Wondering what people who are mechanics, engineers, or Honda/Acura techs think of the new DCT in terms of longevity. I know the shiftable automatics in previous TL's usually failed before 200K. With 8 ratios, rev matching and all that I'm just concerned how solid this new tranny is and how well it will hold up. Also the potential maintenance costs vs. my 6-speed manual.

Also wondering how PAWS will effect the cost of an alinement but maybe I'm just a cheap skate

 

I think it is impossible to know until some of these transmissions get 50 to 100 thousand miles on them. Yes Honda/Acura made some bad transmissions a few years ago. I wouldn't say they 'usually' failed but I do think a disproportionate number failed. I had a Honda transmission fail back in the 90's. Not something I want to repeat. But the only way to know for sure is to get thousands of cars on the road and see what happens. I'm sure the failure rate on the transmissions surprised the engineers who designed them. And I doubt they would think anything other than they have built a reliable transmission this time too. But only the brutal harsh reality of millions of customer miles will we know for sure.

 

i would think they would have learned from their mistakes with the 2nd gen TL's and early 3rd gen TL's

 

you would think...


but again, its VERY early to tell.
Honda has always been known for weak transmissions

 

I'd be willing to bet a good portion of those failed tranmissions were because of people not doing proper maintenance on their vehicles. I don't know what the recommended fluid change interval is on the TLX, but its probably every 40-50k that the fluid should be flushed and the filter replaced...

Proper maintenance is the biggest deterrent of future problems. Of course the Acura dealership probably won't do the fluid change for free like oil changes.

 

Disagree with this. My mom had a 97 CR-V with 190K and tranny is still strong. I've only done a few fluid changes on it.

 

But the CR-V has a 4 cylinder. From what I've seen/read the tranny failures were mostly on models with the V6. More than likely different trannies for the 4 cyl and V6 models.

 

people only remember the negative in most cases. One oh crap wipes out 1000 "atta-boys"

 

And when I mentioned models I was referring to Honda/Acura models with the J-series to clear up any misunderstandings.

 

Well the DCT has a clutch, actually two of them like a manual transmission. I wonder what the lifespan of the clutch will be.

 

See that is the exact problem with Acura. They don't tell you when to change your tranny fluid. Go ahead, look in the manual. They tell you that the CAR is supposed to tell you. But if you do that, the car will go well into 100k territory before telling you to. If you ask the dealer, they don't go according to the manual. They go according to their bank account. Of course, they'll be happy to change your oil every 1k miles and tranny fluid every 5k if you'd like. Maybe even more often.

So define proper maintenance? Unless the engineers told us something in writing one can't figure out what is "recommended" we can only guess. They should try being more specific like the way cars used to be. If a certain component needs specific maintenance in a specific way, say so. Because you can still do everything "right" and Acura will still look the other way once your warranty runs out.

Better advice still, you buy a Honda automatic, just sell the car at 50k miles.

 

Lol I just guessed that it would be about 50k stupid logic, but oil says every 3k miles synthetic every 5k miles. Of course that differs so much in opinion from so many people. Some will say 10k some will say 3k no matter what.

Cars are supposed to be done every 30k so I just threw the 50k number out there as i'm guessing Acura's fluid is synthetic. Seems more then reasonable to me for most people thats 2-3 changes over the course of the lifetime of them owning the car.

Idk how hard it is to change the fluid on an Acura, but DIY shouldn't cost more then $150 bucks depending on how many quarts it holds.