nothome17

Acura's quality has gone down because of the DCT issues, engine wise it's a tank. From what I noticed from the early 1990's to 2000's, Honda/Acura automatic transmissions were like glass. Now the DCT seems like it's living up to that history of glass transmissions.

For manual transmissions, different story. I think this is where Honda/Acura lived up to the quality since manual transmissions lasted for a long time. Other than the infamous 3rd gear grind on the 1990-2000 manual models. This was remedied when Honda changed the transmission oil.

Cars owned:
1992 GSR
2001 GSR
2006 TSX manual
2008 Acura TL Type S - Automatic, 3-4th gear shudder.

Saintor

My friend you are very confused.

Sarlacc

Hondas and Acuras alike have had transmission issues in recent years.

Acuras brand in general had taken a giant shit because no one there knows what to do with it, has the balls to do anything with it, or being allowed to have the balls to do anything with it.

D's Up

Acura is the greatest brand ever. The new ZR1 is being made to target the current TLX. Acura is OP.

nothome17

If Acura brings manual back, it should cut down on the ZF problems. Which should give them time to address ZF tranny issues.

Saintor

You are confusing everything. Acura's DCT 8- sp. have almost no issue. Acura's ZF9 needed attention in 2015, FAR less from the troubles Honda/Acura went over 3-4 years circa 2000.

2016s ZF9 are also in the MDX and are perfectly fine transmissions.

nothome17

Ahh okay, correction, 1990's to 2000 quality was great then went down after that. TBD for 2015-2020

Sarlacc

Aside from us enthusiasts...and even thats dropping, people aren't buying manuals.

Nexx

ZF issues for the most part were fixed halfway through the 2015 year model. I have not had any clients who have complained about 2016 or 2017 models. the ZF in the MDX has always worked great. the 8 speed DCT is solid. at the least we havent seen any complete failures just some rough shifts on the early run of the TLX's .

00TL-P3.2

Sad, but true

Nexx

unless its a weekend warrior type car screw manuals. i will gladly drive an automatic daily.

CanTex

Yep. My '15 TLX with DCT had a "slamming" problem at low speeds. Either the software fix or the transmission learning my driving fixed it. I'm going with the software update. I don't even think about the transmission anymore.

Re: Glass transmissions. My '01 TL went through four of those.

TacoBello

OP, Saintor loves anything he owns, and will defend it to the death. Case in point- he owns an Acura and sees no fault with them whatsoever and they're the greatest great the car world has ever witnessed.

for those of us back down to earth, and for those of us who've been with the brand for well over a decade, we know what true reliability and quality were. The days of old Acura are over, where they quite literally were reliable as all hell. The only issue with them was the body would rust away before anything else major happened. that's not to say they didn't have problems, but comparing to today's standards, they seemed bulletproof.

They used to be *the* cars to buy...

Now, they're the generic and generally forgotten brand floating somewhere in a vast sea of many cars... While Acura sales may have rebounded a bit (but still not touching the days of yore), just look at the demographic buying them. If it wasn't for the MDX and RDX, the company would seize to exist. RLX sales are shit. ILX sales are shit. TLX sales are an improvement from before, but still unable to attain the level of success the two cars it replaced (the TL and TSX).

I whole heartedly agree that the company is a mere skeleton of what it used to be. But don't ask Saintor. He thrives on these threads for him to justify how great everything is, as he looks through his rose colored glasses.

Saintor

TacoDummy,instead of talking sh*t and attacking me, prove us that the TLX 2016+ transmissions are problematic or shut up.

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

^want another time out!? no name calling!

TacoBello

That, and it's not only related to the transmission. And maybe they finally got the 2016 figured out, but there's a long list of BS prioblems that Acura nor Honda ever had before, but do now, from over the past decade. You're relatively new to the brand. I've been with them for 20 years now. Our perspectives are not equal in size, by any stretch of the imagination- and not just reading, but turning wrenches, being driven in, and eventually driving them on my own, across a plethora of models.

but I find it interesting that whenever anyone complains about their car- yup, even current owners complaining about something, your first response is always condescending and more or less insinuating they are dumb.

Saintor

Ok so you can't prove the BS that you are posting. Business as usual.

nothome17

Google search 2015 TLX tranny issues

Saintor, have you owned other Acura models in the past?

TacoBello

Nope.

Saintor

Don't listen to the troll, I owned 3 Honda in the past.... two loaded Accord (1996, 1999) and a Civic. Oh, I also signed for an Accord 1992 but the dealer tried to stiff me, so I ended with a 1992 Mazda MX-3 GS V6 1.8... which I regretted and wished I rather got a 1992 Integra GS-R.

"Google search 2015 TLX tranny issues", equivalent of:



Welcome to 2016. Scratch that. 2017 now.

TacoBello

Who's trolling? So you owned a couple Hondas 20 years ago... Then nothing for 20 years, and now back in to a Honda. Me thinks your memories of years gone past might be bit off. By the way, the TLX has many more issues than just the transmission and the ZF transmission is still shit, even if they got the kinks out of it.

F23A4

11.6k on the dial and so far so good with my '16 3.5. 😎

04WDPSeDaN

iTrader: (1)

Ill chime in

This is my 1st Honda / Acura product that I've owned, that being my 04 TL. I've owned this vehicle for 10 years. At 51K my engine suffered from a wrist pin failure. Just out of warranty, I was lucky enough to get some assistance through corporate. This was also 7 years ago. Along the way, my TL has gone through some questionable failures, other than the dashboard crack (total bs) which was a defect from factory. I worked in the industry as an ASE certified technician. I landed a job at Acura and worked for them for a few years. When I was at Acura, I noticed the decline in quality in their vehicles. This was at the time the 4th gen TL had come out. Everyday I was doing warranty work on either the MDX, TL or TSX. I had a 2010 RL with 6,000 miles come in for nurmous rattles on the interior. I had taken apart nearly the entire dashboard, center console and over head console to apply Acura Felt tape on every plastic tab and around the plastic surfaces to damping the noise. There was an 2011 MDX that came in with a ton of electrical issues. This MDX had just rolled off the delivery truck. Long story short, the entire floor harness to the rear harness, had to be replaced. Somewhere along the assembly line, the harness wasn't made correctly. When I worked in the PDI department (New vehicle and prep work) I've caught a lot of missing items and mistakes. Once the TLX came out with the new MDX everything pretty much went to hell. You knew as soon as you walked in, there would be a diag./ warranty repair waiting for the MDX or TLX. I was re-flashing at least 30 TLX a day, for the transmission issue. The MDX's had a ton of electrical issues. The RLX came out which shared the same systems the MDX had and before they can even leave the lot, they were inside the shop for warranty repairs. I could write a 10 page report from all the years I worked at Acura. I would never buy another Acura / Honda product. They are behind the times and really have nothing great to offer. Most of the automotive industry has moved on to force induction with lots of advanced technology. Why do you think they got rid of the Turbo RDX? The turbo units were taking a shit around 70K and Acura wanted 5-7K for a turbo unit. I replaced those a few times under Warranty. I will say, I don't miss doing a ton of transmissions, the 2nd gen TSX engines due to oil consumption and a ton of other warranty work.

TacoBello

projektvertx

iTrader: (2)

Honesty, I can say the same thing about Toyota and most other brands. I have the Camry that was second to the LS name plate in terms or R&D spending and believe me, at 270k relatively trouble free miles, I can tell. With each successive generation of Camry that's been released, it's been a downward trend in overall quality. I honestly think Toyota has been getting away with it's mid-90's reputation for quality nowadays. I can honestly say the same thing with Acura, having had the 1G and now a 2G RL. It's honestly just not the same. Yes, the 2G is relatively well built and I love it, but still. The 1G is still in my family and I recently drove it 1500 miles over the Christmas period. Within 10 miles of driving it the first thing I noticed was the leather quality is significantly better in the 1G and feels much more durable to the touch. All of the dash bulbs were still original, which I've had to gradually start changing in my 2G. Keep in mind, the 1G now has twice the miles and is 10 years older... And that's among the many small things I noticed as well

nist7

Thanks for the interesting glimpse into the world from the other side of the dealer service bay, so to speak.

Not to question your valid experiences, but I wonder if you could speak or even had access to any internal Honda data on part failure/warranty work percentages and if Honda did any comparison to other brands or to the industry? (ie % failure for certain part whether its engine/transmission/electrical/etc.)

Because while I can see how your experience at Acura turned you off from Honda products for good, I also see that as a repair technician you will see broken down cars all day since that will be your job...similar to any other tech who works at any other branded dealer's service bay. And if a person sees an Acura/Ford/Lexus/BMW being taken in for repairs day after day after day....it may subtlely influence their feeling towards that brand? Again, not to invalidate your experience but do you think that your job as a repair tech could've colored your view towards Acura products? Just some genuine thoughts I had here.

edit: Another curious thought for those who are more knowledgeable/experienced than me. If indeed it is true that Honda and Toyota are actually declining in their quality/reliability...then do we know why it is so? I mean obviously no brand wants to intentionally go lower quality.....I assume....and I'm pretty certain to be hired on as an engineer/technician/etc. over at such a big name as Honda/Toyota you would need to be well qualified and experienced and with the millions of dollars and thousands of hours put in every year to develop parts/cars that things like this shouldn't happen? Or is it a matter of more cars being made each year....which overtime more cars are being churned out by the big companies as they grow and would lead to raw number increase in failures....

TacoBello

I think it may have a lot to do with manufacturers cramming in as much tech as possible, while keeping the cars competitively priced. So to do that, they revisit certain parts and cheapen them down. Use cheaper materials, etc.

That, and it is also likely related to poor design in some instances (thinking about the 3G TL compliance bushings failing prematurely.. It could be bcause they cheated out on the material, or there is something inherently wrong with the suspension design that puts excessive stress on the bushings). Who knows.

as a tech, I highly doubt they get access to percent failures, or look at other brands failures, etc. That's a corporate level thing. Dealerships don't give a damn about something breaking over and over. They make money by replacing it. Nor is it a tech's job to dig into the nitty gritty business of parts failures. They're there to diagnose and fix problems, using OEM parts. Not down playing the role they play, but what you're describing actually gets done by third party companies and/or corporate itself (and even then, I think corporate just outsources to these third party companies). They look at, say, a shifter, tear it down its every component, do cost analysis, look at manufacturing etc, and they put massive binders together for each and every car. Other brands then pay to see this info- see where they can cut costs, improve design, whatever. I believe I read a whole article about it on Jalopnik, within the last 6 months. It may have even been here on AZ... It's been awhile so I don't really remember.

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

through my short period of life, ANY TIME there is a decrease in quality, it's due to management cutting corners one way or another, or complacency.

this applies TO everything in life. Once you get lazy, quality decreases

gnuts

iTrader: (1)

I think this is spot on. Cars are becoming more like computers and less like machines. There's just more to go wrong. Maybe more time spent on the tech side than the more important mechanical side of things.

TacoBello

That, or we start paying more for our cars. It's not that they can't be made bullet proof. But a car company has to face some facts- if they build a truly bullet proof car, people would drive them longer and would buy less. That's not in a manufacturer's bestinterests. Even back in the day when a Honda could easily roll past the 500,000 mile mark, the body would rust away much sooner. They could have prevented it... But it's not in their best interests to do so.

And as mentioned, prices would go up. People want to pay as little as possible for anything and everything- it's in our nature, when we have fixed incomes, to spend less. As soon as one manufacturer starts cutting corners and reducing parts lives from, say, 15 years, to 10 years, they can offer that car for that much cheaper, attracting that many more buyers... And no one would be the wiser that the part life was cut in half.

nothome17

Funny you mention the 3G TL Compliance bushings, that went bad on my 2008 TL Type S after warranty was done. Talk about bad timing to go bad.

The oil pump went bad to after warranty so I had it done. Same time I went ahead and had the water pump/timing belt replaced to save on labor.

Other than that, just regular 3-4th gear pressure switches changed during tranny flushes.

thoiboi

Those are notorious though.. nothing new really


https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-problems-fixes-114/04-08-front-lower-control-arm-bushing-failure-please-read-look-707888/

nothome17

Yes, it was talked about but was new to me back then. I expected my 2006 TSX to have an issue first before the 2008 TL.

trancemission

ugh, wish it werent true but Honda just got bland. I thought my TL was the best car ever, then I sat in the GTI and heard how the door shut, a solid thud. Didnt sound like a fucking screen door with a jar of marbles in it.

Saintor

Totally the other way around in my perspective.

The dressed-up Golf got blander with Mk VII, unimpressed with its interior as well. The Mk VI was more interesting. There may be issue of "screen door with a jar of marbles in it" in the TL, but not in the TLX.

nist7

Definitely the increased tech and more features will add to more parts failing. Suppose it makes sense. And the fact that a modern car has thousands of parts that all have to work together...in the desert heat or blistering cold and an engine that revs thousands of times per minute for hundreds of thousands of miles.....so maybe we are a bit taking things for granted just a tad bit here. When none of these things we take as normal would be absolutely magic back in the day.

As Louis CK famous quips: "Everything is amazing and nobody is happy."

I ask about hard date for failure rates simply because I wanted to see if there are objective hard data to see "reliability" in this manner. We have forums and CR and all kinds of things that will get a sense of the court of public opinion...but coming from a profession that is more data-driven and scientific...I'm curious to see if there are more objective numbers for reliability when comparing Honda vs Toyota vs Acura vs Lexus vs BMW vs etc. etc.

04WDPSeDaN

iTrader: (1)

I started my Automotive journey when I was 16 years old. During the Summer, I was working M-F at a family friends shop. His job, was to show me how things are done in the shop and basic services on the vehicles. During my Highschool years, I took auto shop class 3 out of the 4 years. He taught us the basics plus basic auto body work. While going to LTI, I landed a part time job (Nearly full time) with a private shop. The shop owner was somewhat of a famous radio talk show car guy. Now he does commercials and other things. I worked for him a little more than 5 years. He paid for the technicians to attend TST training classes and helped with obtaining ASE's. While there, I worked on every single vehicle. A-Z, from cars, to light duty trucks to vans. You start to pick up with's the common issues on specific year make and models. At some point, you already knew what to look for when these things came into the shop. It also taught me how each manufacture designs and builds their vehicles. Some, were down right "What the F%#K where they thinking" designs. Audi's timing belt's
(older ones) that require you remove the whole front end to do the job. Ford had a bunch of V8 and V10 engines that suffered from spark plugs blowing out of the heads. Talk about a nightmare. Did a timing belt job on a 2000 VW Beetle and did one on a PT cruiser, talk about the biggest horse shit design with almost Zero room to do the damn job. One thing we didn't deal with was the Warranty side that the dealership did. We had one guy who only did diagnosis. I would spend time with him to understand how to diagnose vehicles correctly. Sometimes that part of the field is harder than pushing wrenches. Fast forward. I landed a job with Acura. This dealership also sold BMW, so while I was working in the CPO/PDI division in Acura, I got to work on BMW as well. In a dealership the job is a bit different from a private shop. You're more involved now in everything related to that brand. In a private shop, they don't deal with interior noises or fix my leather ect. At a dealership, it's like relearning everything again. I started to learn everything about Acura, down to the little thing that technicians in private shops won't know how to do.

At the dealership you are assigned a technician number and you are signed up in the Acura data base to use their software for diagnosis and running vins. Even the HDS required a technician log in number. This is something a private shop normally wouldn't have. They would use a very good snap-on scan tool that would scan vehicles A-Z, but won't have the power the dealership has. Again, i'm sure times have changed and private shops are now able to have full access to the vehicles modules. If there was a very common issue with any of the Acura's, we would have a "shop meeting". The shop manager and shop foremen would say "There's a silent TSB or TSB on XXXXX and it's for XXXXX reason why XXXX" . They would hold meetings for when a new revised or new generation vehicles, to go over details and what to expect. In a dealership, it was mandatory to take on-line tests, this was done at home (personal time) and your progress get reported back to the boss. The technicians were always up to date and trained properly IF you actually did the tests and passed. Also at the dealership was had "Tech line" in where we called Acura engineers to help trouble shoot an unknown issue. I had several of those with the 4th gen TL. There is no where in their system (For a technician) to see what was a common failure and the failure rate. Acura likes to play a blind eye on these things. I would say across the board from service advisers to parts to technicians, we all had an idea on what was common and what wasn't. The parts department handled the return warranty issues. As technicians we filled out the R/O and the service adviser calls parts and tells them to order the parts needed. I had no hand in the actual paper work. I will tell you that where ever the defective parts go, that department sure as hell inspects them. You wanted to make sure you were 100% correct on the defect.

In closing, I'm sure, no matter what brand, if you work in the dealership you'll have a better understanding on what's common for whatever model and year. No vehicle is made to be bullet proof. I never had to chance to work at any other dealership other than Acura and a bit of BMW. I can tell you what was common on some BMW's but I wasn't a full time technician for them. I will say their PDI totally different from Acura. Acura, usually has 2 fuses on the glove box in which you have to install before doing the inspection process. BMW, you need to plug into the OBD2 connector and the computer system uploads all the information to the vehicles modules. BMW CPO process was more involved than Acura's. I'm sure if you search enough and ask other's how worked for Acura, at least from 06-current, they might tell you the same story, at least when it comes to your question about the quality. I never had anything against Acura and this was the longest time. But you thoughts change as you see things from the inside. As a consumer, you wouldn't see what a technician normally see's on the daily. As an enthusiast, Acura has nothing to offer, and that's just my opinion. What I like, may not be the same thing you like. Acura was at one point a very solid company and when you heard Honda or Acura, you though reliability, longevity and great value. Now, you look at what these things cost and what you get (bang for buck) and realize, other manufactures exceed what Acura offers and do it better, look better and have at least something worth bragging about.

trancemission

I disagree, if anything the Golfs were consistent.

The GTI was my first VW so I didnt really have a frame of reference when it came to it getting blander. The Autobahn edition had HID's and leather seats but I liked the plaid lol.
I was speaking from just a quality standpoint. The build quality felt better. I am comparing an 05 TL to a 2013 GTI, so maybe that isnt fair.

The 3G TL to me was a home run. They had momentum. But the 4G was a fucking disaster. Believe me, I want Acura to be good. Im still very good friends with the guy who sold me my TL back in 05. Hes the GM now. I went to visit him just recently. I sat in a TLX.

You drop a twin turbo 3.5 V6 in that and bring back Aspec or Type S and I think that would be a good start. The question is, would that even be enough?

Saintor

Are you prepared to pay 5-6K more for it? Saw the price of that Q50 TT?

I would prefer a NA 3.8L 325HP, much cheaper... BTW, 2018 A-spec or whatever is coming....

I was going to buy a 3G in 2005... BMW's lease conditions won. Loved that E46, no matter the HP deficit. Owned an E90, can't say the same for the following gens.

trancemission

no I wouldn't pay it. You are correct. I'm just saying they need a shot in the arm