When I get home at 8pm ill post up my knowledge of the whole situation and stuff I've found out that should be helpful for others

 

Well GeeTee Dan inspired me to call Acura Client Services after I called them about a week ago and was told to go to dealer get info and pics and dealer called me back and said they would do it for 11xx.00 I was expecting something like that. Well I just got of the phone with ACS talked to regular guy first(Steve) and he knew about this problem and really seemed to care. He took some info and asked questions and then passed me to a case manager(Brent) and he really seemed to care and was going to get something done. He said he would contact Acura of Memphis and talk to the Service Manager and get back with me this Monday or Tuesday. They both did mention they knew of this and were car guys themselves. Wish me luck on good news.

 

ok so here it goes

some info that acura tries to use against us determining pricing, known as the 3 strikes

LOYALTY, DEALER HISTORY, MILEAGE/WARRANTY

Off the bat i was asked what kind of loyalty i had with acura/honda. Currently i own an 04 TL and 06 TSX, other than those 2 cars i have only had 1 honda product and that was a beater 89 Accord LXi. Ive owned my 2 acuras a total of 5 years ( tsx-3 Tl-2) so i really dont have my loyalty to acura per say.

Strike 1 for me

Dealership history- Other than purchasing my TL at Crown Acura in Greensboro, it has been back there 1 time for an oil change and tire rotation. I have never had any service done or anything at that dealership. The Dealership that did the repair (Flow Acura), when i dropped my car off with them last wednesday that was the first time i had ever been there.

Stirke 2 for me

Mileage and warrany- As you can see on the receipt from the repair, my mileage at the time was 123k. I was well past any warrant and was originally told that the dash was a wear and tear item and it was Expected to fail after a certain amount of time as any part does.

Strike 3 for me on Mileage


Where i started


Originally it started out with an offer of $800 out of my pocket and i told the Acura client person on the phone that there was no way i was spending that kind of money for a part that shouldnt need replacing. We went back and forth and never got any lower than the $800 offer. I waited a few weeks and let it go until 3 more cracks started. I found acura client relations on twitter and engaged them, 2 days later they responded back with the same $800 offer. Since they wanted to play hard ball then i was game to play right back. I started taking pictures of all the cracks and tagging them on twitter along with #acura and #tl hashtags so anyone that searched for acura or tl would find the images. I also started loading all the photos to Acuras Facebook page. After about 2 weeks of tagging them in all the cracked dash photos and adding one picture of a poster board with the message "I have 2 cars shows this week, wonder how many car enthusiast i can get to notice my cracks and Acuras lack of quality", i got an unexpected phone call saying they would reopen my case and review it on a personal level. 5 days later i was offered $350 and was told that was the absolute best they could do and i had 30 days to except the offer or lose it. We Got things worked out and total bill came to 290 and some change.

AS much as i was about to settle on a dash mat and forget about it, i knew it would come back and bite me in the ass when i either sold the car or traded it in. I would have to take a huge hit on the value so if this $290 saves me $1500 in trade in value later i think its a win win.

This just shows that even having all 3 strikes go against me, YOU CAN win this battle with ACURA. Just have to play a hard game and play nice. I did not resort to name calling or bashing other than getting the problem out in the air more.

Anyone has any other questions just PM me. hope this helps some guys out

 

I'm attempting to REstart this process now. I ended up at a stalemate when my service guy offered only 50% off. I don't think it's fair to have to dish out that much money for something I was aware of, and tried to prevent that is not a wear and tear item. At $300 out of pocket, you've inspired me to give this another go.

J.

 

Good luck Rockstar, I wish you the best. I have to call the case manager today since he has not called like he said he would. We just need to be persistant and play a little hardball it looks like.

 

good luck to you too, bud. I agree, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I will say that although we haven't come to an agreement, the service guy always does call me when he says he will. I put together a pretty good compelling set of the MUST HAVE 3's that Dan listed above as far as history and loyalty etc. I won't accept paying anything more than what he paid. It's only fair.

 

Decided to keep my TL and about to start this process... Hopefully I can get something taken care of soon!

 

Got a call from my Case Manager today and they offered $1,000.00. I told them I can fix it cheaper than that by buying the dash and installing myself. So I started the onslaught of tweets and Facebook messages complaining and showed the invoice that GeeTeeDan posted(THANKS!). Acura on twitter said they would send the info to my case manager, I then requested someone higher than him. Lets see what happens now.

 

Blowing up Facebook.com/acura with pics and comments. Starting on Twitter next.

 

^^^I was supposed to hear back from Sergio last night. Didn't happen. I'll be taking the same approach too. Trust me. I was going to give them until tomorrow.

 

good luck guys, I like Acura but I'm sure they'd like to avoid the negative publicity.

 

The same here I have a crack coming from the driver side air vent to the instrument cluster

 

Ok, from the guys who have lots of experience with this cracking dash issue--is this related to certain years? I pick up lots of '04s and '05s on this thread. Is this just because of older age, or was this cracking issue corrected at some point?

 

Supposedly it is mainly 04-06. Sometime in the 06 production they changed part #s on dash, but i think i have read some 07-08 have reported cracks. Maybe others will chime in for a correct answer.

 

Well, call me old fashioned, but I don't like to count my chickens till they're hatched and off to college. My big update was that I dropped my car off at Acura on Wednesday for the dash replacement. After much deliberation, they did end up reconsidering the offer and I was able to get the dash replaced and my new dunlop direzzas (thanks Justin, for the suggestion) for just shy of $400 out the door.

Persistence, patience and keeping a cool head prevailed in dealing with Acura and I wholeheartedly feel they did right by me. As far as tires...they charge the same as tires plus or firestone and they are ON POINT with their balance being perfect. They line up the yellow dot with the valvestem, they take off all old weights and they pump to the correct PSI. I always get them done at Acura from now on.


Thanks to all the members on here that were willing to share their story and gave me the push I needed to follow through.

 

I have been considering selling my car because I know about the "inevitable" dash cracking that members are experiencing. maybe i can work something out too with the dealership. glad to hear that this wasnt a nightmare story with them messing up your interior or the dash not aligning proerly with the factory curves of the interior.

I only have one crack right now and it doesnt bother me yet. but i have seen pictures of members cars that I would not be proud to say I own an acura.

Now, if I can get up enough motivation to allow someone else to work on my car.

 

my dash finally just cracked at 166k, going to the dealer today to start the process and hopefully ill come out with some good news, if not going to corporate, Ive printed out about 1000 pages off this forum of people with this same problem. shouldn't have any problems convincing them its a common problem once they see all of the papers lol

 

It's a business, they can't just bend over and pay $1500 for EVERY one with a failed dash on nearly 10 year old cars. Just be nice, and have your facts together. I think that taking it to the dealer and letting them assess and come back to you with an offer is the first smart step.

05...guess what? I had the same fear which was why I didn't overly pursue it originally. I don't like anyone touching anything on my car if I can help it. I get it back and I'm like...EWWW you been cheating, i smell another man on you!

I did have a sort of self induced debacle though...I thought the top part of the dash comes out on it's own, so I prepped as much as possible...removing vents and trim and center console...I tie wrapped my stuff to the bottom area but was still in the way. A lot of hours into the job, I get a call that I'll have to pay to have them reroute and undo all my aftermarket wiring...(a LOT of money) and they won't guarantee it'll work. I was furious...

I told them to sit tight and flew over to the dealership...once I saw it in person though and understood that EVERYTHING had to come out and my wires WERE in the way, I quietly went to work and labeled and tie wrapped everything out of the way. The tech and foreman were impressed with how quickly and perfectly I did it. I said "am I hired, or what?!?!" ha ha...

when I got there,

an hour later...all I had to say was that sometimes, the customer is the ahole. The poor techs only get paid for the time they are SUPPOSED to do something so the poor dude would have been stuck there working on my car for free. I was wrong.



and for all those doubting...the newer models have a portion of the dash on top that comes out easier...this is a serious job.

 

jeez

 

1.)never doubted it was a serious job, plain and simple this is a far to common problem for it to be OUR problem. With class action law suits in process it is obvious to me that they are holding back because this is a labor intensive job and costly to the dealership, but like i said they should not make this our problem when it is such a huge issue in the TL world.

2.)think they would have any issues with my aftermarket alarm? also would they have issues with my sound system wiring?

3.) rockstar, what is all your aftermarket wiring? lol

 

Man, I had no idea this was a factory defect kind of thing. I just figured my wife had left her '04 TL out in the sun too much (though the size and number of cracks did surprise me on what was a 5-year-old car the first time I saw them).

Anyway, thanks to all for keeping up with this thread. I'll definitely reference it the next time I'm at the dealer to see what they can do for me. Every little bit of trade in value helps down the road.

 

This is one lesson learned for me. Dealership has NO stake in the matter...they are there to provide a service whether Acura pays for it, or customer pays for it. They can agree or disagree till blue in the face but don't get angry with the dealerships if they can't approve more. This is an Acura thing. Nismo, wasn't responding just to you, just a blanket statement.

As long as all your wiring is way down below the dash and not routed around any of the metal bracing for the dash, you'll be ok. My wires are...well, mention anything and it's in there.

 

haha thanks rockstar! just went to the dealer and talked to acura client services, see my thread for updates.

 

I got a letter from a supposed law firm about this issue. Is it a scam?

 

I started doing the class action suit too, but never got any follow up for it...maybe it's phishing. OR, it's behind the scenes and it's helping the case to help us out with this cause.

 

Inspired. I've really been procrastinating on this issue. I guess its back to work.

 

Give me a month or two and I will have the ultimate DIY #1750(for average price at dealer to replace). I am debating to go ahead and install wireless remote start alarm and upgrade front speakers. I will let you know when I purchase dash.

 

I can't wait...if there had been one I would have probably done my own

 

Glad i inspired a few other members

 

You did, my friend...you really did. Thank you for sharing your stories.

 

Maybe if we go to the same dealer we might have a better chance of them doing something about it, since they will know it isn't a freak thing that happens

 

I asked a new member here, who happens to also be an Acura tech at a dealership, about this issue. I mentioned my dealer said they never saw it before and mentioned this thread with a bunch of us having this issue.

Here is what he said:

I just wanted to thank him for letting us know from a tech's perspective. And out of respect, I'm not going to give you his name because I just know people will bombard him with messages and emails about this even though he just gave us all his input/answer. If you want to ask him something else, it shouldn't be too hard to find him

 

talked with the news and things are looking good on that end, she said she wants at least one more person with this problem or who has experienced this issue in the central VA area, if your in VA period just let me know and im sure that would work too.

 

I bought a Dash Designs cover in the past 2 weeks and installed it today. I wanted to get a gray cover to match the color of my interior, plus I figured dirt and dust won't show as easily. It went on really well and easily, and it lines up well. It's the DashTex material:









Maybe it's a little light (maybe I should have bought the charcoal color), but overall, I'm happy with it.

 

looks good^

 

That seam down the middle above the gauge cluster would drive my nuts. I hate the way dash covers look, too. So that was never really an option for me. If you like it, roll with it! It's a hell of a lot cheaper! haha.

 

hi friends, like most of you i'm in the same situacion here with the dash, i have been an acura fan, my first car was an acura integra 1995 sedan, then was my belove acura rsx with all type R, and fanally my baby an acura TL 2005. so and an acura pasionet, i bought my tl on september 2 2012 with 54,400 miles, with a circle crack in the dahs near the woofer, but no notice it was a crack, i so it was a dash design, 7 days ago i notice a crack in the passeger airbag, i have a lot of care with car, but cause it all ready have a crack the second i so was inebitable.... i almost cry. the real deal is that i live in dominican republic and bought the car in a normal dealer (no acura one). the dealer don't give me any warranty with that even my car insurance don't give any chance with my dash (it's normal in my country to treat a costumer in that way). what can i do? does acura could change it? is any way to repair it?

 

Good Point. I plan on contacting corporate first and I'll keep you posted. With both TL's + yours suffering from the same ordeal, results are bound to happen.

 

Keep your heads up, everyone...there is light at the end of the tunnel

 

Problems like this is why I will never buy a used car again. Too many unknowns.