My car has been struggling to start and today I get the replace battery light.

When I got home, I turned the car off and when I tried to start it again, it wouldn't. So I called Acura Care and got a jump.

Tomorrow I will go to the dealer and try to get the battery replaced. I'm at 26k miles so I'm assuming it is still covered under warranty.

Will they give me a hard time or will they just replace it. I have work tomorrow so don't really want to be stuck at the dealer.

Thanks.

 

It is covered under warranty and doubt they'll give you a hard time about it. It shouldn't take long. Goodluck!

 

your first battery will be covered under warranty.

if the 2nd one dies in a few years...i believe it's prorated at which point just get an aftermarket battery that has better cranking power.

OEM batteries don't last as long as the that 100mos warranty states. you're lucky to get 36-48 months out of them. 36-39 mos was my avg for the 2 i had in my 3G TL.

 

while getting the annual state inspection done on my 06 tsx 3+years ago the acura dealer replaced the battery under warranty. I never had a problem with it but they told me it tested low. Oh well-no complaints-it was free. My car had 90,000+miles at the time. Battery warranty is 4 years/unlimited mileage. Second battery is good-hopefully it will last for awhile.

 

Thanks for the info. I've only had my car for 20 months and I got the car new.

 

I've heard of oem batteries going bad in 1-2yrs.

 

I've had my oem battery 3 years now with no issues. Lucky, I guess.

 

Batteries are a crap-shoot. I had an 94 Accord and the battery lasted 8+ years, 04 TL and the battery lasted 6+ years (traded so don't know when it went) and my current 08 TL lasted 33 months - dying with no warning whatsoever.

 

Curious what happens when they test your battery. I've had my 2012 in twice now for the same problem. Not sure if yours is starting now, after a jump, but mine did. When the dealer tested both times, they said the battery was fine. So of course they would not replace it. Something just drained it, but it charged back up fine.

Very annoying. The reserve capacity on our factory batteries is either about the size of a Dixie cup, or the electronics require a bigger reserve capacity than it provides. I can't use any electronics for more than a couple minutes with the car off, or the car starts slowly. I need to do some searching to find an aftermarket battery with a higher reserve capacity. Seems some have no problems, so maybe it's a fluke, but the dealer said this is a common problem with our cars. I mentioned in another thread, that the 2012+ battery management system is nice, but it really only gives you a heads up when the battery is losing charge too quickly (in a pleasant sounding voice of course).

 

So this morning my car was dead again. Called Acura care and got a jump but the car barely started.

Went to the dealer and the battery died again. They ran tests to make sure nothing was draining the battery. Apparently, even the Bluetooth can drain the batteries as it did to my boss' 3G TL.

Anyways, 2.5 hours of waiting and they found nothing. They replaced the battery free of charge.

Hope this is not something that will be an issue every 25k or so.

 

true: the oem battery on my mom's 08 Honda accord lasted 18 months. Lack of use and short drives contributed to shorten it's life.

 

So what is it?
I had an Integra for 13 years. I know it's a simpler car with less load on the battery. At 6 years I bought a new battery from Acura. The parts guy at the dealer questioned why I would do that. I said it's 6 years old! He said they last a long time. I changed it anyway. The second battery was still in the car 7 years later when I sold it. No issues. My wife's car is a 2002 Camry. I changed the battery when the original was 8 years old, just for the heck of it, there was no indication of a problem.
So what's the real deal? Are OEM batteries better than replacement batteries, or not as good?

Re the TL, I left the car undriven for a month last winter, it sat in the cold garage and never moved.
When I got back from vacation it started right up, no problem. (Knock on wood.) :-)

 

Is your Bluetooth working correctly? I put a brand new battery in my 07 MDX, within a year it went dead. I had it replaced and it went dead again. I come to find out that my Bluetooth was on the fritz & the cause of the battery drain. Coincidentally, when the Bluetooth completely died, my battery all of a sudden was working perfectly. It's at the dealer now getting fixed.

Cheers,

Nick

 

Hey, that's a good thought! The HFL will work for a while after you shut off the car. Maybe the bluetooth is still searching for a signal while the car is sitting there. Not the same thing, but if you leave bluetooth on on your phone all the time it will run down the phone's battery in no time. What do you think Mitch?

 

This is a good possibility. Sometimes I get out if my car while talking to my wife on the phone and the Bluetooth still works.

I'll make sure to hang up before getting out of the car.

 

The Bluetooth on my phone is always on so it connects as soon as I turn the car on. I don't think searching for a signal could be an issue but who knows.

I think it should stop searching after a few tries or if the phone paired becomes out of range.

 

Bluetooth should disconnect as soon as the car is turned off unless you are on the phone at the time you do that. It will continue to work until you end your phone call. My phone shows it has connected, and disconnected from the BT system. Have not had issues with either BT unit in my cars.

 

Bluetooth is a power hog even when enabled but not connected.

 

Not to be a downer, but don't be so sure that a battery replacement is going to fix your problem. Here's my story:

So....my husband has a 2008 Acura TL which has just 10,100 miles on it. (He's retired and only drives around in our little town). The car is practically new - still smells new. BUT:

It has the dreaded battery drain problem. (If you don't know about this, google Acura battery drain). About 6 months ago, he took it to the dealer for testing and they couldn't find anything that was draining the battery. The service guy just kinda mentioned that there was some talk that it might be the HFL, so we came home and did more research on the web. We disconnected the HFL and took it out of the car completely. Inconvenient, yes but not as much as a dead battery. Things didn't improve much - there were sporadic problems and after more research on the web we disconnected the trunk light in the middle of May 2013. We thought the problem was solved - no more dead batteries. BUT:

Today the battery is dead again. The car was just driven 3 days ago. Now what? We have this practically new car that we're slowly dismantling trying to solve this problem. Any suggestions? We really, really don't want to trade in this beautiful, almost-new car, and if we do, we probably won't ever buy another Acura because of this issue.

 

^^get a battery tender if the car isn't driven that much...which based on what you have told us...isn't much. Usually if a battery drains completely, that's a bad thing for a battery and it won't hold it's charge.

 

not driving it and also short distance travel can drain your battery. My mom's Honda accord had that problem-had to have the battery replaced at about 18 months. I agree-you should get a battery tender.

 

Definitely another vote for a battery tender. Either that and/or your husband needs to take his car out for a nice long ride every once in a while to allow the battery to get recharged.

 

Service Bulletin 08-057
HandsFreeLink (HFL) Doesn’t Work, or Battery Is Too Low to Start the engine

SYMPTOMThe HandsFreeLink (HFL) system doesn’t work, and/or
the battery sometimes won’t start the vehicle.
PROBABLE CAUSEThe HFL control unit has an internal problem, which
creates a parasitic current draw of 250 mA.
CORRECTIVE ACTIONReplace the HFL control unit.


https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-2004-2008-93/3g-tl-technical-service-bulletins-tsbs-3g-garage-j-016-a-613659/

 

^^^^^

Do you have the issue date of the above service bulletin ?

 

Edward-

Here is a link to the actual TSB:

http://www.mdxers.org/forums/attachm...oesnt-work.pdf

Cheers,

Nick

 

^^^^^

That bulletin is only applicable to 3G TL's.

So as for the 4G owners, dealerships will have to duplicate the 1/4 amp parasitic current draw before they will start replacing the HFL unit.