and right on any longitudinal road imperfection. All together TL is a big disappointment for me.

 

Good news, I just got my car back and they Acura decided to pay for the tires, about $400 for the Goodyear F1's I had on them.

The people at Pohanka here in Virginia were excellent, handled my yelling at them well and handled everything professionally, at Radley (where I purchased the car) the service manager's first response was to say this was my fault since I hadn't brought the car in to them for free oil changes, he said if I would have done that they would have applied the TSB automatically (from talking to the folks at Acura and Pohanka I know that's bunch of crock and the service manager for Radley should be torn a new rear-end for lying to the customer).

It was explained to me that the mechanic needs to remove the back seat in order to fix the issue and that overall this is a 2-3 hour process. I immediately felt the car was stiffer in back, I guess I'll need to get used to that. I think why Acura is keeping this quiet is that it's expensive for them to fix, of course if I would have gotten in an accident I would have sued for a lot (I think my threatening to sue for the cost of the tires helped me some). They figure that the cost of fixing all the cars is more than the cost of paying someone a few million dollars if they get into an accident (this is my assumption).

Overall this issue has shaken me some, I would have thought Acura would have been more proactive with this, but they weren't. They won't fix this issue unless you have an active warranty and your tires are showing the problem. If you have an 2004 Acura TL, I would suggest you get this fix applied to your car, the decision not to could be catastrophic to you and anyone in the car. If you don't have an active warranty I suggest you call Acura Customer Service (not the dealer) and insist that they fix your vehicle.

If anyone knows of a way to force Acura to fix this issue, I would suggest we do it.

 

Man looks like you had slicks on the rear there...

Glad that they purchased the tires for you....

 

:gheyfight:

 

OMFG... Did you Dremel that down to a slick?

 

Wow that's nuts. This is the worst rear tire thread I've seen out of many.

What's weird is I know 2 long time stock form 3G TL owners, over 50K each that have never had any wear issues, with minimal service. I wonder if the dealer rotates without saying anything.

 

People won't see the problem unless they have people in the back seat and stuff in the trunk for several thousand miles. I had about a combination of 350lbs of stuff in the back seat and the trunk (my 100lbs 12 year old daughter in the back seat and luggage in the trunk). I didn't see any issues until this trip, then whoops

 

It's pretty impressive isn't it. They guy from the tow shop said that it looked like I had been doing burn outs, that's when I explained to him that the car is front wheel drive.

 

I am glad I am not the only one with issues with Radley... which is why I switched to Pohanka for any service/repairs... I refuse to go back to Radley... and I told them that.

Glad you got it fixed, though.

 

First of all, I'm glad you caught this before you had a blow out.

Second, this sounds like a major issue that Acura should be more proactive about.

Having said that - how do you not notice the tire wear while on the trip? Maybe I just love the look of my treads (Toyo Proxes 4), but I look at them very frequently. I've also had some issues with my rear driver-side tire wearing funny, but it's because of the tow on the wheel isn't quite right. But that's another thread....

Again, I am in no way trying to blame you for this, but it's definitely something that a quick visual scan at least weekly would prevent from getting that far.

 

Hello guys, sorry to beat on an old ( but definitely NOT dead horse ) here,

I was just in a pretty severe car accident last week due to the unreliability of this car and its rear tires.

My car spun off and I lost complete control of the car, going 45-50 MPH on the Turnpike while it was raining.

This is the second time this has happened to me with this car, first time I managed to dodge everything. I complained to the dealer, they obviously didn't care much, I finally gave up and decided to be more careful, I don't know how much more careful I can be? I align my car as much as possible. Now my car is totaled.

These rear tires are getting bald from the inside, at an uncontrollable / unpredictable rate. This needs to be addressed to Acura, a recall or something must be done.

The safety of the people driving these cars is being jeopardized every second. Let's not forget it's the younger generation who are going to be driving these cars from now on, because they're now passed down from the adults to them.

If anyone would like to join me and provide me ANY information that would guide me and help me with who and how I can take this up with, I would greatly appreciate it.

Honda/Acura should not walk off on this one. Not from me and shouldn't from you. This is complete crap.

Anyways please PM me with any information, I'm sorry I'm not a mechanic or a super knowledgeable car guy, if anyone can please chime in with what exactly is the problem and what exactly I can do about this? I would greatly appreciate it.

Cheers,

 

holy moly ... im glad pohanka took care of u, im not surprised with radley tryna pull one over you. glad everything worked out

 

I'm not defending Acura or their extremely poor excuse for a fix. But you need to keep an eye on the tires. They don't go bald overnight.

With that being said, installing longer bumpstops is unacceptable to me. They need to get the geometry right to truly fix the problem. Limiting suspension travel is a terrible way to do it as it will destroy the handling balance (more tail happy) and give a rougher ride but I'm sure this is the cheapest way for them.

 

I'm actually having a similar problem. I went through a set of Falken Ziex 912s in about 20,000 miles because the rear tires had super excessive wear on the insides. I rotate my tires every oil change too. My buddy who is a Honda tech said that his brother's TL has the same issue and he recommended an aftermarket rear camber kit to fix the toe to a more acceptable setting to prevent it from occurring. It's a $150 fix from Excelerate, I'll probably pull the trigger on the Ingalls kit and have him install it the next time I have to replace my tires.

 

http://www.acura-cl.com/forums/showthread.php?t=631653

check out this post, Check out the images, mine is basically like that, if not worse.

And you guys think this is an alignment problem??

This is definitely a problem with the vehicle.

 

I wasn't speaking towards your issue because you didn't post any pictures that I could see of your particular tires. I was commenting that I have similar wear on the inside edges on my back tires, but I rotate them every oil change and I keep an eye on them religiously. For tires to get to the point of those that I saw on that thread and in the picture the OP posted, that is definitely something that should be noticed by the driver and rectified immediately.

I'm not necessarily saying it's your fault that you crashed your car, but tire life is something you need to monitor especially when it comes to premature wear. My mechanic mentioned that the way to fix my problem would be to install an aftermarket rear camber kit, maybe that's a discussion you should have with yours.