natrlhy

I've got an '05 w/Navi TL and the optional 18" rims with the Yokohama ES100 tires.

I had a flat while the TL was parked in the driveway. I took off the tire and the inside wear is so bad there is a small slit on the wear portion. I lifed it up a little and I can see the radial/metal portion!

Our '05 only has 14000 or so miles and the wear is this bad!

I'm not sure if this TSB covers this since it says its for the EL42 tires. Has anyone addressed something similar with their dealership? I'm almost shaking with rage...

trancemission

my god man, seriously?

natrlhy

Mainly so upset because I paid for the pre-paid mantianence and Acura of course won't inform you of any TSB because it's a cost to them. i would have hated to have a tire blow out with my 5 month pregnat wife.

I have an appointment tomorrow with Acura of Pleasanton. We'll see how they treat me...

trancemission

I understand your concern but your tire can hit anything and blow out as well. no need to play that card...


let us know how they treat you

natrlhy

I'll take that advise into consideration tomorrow

Just gotta relax. What I saw on regarding the tire wear yesterday was just shocking is all.

trancemission

Yeah man, I would be shocked too. Just go in there with an open mind and give them a chance. If they dont help you, then freak out.



<----------been called e-happy before.

natrlhy

I always expect the worst... But I always take the really nice guy approach first, then as you say, freak out

I'll keep ya posted....

1995hoo

Here's my update:

I took my '04 in this morning for the B2 servicing and decided not to mention the TSB because of the other comments in this thread about how they won't do it if you don't have the original tyres. The fellow called me around 9:00 to say that I needed new brake pads (no surprise, it's a 6MT), and in the course of the conversation he said that the service tech wanted to know if I had had the car aligned since I have new tyres (Pirelli PZero Nero M&S). There was my opportunity—I told him that I had the car aligned at their dealership in April but that they said they couldn't adjust the rear alignment, and I then said that I know there is a TSB for the 2004 TL that relates to tyre wear and involves replacement of the rear bump stops. I told him what the TSB number was and explained that I know it calls for replacing all four tyres, and I said that if I would have to have the tyres replaced I would rather not have the TSB done (I bluntly said that the EL42s are junk and I purposely bought better tyres).

So the guy wrote down the TSB number and said he'd call me back. He called back at about 9:40 and said that he was going to replace the bump stops under warranty, although he may have to order the parts (in which case I will bring it back in). He said that it's a customer good will thing because he looked in the computer and saw that I had brought the car in for all the routine maintenance, not just the big stuff, and he confirmed that I had the alignment done by them in April as well. Good to know that they will do this sort of thing! I told him that I would mention it on the TL forum (of course, he asked me to emphasize the good will aspect of it—if you take your car to Jiffy Lube and bring it to the dealer only for something big, they won't go out of their way for you).

I think it must be refreshing for the service advisors to talk to people who know the cars and know about the TSBs, as opposed to some woman who brings in a car and says, "It's going chugga-chugga when I turn it on" (my aunt did that with a Taurus once). I suppose it's good for the customer, too, since they know that you know what's you're talking about and will be that much more up-front.

natrlhy

I just got back from the dealership in Pleasanton, CA...

The two TSB's do not apply to me.

Here are the strikes against me: (these are my perceptions, nothing the dealership said)

My VIN # doesn't fall in the range for the '05 we own.
I have 18" rims with a wear pattern that indicates mis-alignement and a "toe issue"
Plenty of tread left on the rest of the tires minus the heavy wear in the inside of the tire.

I feel like I'm losing here with the TSB because of these reasons. I'm not too surprised though I guess...

I am having them check the alignment (I'm sure it's off. We have 13928 miles on the car and California roads SUCK). It's my gamble to see if it IS still algined. If it is THEN I will put them on the hook for the horrible wear on the tires.

natrlhy

Final outcome for me:

No surprise that they found the alignment out of spec. No tire replacement at all since my 3 strikes above really didn't apply to the two TSB's.

Thanks everyone for your support and info posted here!

Now I just need to decide what brand to replace with the Yoko ES100's...

1995hoo

Further update for me too: They got the parts from another local dealer and replaced the bump stops and did an alignment.

Car felt a little funny on the way home last night, seemed like it maybe pulled to the left a little too easily, but I'm wondering if that has to do with having a rotation after the rear alignment was off (i.e., if uneven wear might be the problem that will resolve itself after a while). I'll give it a few days before I call them to ask about it.

datboijoe

so if i lowered my car does that void my warranty? thats what acura keeps telling me

KevinDGP

My 2005 TL is not within the VIN number range shown in the TSB; however, I took it on a 2,000 mile trip loaded with bags and kids and let me tell you the rear rims became caked with tire dust. The tread on inside of the rear tires was down to the wear bars and I had less than 20,000 miles on the tires (I didn't care about this too much because I had the crappy Avons, which I couldn't wait to get off of my car anyway).

I took the car to the dealer, which is actually a pretty good dealer, and the service advisor said that the car has the correct bump stops since it didn't fall within the VINs shown in the TSB. I asked him to explain what caused the tire dust and wear and he said it must be out of alignment. I then took the car in for an alignment and they said the alignment was perfect.

My experience, then, is that even with the correct bump stops there is the potential for severe rear tire wear when the car is loaded.

HuKaShI, I'm curious. Was your wear on your Pirellis even across the tread or was it concentrated in a particular area on the tire? The TSB applies to even wear, but the wear on my tires was clearly just on the inside.

Tecciztecatl

[ I'm curious. Was your wear on your Pirellis even across the tread or was it concentrated in a particular area on the tire? The TSB applies to even wear, but the wear on my tires was clearly just on the inside.[/QUOTE]

I have the Pirellis and the wear is a cupping on the inside of the tire - the alignment is also within specs. My dealer said that since I have the aspec it does not need any bump stops and should be good to go. I will disagree ...

2006civic

so heres a good question for you guys

i picked up my 05 TL 1 week ago ...

they gave me 4 brand new tires when i got the car but im wondering if they did the TSB .. my vin falls in the range for the new bump stops and such

so what should i do ? ... drive the turanza's until they are dead so i can get another free set (not that they are actually any good but hey FREE tires are FREE tires) .. or should i just take it in and have em do the TSB now .. assuming it hasnt already been done.

thanx

Code3forJC

I have an 04 5AT with 40K miles now. I also have the ASPEC wheels and aftermarket tires. I drive 95% of the time alone with golf clubs in the trunk. Most of my driving is on the freeway.

I took my car in for the "B" scheduled service and called ahead to notify the dealer of two suspension/brake related issues.

1. I wanted TSB work done.
2. I was getting vibration/pulsation under braking from about 50mph and up.

They did TSB without any hassle. They did tell me that my rear strut bushings were in need of replacement as a result of the TSB issue. They replaced the bushings under warranty (probably as a good will gesture). They resurfaced front rotors but told me my front pads had about 35% life left, but should be replaced to eliminate shaking steering wheel under braking. What!?

Anyway, we agreed on brake job and they split cost with me. As sooon as I get out of the dealership, I immediately notice a difference in the ride quality. Suspension in rear felt stiffer and tighter, handling improved noticeably.

GET THIS DONE! There is no telling what type of damage or wear is occurring until they look at the parts and make the necessary upgrades.

BTW, there was never an issue with my 18 inch wheel/tire combo.

Great customer service at this dealership...IMHO

srhewes

I've had tire wear problems on my 04 TL on 2 separate occasions and the dealer has been great in taking care of me. On the 2nd occasion, they did replace the bump stops and put on 4 new EL42's. The car does ride and handle much better and I have a little more faith in the handling (let's see how we do this winter in central Ohio). I've had the new EL42's for about 5,000 miles and you can hardly tell they're worn.

If you have an 04 I'd get it in for bump stops and new tires, gratis of Acura. Once my EL42's wear down, I'm going with Pirelli's (read the reviews and comparisons on tirerack.com).

ndabunka

24K on the KDWS's is NORMAL and has NOTHING to do with this thread. Those are SOFT tires and that type of mileage should be expected

vash68

For those of you with A-spec suspension:

I took a trip from Jersey to Minneapolis to Colorado over 3 days, about 2500mi, riding with 2 ppl in front, large suit case on the back seat and trunk fully loaded. It was end of February and we hit blizzard in Minessota, so the car became EXTREMELY tail happy going over even the smallest patch of snow at highway speeds, I never experienced that with front wheel drive. So I attributed this to an overloaded trunk and therefore changed geometry of rear suspension, even though there was nothing very heavy in the trunk. Checked tire pressure, threads, found nothing suspisious.

Anyway, when in CO I looked at my rear tires and OMG, they were worn at wear indicator level, as oppose to front onse that still had at least 1/8" (3mm) thread before wear indicators. Rears were slightly more worn on the inside of the contact patch - camber issue under load? And I do rotate my tres every 5Kmi, they are Michelin Pilots A/S with slightly less than 20Kmi on them.

Went to a dealer here in Denver, they ran it by TSB (on excessive rear tire wear), and of course, A-spec suspension is not covered by it.
(Well, at least they were kind enough to replace my HFL module, now I can actually use my voice to dial phones with no issues!)

Going to do my alignment soon, but don't expect to see any big problems there.

I guess the lesson here is : do not load rear and drive long distance with this car, which sucks.


And BTW, does anybody know what the A-spec alignment specs are now that TSB says something slightly different for toe-in figure?
Does this TSB superseed original alignment specs from manual?

Hope this helps someone

Lore

I just purchased the Firestone lifetime alignment package a few weekends ago, and had them align my car to the original A-Spec suspension alignment specifications. However, I see that the bump stop TSB specifies that you should set your rear toe to 0 +/- 2mm on the rears, as opposed to 2 +/- 2mm on the A-Spec alignment. I don't recall what they set mine to that weekend, but I'm also wondering if I should change it to the new specifications even though I have the A-Spec suspension.

Any thoughts?

vash68

The same exact thought was bugging me for a few days lately, and today I went to a shop to get an alignment, gave them my A-spec specs AND that TSB, then we decided to use A-spec specs. but after 1.5 hour I came back for my car the guy said he could not recalibrate his machine to use mm and minutes, he could only do it in inches and degrees so he just quit on me. The shop (Brakes and more) uses Hunter machine, the guy said it was 15 year old.. what??
I had my susp aligned twice since 2004, but never had this issue, is this true or they guy just didn't know how to operate his computer?

Now I am gonna call different shopes see what they sayd about this stpid convesion, I mean I am not the only one driving Japanese car around, so what kind of BS is this??


So I guess I will just call the dealer on the "new" alignment spec for A-spec if any,
On the other hand that TSB does not apply to A-spec (per dealer), so maybe it does not superseed our original 2 +/- 2mm on the A-Spec alignment... just a thought

Anybody else have any input?

StLMO-TL

I have a 2004 ASPEC and had the same problem with excessive tire wear. Last year I put Michelin Pilots on my car. We went on vacation with a fully loaded trunk and stuff in the back seat. Total miles for the trip was under 2,000. On our way home we incountered a heavy rain storm on the interstate. We had to pull over because the rear end of the car was "fish tailing" so bad. After I was home I looked at the rear tires and they had little if any tread left. These tires were less than a year old!!

So now I don't take the TL on long trips with luggage or back set passengers. If I had it to do over again I would not have had the ASPEC option on the car.

JimiThng

great find! i just checked my VIN ...5A074021 and luckily im NOT one of the ones effected!

vash68

Sorry to hear that man, at least now I know I am not alone...and A-spec suspension has the same problem as stock.

But you would have the same problem with your stock suspension also, then you would have your dealer fix it... after the Pilots were shot.. so result is pretty much the same.

Besides, what exactly those new bumps do, how are they suppose to fix suspensioin geometry (sounds like a negative toe-in problem here)?

I think that Acura TSB is total BS, not a fix, the new bumps may only prevent your suspension from bottoming out beyond certain point (think camber), and it will be a very small difference between stock and new bumps IMHO, we are talking a few millimeters here.

But we are not driving with bottomed out suspension, even with our trunks loaded, right? So I don't see how these new bumps can magically fix our suspension problems.

I am by no means an expert here, and these are just my thoughts.
I'd love to hear more opinions on this problem and a fix if people could chime in.

vara411

See, now here's the funny thing. I just took my 2004 TL to Esserman Acura for installation of the A-Spec suspension. They told me they were surprised to see my stock Turanzas looked so good at at 27K miles (they showed me and were correct! I'm guessing they still have about another 5K miles left on them!).

When I mentioned the TSB, they acted like they knew exactly what I was talking about and that "don't worry, this problem does not apply to the A-Spec suspension."

When I told them that I've been reading evidence to the contrary and that one mentioned fixes was replacing the bushings, they again told me it wasn't necessary.


... As an aside they gave me a 2007 TL Type-S as a loaner... NOT COOL, man! What an awesome car.

sunnytl

I notice my 2004TL have premature tire wear especially at the back ......does the TSB applied to Canada....have anyone done this in the Toronto/Markham area before....thanks

ball4lyfe

Acura Canada will not honor this TSB on my 04. The original Canadian 3 year warranty has expired and the car is on Acuracare extended warranty.

sunnytl

Wow that sucks! .............Thanks for the info!

italian_spak

My VIN no is: 19UUA6...4A804395

Does that mean that im not admissible to this correction, because the dealer has never called me to inform me of this TSB

since it is marked here in the TSB:

CORRECTIVE ACTION
All 2004 TL, and 2005 TL from VIN
19UUA6...5A000001 thru 19UUA6...5A008976: Install
new bump stops, replace all four tires, and set the toe
according to specifications


Can someone clear this up for me, cus i remember my EL42 being worned out unevenly...

94eg!

The problem stems from aggressive dynamic toe issues that are programed into the rear 5-link suspension. This is done on purpose to make the FWD car handle more like a RWD. As we all know, the 5-link suspension gains negative camber as it's compressed. This in and of itself is not a problem for tire wear. Some street cars OEM specs call for upwards of -4* camber without any tire wear issues whatsoever. The problem is that if you also add toe to the negative camber, the cambered edge of the tire will suffer severely accelerated wear. Think how much distance the tire travels laterally if you drive 100 miles with just 1 degree of toe. It's nearly 2 miles (1.75) of lateral movement. Camber will then force all that scrubbing onto a single edge of the tire.

I figure the reason Acura says the revised toe settings don't apply to the A-spec suspension is simply for a strict performance reasoning. Honda's track tuners signature is a stiffer more tail-happy performance setup (like Integra GSR vs Type-R). And pure performance setups are usually more aggressive on tires than normal. If you are really concerned about rear tire wear with you A-spec suspension, use the revised toe settings. I'm guessing you can expect a slight decrease in handling performance though...

ajdigerati

I would assume that it is. 2006s do not show up on the TSB.

GUMP

I'm about to put on my 4th set of tires on my 04 auto. Acura replaced the piece of crap tires within the first 4 months due to the flat spotting. Within 15 months, I put on a set of Avons (April 06). In August 06, I took a 1000 mile road trip fully loaded. When I returned, all tires were worn uneven and very loud. I went to the local tire shop and he said it was probably the alignment. Went to Acura to get it aligned and they never mentioned the TSB. Went back within 5 weeks and complained the ride was getting worst. Nothing was done since the alignment was fine. I just came across this thread and brought the TSB to the dealer. He originally stated my VIN isn't involved, but I pointed out to him all 04's are involved. I told him I want the new bump stops and replacement tires. He says the TSB only covers even wear, not uneven. They will replace the bump stops, but nothing for the tires. I argue that I find it very unusual that the TSB covers an issue with tire wear under loads and as soon as I carry a load for a trip, my tires are screwed up. I'm really pissed and now I have to shell out another $700 for tires. I've had more problems with this car than any of my last 2 Honda/Acura cars combined. The regional was supposed to call me today, but didn't..I'm thinking of trading it in...for a Lexus or Infiniti. Any advice??? Thanks

Ricky Vaughn

If still under original factory warranty, I wonder if this TSB will get me only the new bump stops on my 04 TL. Even worth bringing it up when it goes in for some other servicing next week?
I bought the car with out the original tires, they are some brand I never heard of, Kumho, but apparently they are rated pretty well and cheap.

GUMP

Can't hurt to get it done...it could save the tires you have on now..be careful with how they take out the back seat.

vash68

Great explanation
Could you elaborate on "Honda's track tuners signature is a stiffer more tail-happy performance setup ", why is it more tail-happy and what does it achieve?

Thanks!

94eg!

The car is typically made more tail-happy (over-steer) by an increase of rear spring rate, an increase in rear damper rebound rate, a change in toe settings, a stiffer rear roll-bar, or a combination of all of the above. A tail happy car is simply easier to turn or put through a turn at speed, and an overall stiffer suspension has less body-roll & faster response giving the driver more confidence. Of course all this comes at a price. That typically tends to be a reduction in ride quality, an increase in NVH, and a slightly more dangerous car to drive (since the rear end may want to break loose more often).

I believe Honda had Makoto Tamamura, the engineer of the NSX, take a look at the performance/luxury oriented TL to help them take it to the next level of handling performance. Through track testing, he was able to push the car a little bit further into the performance category by only making minimal spring rate, ride height & damping rate changes. They also went with a larger diameter wheel & stiffer/stickier tire which makes a huge difference in overall grip & response to begin with...

Jesstzn

Here is a question related to this ... if the alignment is done and toe set to "0" and I seldom have much in the trunk and am still getting inner wear on one side only because the camber is well out of spec. 2.5 deg ( -1.5 to -0.5deg ). Other rear side is -1.7 and showing very little wear.

If I put in a camber kit to correct this should I have the camber set to the minimum to offset any added camber from weight in the trunk. e.g closer to say -1.0 than -1.7?

The only time I have added weight is on longer highway trips and thats when the wear occurs.

Trew

iTrader: (1)

You can. But it will be less stable in the rear. The more negative camber you have, the more stable your rear end will be.

My advice would be to set the camber right at the middle of the tolerance with your everyday load in the trunk.

Jesstzn

My everyday load is usually nothing .. but when I go on trips thats where the wear happens .. trunk full .. tank full.

So your saying go about -1.0 or in that area with a toe in of "0". And the tank about 3/4 full? I seldom run it less than 1/2 full.

I know the toe will change as the car drops with a load in it.

TYIA.

minhtin

Did this issue ever get resolve? I read the entire thread and what I picked up is that even with the new bump stop, there are still problems for people who travels long distance with a fully loaded car.
I bought a used tl so that it would make it easier for me to travel to different duty station. The thought if changing tires every few k miles makes me cringe.