zax123

Hey guys,

After some searching on the internet, I came across this service bulletin for EL42s. Very interesting read. I'm sure LOTS of you could get free tire replacements with this information.

Take a look: Service Bulletin B05-076

Hope this helps some people.

Rob

Legend2TL

Thanks for the info.

chill_dog

Maybe that's why I never had any wear problems...my car was never loaded down. Thanks for posting...good info.

KilroyR1

Honda is really cheaping out by only paying half if your tires are toast at 20,000 miles. You could probably buy better tires from the Tire Rack yourself for what Acura will charge you for your half of the repair.

jginnane

Agreed!

We have about 16K on our '05 now, so American Honda wants half of $170 per tire to replace with the same awful ####. This Bridgestone IS NOT WORTH $85 A TIRE! And... I thought I read this was an 80,000 mile tire???

For its first 10K the EL42 felt like an "average" low-profile tire. We attributed early flatspotting to a bad stretch by our house. The Bridgestone dealer by us who did our 2nd oil change and rotation at 12K said that "next time in, he wanted to talk about tire wear".

3 weeks ago my attitude about these tires completely changed. We were driving home on a clear dry night, at the speed limit, with the cruise control on, going over a bridge that had some light frost. Suddenly, the back end was breaking loose. Never had a car do that to me, ever, in over 700,000 miles driving, including 15 years in the Snow Belt. The sudden sensation felt like the back wheels were coming off.

Before I saw this Christmas-Eve bulletin today, I'd gone and printed ALL 104 COMMENTS from Acura TL users on the EL42 at the tirerack.com site. I was going to take the 28 pages in and let them give me either Pirelli P-Zero Nero M+S ($135) or even Avon Tech M550 A/S ($110), rated #2 and #1 at tirerack, respectively.

This Bridgestone tire on the TL is DANGEROUS. Printing out the tirerack comment copies and getting a signed receipt from the GM at the local dealership constitutes PROPER LEGAL NOTICE. As to the wear -- most people here are too young to remember "4-ply nylon" tires, which was what you got when you couldn't afford bias-ply, much less radials. "4-ply" would last 20,000 miles, and you'd get 4 for $99. The EL42s aren't lasting even as well as those POS tires would.

If Acura really wants to nickel-and-dime negotiate at this point, I'd say we constitute a faily large CLASS, and I'm ready to meet them with a battery of lawyers. What they NEED to do is to RECALL ALL the 3rd generation TLs and give customers a set of 4 good installed tires, period. It doesn't matter which: there are nine tirerack brands listed as UHPAS and they ALL beat these Bridgestones!

ttliang

thanks good to know my car is not on the list.

gainful

Could you point out where I can find other TSB for 05? I am having enginer vibration problem, and they have a TSB for that for 04 cars but no 05. I want to check if they have issued a TSB for that.

TL-CrAzIe-05

Thanks alot for the info. Now I have actual proof and information to throw in my dealer's face about reimbursing me for my worn tires. Great find.

Lore

What are bump stops? I wonder how this affects those of us who've replaced the tires with other brands and/or went to the A-spec suspension.

Edit: I guess they are excluding those of us who went with different suspension and other sort of tires. That's a load of crap - this is clearly a problem stemming from something other than the brand/size of tire.

ttliang

(whatever)bump stop failure caused excessive toe-in therefore rear tire wear. got nothin' to do with what tires you use. if you continue to have short rear tire wear life, i guess they'll still fix ur bumps for free. it's gray area tire wise (whatever brand) after that between you and the manager.

Lore

My point exactly - they should not limit who can get the fix just because we have 18s, high performance tires, etc. I don't need new tires and I don't want Acura to give me new tires, but I still want to get the new bump stops (I still don't know what they are) to reduce the risk that this happens to me in the future.

Fortunately, I don't carry a lot of passengers, but I might one day on a long road trip and would hate to see my tires completely worn out after the trip.

A_UFO

https://acurazine.com/forums/showpos...55&postcount=1

ALPHSTER

it asks "are the rear tires worn evenly across the tread down to the wear blocks?

yes - proceed with the appropriate repair.
no - this bulletin does not apply.

what happens to those that have low miles or have no signs of wear, YET? not everyone loads down there cars.

ttliang

here you go. small stuff probably material defect for certain batches. BTW if you have earlier 04, i don't think ur's affected. check vin.

jginnane

If you study that service diagram, you'll understand that there is nothing in this geometry for the rear suspension that the average driver can understand, much less control.

How much weight in the back seat or trunk causes this condition? We don't know.

How much does the change in rear wheel toe-in affect the handling of the car, or how fast the tread gets scrubbed off the tires? We don't know.

If you let them give you all-new Bridgestones with "new improved" rubber -- but the same exact design -- how many of the OTHER problems people have had with this tire will continue, or be exacerbated? If the rubber compound has been changed to increase its durability, WHAT ELSE has changed (in a negative fashion)? Road adhesion? Wet or snow driving control? Flatspotting?

I would give American Honda the benefit of the doubt (for their Xmas-Eve memo) in recognizing there is a problem, and that they QUIETLY want to do something about it. And replacing these rubber stops MIGHT actually help the car -- certainly no worse than a coat of Zaino would

But this is a management / political decision that stops short of the expense for a complete and proper solution for all 3rd-gen TL owners.

And I'm not satisfied that another set of Bridgestones, putting up with another 10-15K of marginal road handling, is actually the RIGHT remedy. So if they want to give me new rubber stops, sure, knock em out, boys ... but DON'T give me another set of #### Turanza EL42s!!!

AcuraTL2k4

I am lowered on Tein S Tech w/ stock shocks and the rear is all over the place. Everytime I hit a bumper of something on the highway the rear end feels like its swaying back and forth. I dont care about the tire because I am replacing. Do you think Acura will still install all the other parts. It terrible.

I also think blaming this problem on the tire is an easy way out. Just because there is a lowed in the rear it causes this. I think there is a problem with the suspension.

If I were to replace my stock shocks with aftermarket will my problem go away.

gainful

My car is an early built 05 which falls in the affected VIN range. But I didn't have rear seat passengers frequently, so there is some tire wear but not enough to show the wear blocks.

Should I ask them for a new set of tires? Are they gonna give them to me?

gainful

BTW, my tire are the old construction: DW315i.

ttliang

• you need to do a serious alignement after lowering if not a camber kit.
• nobody is blaming the tires (i am not picking sides). like i said earlier, it's the defective bump stops that caused this. they can only replace what comes with OE tire wise in a general sense right? otherwise everybody who got this problem can go to the dealer and request tire choice of their own. how would you deal with that? some people were sucessful with that. but that's between u and the manager at a dealership.
• i believe if ur car falls into the vin range, you should be able to print this out then go to ur dealer for bump stop replacement barring dickheads and jerk managers at your particular dealers. nothing much you can do about that (go to another dealer if you have one and let them die out maybe?)

AcuraTL2k4

Will new shocks come with bump stops.

ttliang

just shock alone doesn't include that small part.

Lore

Hmm... according to that diagram identifying where the bump stops are, it appears that the bump stop is part of the original shock and damper assembly. I replaced mine with the A-Spec suspension so hopefully it's not affected by this!

ttliang

by shock i mean "the damper unit".

me too! not that my original stocks were on the vin list anyway.

AcuraTL2k4

What is toe and how do I correct it. Sorry about the newbie question.

I understand camber but not toe.

Pure Adrenaline

iTrader: (2)

Thanks for posting the TSB.

ttliang

duck feet.. it's like

/ \ <-tire (toe in)
| |
| |
/ \ <-tire

TLTirePain

This issue has just come to my attention yesterday. I brought my car in for a tire rotation because over the past three weeks I've almost slid off the road twice.

Incident #1) Three weeks ago it was snowing outside and I felt completely out of control. I was going 25 mph on the highway when most cars were going 40 mph. Anything above 25 mph and I felt like I was going to die because the car was all over the place. I also almost got stuck going up two small hills that should not have been a problem for any car.

Incident #2) Last week it was raining, not that heavy, and I was driving down the highway around 60mph and again the car started to get loose and I couldn't believe it.

When I took the car into the dealership yesterday they said my tires were gone. I was totally shocked because they only had 16,000 miles on them. These tires should have lasted easily 40,000 miles.

For the record, I've had someone in my back seat about 100 out of the 16,000 miles, so the stuff about having weight in the car is B.S. I think I've had someone in the passenger seat maybe 2000 miles out of the 16,000.

The service guy at the dealership had the Service Bulletin that someone attached and he said that I'll have to pay for 50% of the replacement cost and they'll have to install some sort of kit to adjust the back end.

If you own a 04 or 05 TL, LOOK OUT! Especially if you live in an area where it snows or rains frequently.

chill_dog

I'd have them replace the bump stops and get a set of some other kind of tire...what you'll loose in credit is nothing...paying anything to get more EL42's is ridiculous. As I've said before, I had no problems at all with my EL42's, but if I had kept my wheels stock and they eventually wore out, I would not have replaced them with more EL42's.

CPR

Can't thank you enough!
Called my dealer, & he made an appointment for Friday AM, on the spot.
Will replace all 4 tires; ( mounting & speed balancing), free of charge.
I have 9,100 miles on my 2005 TL/Anthracite/Quartz leather
$1,000 worth of free rubber; what a concept
Happy New Year!
CPR

TLTirePain

I also wanted to let everyone know that I sent an email to the Wall Street analysts that cover Honda Motor Corp (HMC). I let them know of the issue and the fact that Honda isn't informing it's customers ahead of time. We'll see if they probe Honda execs for the extent of the issue. This honestly should be a full recall because there are serious dangers out there by driving on bald tires in bad weather.

Oh, any recommendations on alternative tires I should get instead of the EL42's?

ttliang

interesting....

do a search here u'll find a lot of posts about tires. don't want to beat the dead horse anymore.

DanL

iTrader: (2)

The dealer told me that since I've already replaced my tires, I'd need to call Acura Customer Relations to see what they'd be willing to do. Well, so far, they're unwilling to do anytthing since I purchased a different brand of tire (Toyo) and didn't purchase the replacements from the dealer. To make matters worse, the clueless lady I spoke with insists the bump stop only apply to EL-42s and won't make any difference if you've gone with a different brand of tire.

Hopefully the dealership's case manager will have more of a clue. I'm faxing a copy of my tire purchase receipt to them for review.

Acuraluvr

iTrader: (2)

they will only replace them if the tire is worn only to the 'blocks'??? ours is a 04' TL and we only hav 9670 miles..... hopefully we can deal with something

but the tread ware is not much. do u think we can still get the free tires???

jginnane

https://acurazine.com/forums/ramblings-12/good-shot-britney-bikini-lifting-her-leg-99768/

Please visit the above thread for a happy conclusion (one, at least!) to this thread.

The key apparently is that you have to be willing to work with / through your Acura dealership, and do your own research before showing up with a complaint. Between the comments posted here and by Acura TL owners on tirerack.com concerning the Bridgestone Turanza EL-42s, our dealer agreed that the problem was significant enough to address as a full warranty issue. Even with 17,000 miles on the TL.

This has simplified my life greatly, because I am now much less likely to look at other cars and dealers when it's time for replacements.

mkarg

Thanks for the info. My dealer is going to install the bump stops. They had previously replaced the rear tires.

TLsker

I have 34,000 miles on '04 TL and my tires are way down to the wear blocks. I got a great deal on BFG g-force kdws tires. My dillemma is that I can't get a straight answer from the dealer as to the real problem with the tire wear. Within the same dealership I have heard multiple different answers as to the cause of the problem. Some claim it is a problem with the car, some say it is just bad tires. I have also been told by one rep that if I have the BFG tires installed, then the car is technically out of warranty (total B.S.) and that they won't put in the new bump stops and adjust the toe per the TSB. Another rep, told me that they would perform the repairs as described in the TSB even if I came in with the new BFGs installed.

So bottom line is which guy do I trust? The last thing I want is to get the new tires installed and then have them say they won't perform the TSB work. Has anyone else experienced this or had problems getting the TSB work done after they replaced the tire with something other than the Bridgestones or Michelins available through the dealer?

Sorry to be long winded, but I am at the peak of frustration with the dealer.

ChuckDu

34K on the Bridgestones isn't too bad. You should be glad that you're rid of them.

Why not print out the TSB in the beginning of this thread and learn every nuance to it. Then, armed with that information talk to the dealership's SERVICE MANAGER about what you feel (and the TSB states) should be done to your car. If he/she balks at giving you what you deserve, then request a meeting with the DISTRICT SERVICE MANAGER.

It's also a good idea to know what you will minimally accept. That helps in your negotiating. Also, it's quite possible that one of the two service reps will ask you what you would like to make you happy. In that case, be prepared with an answer; 1) bump stops, 2) alignment to new specs and maybe, 3) compensation for the new tires you had to buy early. Hey, it's worth asking.

xedap1998

how much does the toe changes with 2 passengers in the front each weighs at 160 and 120 lbs ......is there anyway to over adjust it a little bit to compensate for this toe in problem...say if the specs calls for 00 toe we asked the alignment shop to set the toe in -.02 or maybe a little more...so with the passengers it will be perfect..right at 0.00...nissan have done something right with their suspension because the tires on the maximas we have and our friends last 50k and with the treadware of 160....RE92...even after lowered...

jginnane

FWIW, I noted this about Bridgestones EL42s as OEM equipment on Altimas and Maxzimas. You can see it in longevity comments on tirerack.com: it's common for them to get twice the life on their-sized Bridgestone EL42 tires.

But because their stock rubber lasts twice as long doesn't mean the design is "right"; it means the rear suspension on those mass-market vehicles is less live than ours. I'd take our handling over any Nissan, any day.

Also, though these Acura OEMs are also called Turanza EL42s, it seems our size is specially built just for the TL. They made numerous construction changes from the standard EL42 tread design. Ours are EL42 in name only, IOW.

And, if they haven't already, American Honda should hunt down the person who married the TL to this special "Bridgestone Turanza EL42", and fire his sorry ass. (I suspect the decision came out of marketing, not someone who knows anything about engineering. And just because he can legitimately claim "it's still better than Pontiac", that is not an acceptable claim to automotive competence.)

ediddy

so is this saying that they will replace the tires with another brand for free?

I have had to replace my front right tire 3 times.