volmoon

You're blue NSX looks nice. Someday...

neil0311

The dealer tried TSB 16-009 and it didn't work on my SH-AWD either. Four new Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3 tires correctly balanced did. The ride is much smoother and the handling is improved.

I constantly try to see if I feel vibration and if there is any, it's very slight, and could be no worse than any other vehicle on the same road. Hard to say if I'm hyper-sensitive now.

mn5789

Thanks guys. Appreciate the feedback. I'll mention this to my SA on Saturday. Did you guys get any pushback when requesting them to mount Michelins? I'm also planning on threatening them with the Lemon law (as my car has other problems as well) and exploring the possibility of trading it in for 16' but I'm not sure if I want another Acura at this point. This will probably be my first and last Acura.

volmoon

You may want to simply alert the service rep and/or service manager to this forum and other published reports of Acura regional service reps approving the purchase and installation of Michelins to mitigate the TLX vibration problem. If they balk, I would request to speak with the regional service rep and ask for written explanation why the tire exchanges have been approved for other customers.

neil0311

In my case, it was Acura who suggested it. I didn't ask for new tires or a specific type of tire, only for the vibrations to be stopped.

#172CR

Thanks! It's an amazing car.

The TSB didn't solve mine either. Getting new tires, which Acura provided me wayyyy back, MITIGATED the issue but didn't correct it.

I have a feeling that as everyone's new tires age, the vibration will return as before, however it was nice to have the vibration threshold increased.

It's frustrating to have spent to much money on a car and to plan out road trips so we can avoid the vibrations for hours on end. No one is any closer to a resolution!

c1souk

so I have the 04/15 build tlx awd and it's having the vibration issues as well.
The vibration stands out between 60 MPH to about 85 MPH and tapers off after about 90 MPH.
I purchased the vehicle end of 09/15 and when I took the car to my dealership they said that the Goodyear LS2s had flatspots due to the car sitting in the lot for a while. They swapped the tires for the Bridgestone RE97s (saying that it's a big upgrade.. lol) and road-force balanced them. They said that the vibration issue is fixed but it now it feels like there is some vibration even at lower speeds starting somewhere between 45 to 50 MPH and getting worse as speed goes up to 85 MPH.
I went on a test drive with a technician and even though the vibration is clearly present, the technician said that it's normal for a car to vibrate when driving. I understand that any car will have some sort of vibration to a certain level when its being driven, but the issue that we're experiencing is different.
For the people that got their tires swapped for the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3, how much of an improvement did you notice?

kchemist

I did do it but not for the same purpose for other reasons. But even with AS3s I initially had vibration but after balancing it reduced by 90%

#172CR

My car is back at the dealer, Acura (corporate) is involved now as well. Next try is completely replacing the active motor mounts! We shall see!

Also, I know this has been mentioned a lot regarding the VCM.... At least in my case the VCM is not directly related. We've had the HDS connected while driving, monitoring the VCM, it was NOT engaging during the times the vehicle was shaking.

volmoon

I haven't heard of this tried yet. Please report back on the outcome!

neil0311

Aren't the active motor mounts only applicable to VCM for damping vibration when the engine vibration is asymmetric? If you drive in Sport + mode then VCM isn't a factor, and maybe I'm wrong, but would be curious how the active motor mounts would be related outside of VCM.

Please do report back.

Mike_TX

My motor mounts were replaced a few months ago and that took care of the vibration/rumbling when VCM kicked in.

.
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c1souk

I had left my car at the dealership after the test drive with the technicians and an Acura regional rep took a test drive with the service manager (apparently). According to the service statement, they decided to adjust the propeller shaft and performed a "neutralization" of the front, rear, and side engine mounts and the upper transmission mounts (whatever that means). I want to say that the vibration is mostly mitigated, but at this point, I'm not sure if the vibration is coming from the road or it's because of a certain unknown defect in my car. My car may be running as a normal car, but now that I'm so paranoid with this vibration issue, I may be oversensitive to the normal vibrations.
I'll have to drive it for a few days in different smooth roads to see if the vibration is really gone.

#172CR

To answer your questions, hooking it up to the HDS, the motor mounts were and can be activated outside of VCM engagement. Yes, broadly speaking, they are in place to counterbalance the cylinder offset when VCM kicks in.

My issues are completely outside of VCM as the vibration is coming from the seats/bottom of car during acceleration, in Sport+ etc. Felt in all seat cushions but not steering wheel.

Front mount replaced and neutralized, still there, rear engine mount replaced and neutralized. Still there. Back to the drawing board. The regional Acura rep is fully engaged to correct the issue. I know they are working with engineers in Torrance regarding it too.

I think the next steps may be axles or transmission? Not totally sure.

*side note, haven't had my car for nearly 2 weeks. I miss it a lot. After I got mine, one of my good friends loved the car so much we went back and I helped him pick up a SH-AWD Advance TLX as well. His has zero vibrations so we have a known good car to compare things with. This has been extremely helpful with ruling things out between us, Acura and the dealership.

volmoon

Thank you for taking the time to report back with some detail!!! It is also good to hear that you believe the Acura regional rep and engineers are communicating.

I know that Acura knows the problem is there, but they still haven't made an official statement acknowledging the problem. The only direct statement they (Acura Corp) have made to me is that the vibration is characteristic of the TLX. That statement really upset this lifetime Acura/Honda owner regarding the vibration problem. So much so that I have lost a good measure of the accumulated trust/experience from years of prior Acura/Honda ownership. This is a fairly wide spread problem reported on a new production vehicle. Two thoughts:
1. The is Acura's MID-SIZE vehicle. It replaced TWO successful models. A TLX SH-AWD (aka TLX SHake) is not excusable. It is sloppy engineering/manufacturing at some level.
2. This deserves a competent response from Acura. They are in the second year of TLX production. There are now 2015 and 2016 vehicles reported with the problem. To continue production is revealing...Unfortunately it doesn't reveal "precision crafted performance". It appears to reveal a commitment to moving cars not building precision crafted performance cars.
For decades HONDA had the reputation of producing well-engineered machines that this customer came to trust for better longterm value. It's slipping with this 30-year owner of Honda/Acura. I will give them six more months to get my vehicle fixed. If not, 2017 will be a move from Acura.

Interestingly "Honda" brand hasn't failed me with my previously owned Odyssey, Civics, Accords, and Prelude. My current Ridgeline is also great. These were/are rock solid...and sadly cruise(d) better than my premier "Acura" TLX SH-AWD.

#172CR

Just a little update. New front axles installed. No change. New rear axles installed, no change.

Acura has authorized a new differential. That comes tomorrow.

Hoping that's the issue for good.

volmoon

Thanks for the latest!

SinCityTLX

Wow, my piece of shit local dealer told me to kick rocks and that it was my lowering springs. I was like you installed them folks, also springs don't rotate so they can't cause vibration. Stupid people infuriate me.

#172CR

Yeah, springs wouldn't cause a vibration is most cases. I'm with you there. You should ask them to politely prove how the springs would cause the vibration in the first place. See what kind of answer they give.

#172CR

Woo think we found the culprit. I get to inspect next week after the dealer rep verifies it is, indeed fixed.

neil0311

Was it the axles? If so, do they believe it's a one off thing or present in all TLX's?

#172CR

Rear differential!

The axles, both front and rear made no difference.

I will test it out next week

volmoon

GREAT NEWS!!!!! I look forward to your inspection update!

#172CR

Yeah I'm stoked. I talked briefly to the mechanic as well who has been working on this and he agreed the problem we felt was solved with the diff. (That was his initial thought, but due to the expense of the part we weren't able to try that first)

If indeed everything is good after my inspection on Tues or Weds I'll get more technical information on WHY or WHAT happened in mine to relay.

A couple things to keep in mind;

1. All v6's due have some vibration in them naturally, FWD and AWD, as this is the nature of the transmission
2. The VCM itself does also cause some vibration at cruising speeds
3. My car vibrated above and beyond the norm and was felt in seats and floor but not steering wheel or rest of car
4. The conditions of my abonormal vibration were on accelertion, between 55mph-85mph, on deceleration

And what we tried to remedy this problem

• Re-balance the OEM wheels/tires
• De-mounted the tire and re mounted
• Tried set of wheels/tires from another TLX
• New tires on my OEM wheels
• Force balanced the OEM wheels and new tires
• Alignment
• New wheel bearing
• Disconnected the driveshaft for a bit
• New front motor mount
• New rear motor mount
• Neutralized the motor mount
• New front axles
• New rear axles
• Finally - New rear differential

weather

^^ I would be curious to see if all the other stuff changed prior to the rear differential actually would have been cheaper if they had gone directly to the differential.

That's alot of stuff to trouble shoot the problem when they felt it could have been the differential to begin with

#172CR

Agreed, the circumstances surrounding it were taken over by Acura corporate earlier on who, through their engineers, believed it to be something more simple. I think they thought the chances it could be a major component like the differential or even transmission were relatively low.

The dealership and I wanted to try the differential earlier on, but with the expense of a part like that, it needed to be signed off by the district rep. I'm just glad the end is in sight whether my car is truly fixed or not.

volmoon

How is your TLX now? Can you give an update?

#172CR

Okay here's my full conclusion on this one.

8/8/15 - Initial Purchase; 13 miles - When debating on getting the SH-AWD TLX, I wanted to see how it performed. I hadn't had an "automatic" since my first car at 16. 11 Honda/Acura's later, I hopped in the TLX. My test drive was consisted of curvy back roads in the hills around Portland. Never thought I had a need to drive it up and down the freeway (cabin quietness wasn't a big issue to me at the time).

9/1/15 - 1st visit 954 miles - On that first visit to the dealership, the general manager of the dealership drove my car and confirmed the "irregular" vibration. Nothing looked out of sorts with the car, the technician re balanced all the wheels, noted the vibration and wanted me to drive it for a few 100 miles and see if that improved. My initial thought was "This is a brand new model year, a TSB will probably come out figuring out what's causing it and we can fix it at that time" Until then I just wanted it noted within the Acura system something was off, because after all, I liked the car a LOT, just didn't know what was wrong and didn't want to end up with a car wearing on certain mechanical parts faster than it should be. A new case was reported to Techline for my car.

10/10/15-10/14/15 - 2nd visit; Mileage 2503 - We chatted about the vibration and he said to bring the car back, so I did. He completely de mounted each tire, checked the wheel's for imperfections, re mounted and balanced each tire. We looked at all the components under the car, things appeared normal. We drove the car together and we both felt the same vibration in the seats and floor of the car. Not the steering wheel and the cabin didn't shake. Techline had advised to swap tires/wheels with a known good car and see if the vibration persisted. We did that, went for a drive with the new wheels and tires and noticed the vibration was there, but something was different. The vibration threshold was pushed higher than before. Initially it would start around 55mph, but this time it didn't start until 65mph or so. After the drive we brainstormed a bit and realized the SH-AWD Tech pack tires had Bridgestones vs my Advance had the Goodyear LS2 tires (which I hated!), we were afraid it was an internal component though because the same issue was there, albeit at a higher MPH. That was when we first thought of the differential since the tendency of the vibration was in line with differential problems (felt from rear, in seats, not steering wheel etc). The district representative was involved now, a brand new $46,000 top of the model shouldn't be having issues like this. The rep goodwill'd a set of new tires since that helped a lot. We all kept our eyes on the TSB's hoping something would eventually come out.

2/12/16 - 3rd visit - Acura puts out TSB 16-009 - Vibration Felt in Floor at Highway Speed. This seemed to fit my condition exactly. The only problem was my VIN was not in the range of affected VIN's. The fix was fairly easy though (Disconnect and rotate the rear differential flange 90 degrees counterclockwise and replace the propeller shaft bolts) and the dealership said to come by and we could try it. The markings on my rear differential shown this had already been corrected from the factory. We still tried it, no change, so put the driveshaft back. Feeling defeated, they said to bring the car back and leave it with them, which I agreed to.

3/28/16-3/31/16 - 4th visit; mileage 11,000 - The tech had an idea to disconnect the drive shaft to try and eliminate the rear (differential) causing the problem. Everyone felt if the vibration still was there, it would be coming from the front of the vehicle as those axles were engaged and being powered. Also, he took each wheel off and force/road balanced them. Both he and another senior technician took the car out and both verified it was still there. Notes from district rep were to monitor the condition and see if it gets worse <--- After all this, didn't like that very much

​4/7/16-6/8/16 - 5th visit (Mileage unknown as I don't have the full write up yet, ~11,xxx) This was the big one. They started out wanting to completely eliminate the Variable Cylinder Management being the culprit for corporate. At least in my case the VCM is not directly related. They had the HDS (Honda Diagnostic System) connected while driving, monitoring the VCM, it was NOT engaging during the times the vehicle was shaking. As mine would shake on acceleration, we didn't think it was, but just to be sure. To further rule out concerns; front engine mount replaced and neutralized, still there, rear engine mount replaced and neutralized. Still there. Back to the drawing board. The regional Acura rep is fully engaged to correct the issue. They were directly working with Torrance regarding it too. Techline had the dealership drive it to see if they could get to a high enough speed to get OUT of the vibration, and they did, my threshold was 85mph (I had not gone that fast). They advised the technician to drive it through the vibration zone (65mph-85mph) then put in neutral and coast back through the zone and see if the vibration is there. It was, so to them they wanted to try new front axles first, in doing so, the technician noted the front passenger wheel bearing had an abnormal build up of grease on it, felt it had gone bad, so that was replaced at that time. Vibration still present. Since the rear differential was still actively engaged, they wanted to try new rear axles. Vibration still present. With Acura corporate actively involved and wanting a resolution, the next step was the rear differential A part like this carries a large purchase price, not only from the expense of the part but the labor to install it. It's also not a component that's readily available for such a new car. The differential had to come from New Jersey, and being in Oregon, delivery time was 7 business days. Found out late in the following week the differential was installed, and to all of our surprise, this remedied the ABNORMAL vibration my car had.

The circumstances surrounding my case were taken over by Acura corporate earlier on, through their engineers, believed it to be something more simple. I think they thought the chances it could be a major component like the differential or even transmission were relatively low but wanted to systematically try more inexpensive parts first as things started to get more and more carried away.
The dealership and I wanted to try the differential earlier on, but with the expense of a part like that, it needed to come from Acura. I can't say enough praise and thanks from the dealership staff, to the district representative and even Client Relations. All were on the same page with acknowledging the issue and making sure I was happy in the end. Communication with multiple parties isn't easy, and I know there were things lost in translation, but in the end I felt pretty good with it all

Total: 73 days the car was in service out of 305 days of total ownership (24% of the time I've owned the car...I didn't even have it!)

A couple things to keep in mind;

1. All v6's due have some vibration in them naturally, FWD and AWD, as this is the nature of the ZF transmission and the gears
2. The VCM itself does also cause some vibration at cruising speeds
3. My car vibrated above and beyond the norm and was felt in seats and floor but not steering wheel or rest of car
4. The conditions of my abonormal vibration were on accelertion, between 55mph-85mph, on deceleration
5. My vibration at speeds made road trips uncomfortable, and had passengers asking if something was wrong with my car

And what we tried to remedy this problem

• Re-balance the OEM wheels/tires
• De-mounted the tire and re mounted
• Tried set of wheels/tires from another TLX
• New tires on my OEM wheels
• Force balanced the OEM wheels and new tires
• Alignment
• New wheel bearing
• Disconnected the driveshaft for a bit
• New front motor mount
• New rear motor mount
• Neutralized the motor mount
• New front axles
• New rear axles
• Finally - New rear differential

volmoon

#CR172, you've done a great service for those of us with TLX's that vibrate as yours!!! Thank you for diligently and patiently working through your dealer for a resolution! Thank you for taking the time to document this on this forum!

Last Friday I was having my oil changed at my dealer and I showed the lead tech (great guy) the initial post about the differential. He smiled and said that he wanted to check this early on but was told that he couldn't yet. He also had just returned from Torrence. He said that the TLX vibration subject came up with a tech trainer...the trainer grimmaced and said, "We are working on it."

Again, THANK YOU!

#172CR

of course! Happy Acura was so proactive with working with me through it all, hopefully this will all lead to a better understanding for those with similar issues

mikedub88

Hi guys,

I just wanted to let you know I too had been having highway vibration with my TLX. Long story short my propeller shaft is being replaced. I'm not that hopeful this will fix mine since 172CR had his rear diff replaced. I will report back once I have my car again.

• 40100-TZ7-A02 is the part number

Nightmare

Do the 2016s have this vibration issue as well?

mikedub88

propeller driveshaft replaced, vibration still present.

#172CR

surprise surprise lol. Let us know if they end up swapping the differential!

mikedub88

Would you be so kind as to provide me the contact info of the service manager/ person that helped you out in a private message to me? I would like to get my service manager and him talking. When i brought up the differential as a possible culprit this is the exact answer i received. "As to your question on the rear diff. that component was never involved in the testing information from the engineers poss because of the gear reduction it spins at a much slower RPM." Which is pure bs because i can manually downshift the car and still have the vibration.

As you know the vibration really kills the enjoyment of driving this car on the highway. Some weeks I drive 400+ miles for work. It drives me nuts.

Mgord

I also have the issue with my TLX SHAWD. The Dealer said it is a problem with all the 6 cylinder cars. I have taken it to 2 different tire shops and have replaced 6 tires. My car has only 5000 miles on it. At first the Dealer said it was the VCM and there was issues with the fluid filled motor mounts. The dealers are waiting on a fix from Acura and we are all stuck with this problem on a $40,000 plus car.

Mgord

That the same tires that I went to but I still have the vibration. Even with the road force balancing machine. That is supposed to detect a bad wheel!

Mgord

Same thing with my 2015 TLX SHAWD even after going to Michelin tires

#172CR

PM'd - And I know, they swore up and down it wasn't the diff because the driveshaft was disconnected...however powered or not, the rear of the car was still in motion rotating. Mine was also avoided almost at all costs because the "engineers" felt it had to be something much more basic causing the issue. Honestly, I'm not surprised, how many people cry wolf with a "rattle" or weird sound/vibration etc?

Just keep at them, eventually they will try other things, hopefully leading to a remedy

Homerman

yes I have 2016 with 12000 km and 19inch as/3 -- the vibration which is pretty much the exact same as the fellow who received new diff, has been getting worse on my car (about 80 percent highway miles) this car replaced a 2015 model that had the vibration problem right off the bat. When I first got the 2016 the issue was very mitigated felt like only 10 to 20 percent compared to the 2015... So hopefully I can convince shop to try a new diff -- Was also told in not so a "direct way" that the frame mounts are not able to isolate out all the vibration at certain speeds ... This could be why car will vibrate at 124 km but not at 140 km/h.. Who knows.. I just want my Acura to be a joy to ride on the freeway like my last 3rd and 4th gen.. I'm starting to covet my neighbors new c300 😖