AcuraZine - Acura Enthusiast Community - CAM Chain Tensioner TSB (2.4L), First At My Local Dealership

Just wanted to start this thread to warn people of what this issue sounds like and about how much it costs to fix out-of-warranty since my local dealership told me I am the first to actually have the issue of the 2.4L TLX's they service.

So, some background on this is I got this car in February from a non-Acura dealer with about 75k miles, and all was well at first. About a month later I started hearing what was almost a rattle in the startup noise, definitely not just the clean start up grumble you usually hear, it was very obvious. In addition to this an audible clicking could be heard coming from the engine until it warmed up. So, being the paranoid car-freak I am I searched to see if anyone had this issue and came upon the TSB. Sure enough, upon taking my car to the local dealer and leaving it overnight so they could hear it cold start next morning, they heard the noises and then upon inspection confirmed there was wear on my CAM chain tensioner check valve. Of course being out-of-warranty I had to pay out-of-pocket, but thankfully the service was only $183.88 before tax, so definitely annoying but not ludicrous.

Basically, if you are approaching your end of warranty and hear anything out of the ordinary during cold startup or clicking from the 2.4L engine go get it checked out! There is a revised version of the part that should hopefully not have the same issue that is installed as part of the service - time will tell if they actually fixed the design flaw that caused the problem.

Also, just for reference and as further warning with buying the TLX used, my transmission software was also still on the original version and as such had the bumping when stopping quickly and the slow shifts / feeling of slipping when cold. An update and burn-in of the clutches fixed this issue immediately, the dealer charged $36 for the service so it was well worth worth it to have a much smoother transmission.