acuratl26

Hi all,

I have a '00 TL with 170K miles on it (just hit the 170 milestone last week). I love the car and the fact that it has been a zero maintenance trusted daily driver since I got it 3 years ago.

However, off late I am seeing a couple of issues:

1. When the headlights were going pink, I got the hint and replaced them with aftermarket ones ( from HIDExtra). The lights themselves are good, but the passenger side headlight has a mind of its own. When I start the car and turn on the headlights, it comes on sometimes and does not come on on other days. Even when driving, it goes off and comes back on, only to then go off again. It keeps doing this often, and there is no specific time durations for each of those actions. I checked the grounds (after the recommendation from this forum) and they seem to be fine. Any other recommendation on what could be wrong?

2. Now I am facing a peculiar problem with the driver side headlight. After turning on the light, it comes on, but goes off after about 20-25 seconds and never comes back on. I need to turn off and turn the headlights back one, for the driver side headlight to comes on. What could be the reason here?

3. I just started seeing the Check Engine light back on. I went to Oreilly and its the same Engine Misfire codes (P0300/0301/0302/0304/0305/1399). I had changed the sparkplugs with Iridium ones. Is there some fix/troubleshooting I can do at home? Or will I need to take it into a shop for it?

4. Another peculiar thing I experience is when I visit a specific Costco (in Issaquah in Washington state). Whenever I start my car after parking there and coming back from shopping, it struggles to start, and even when it starts, I can feel that not all cylinders are firing, and the car is struggling for power. If I give gas, after a little while, it comes to life (sometimes its 5-10 seconds and sometimes it is after driving for about 20 yards). After that it drives like a charm. What gives?

Thanks in advance for any help/recommendations.

elfnumber1

hi there seattle-area pal! wanna be my friend? been looking for a local TL friend to play with.

1) did you change the ballasts? assume if you went aftermarket, these days they should all come together with bulb, ballast and igniter for cheap
2) i had this same issue, so replaced all that i mentioned above
3) what do all those codes mean? have you looked them up?
4) i'm not mechanically inclined enough to answer this, i'm sure it has something to do with your codes. asking again what those generally mean?

Iggy

Headlight issue sounds like ballasts.

P03?? codes are all specific cylinder miss fire codes, P1399 is random miss fire.

If it ran fine before the spark plug change then it would be a safe bet that the new plugs are the culprit. What brand and model plugs did you install?

RONE

Was it cold when you got the cylinder misfire codes? Probably a bad coil. I just had that happen to me a couple months ago. Buy one new coil ($40 at Autozone) and change out each coil one at a time until you fix the issue.

Steps:
Remove one coil
Install new coil in its place
Clear CEL (you have to pull a fuse from fuse panel in passenger kick panel - you'll have to search for which one)
Start car and see if CEL returns.
If it does, remove the new coil and reinstall the old coil
Move to the next unchecked coil and repeat the whole process

It was the fourth coil I checked that was bad. The front three are dead easy to replace. The back three are a little harder to access, but still not terrible. A couple weeks later I went ahead and replaced the remaining five coils as I figured after 260K miles it was probably time to just replace all of them seeing as one had gone bad.

CL-S24

for 4. It's most likely the Fuel Pump Relay. You can either resolder everything or buy a new one.

acuratl26

Hi all,

I am back. Apologies for not getting back on the questions that were asked.

So, looks like I finally figured out what the issue could be. Last week, after driving the car for about 1 hour, when I parked it for about 10-15 minutes and tried to restart it, the car was cranking, but refused to start. I called for a tow, and when the tow arrived (about 2 hours later), when I tried to reproduce the issue, the car started with no issues at all.

So, the next day, I took it to Acura of Bellevue, and they asked for $150 diagnosis and kinda hinted that the issue could be with the Fuel Pressure Regulator, which is a $2K-$3K fix. I refused the service and came back and did a little more research on the ever resourceful Acurazine.

Looks like it is a known issue in the Pacific NorthWest (and any other cold state that uses cold weather gas) and specifically with engines in 2000 model year cars (not just Acura). FPR is one of the issues, but if the engine is hot, then the engine misfires and stalling (when trying to start the car after driving for a while) is a known issue. If we let the engine cool down, the issue self-heals and we have a perfectly running car.

As for the headlights, I am learning to live with it for now. Dont have the time to deal with it. In any case, I am about to hit summer here, and headlights wont be needed for my daily commute. I will try to find cheap ballasts in the meanwhile, for replacement.

elfnumber1

So if it is a known issue there hasn't been a fox for it yet? Feels like my car does the same thing, just not as exaggerated. My warm starts over the course of several errands get harder and harder to start, but always does.

What brand gas and type do you use? Does it matter? Have you tried variations?

Let me know if you need/ want help with your lights, I'm in Bellevue as well and did mine recently.

Chojun

I have an '03 with the same problem. My gas mileage in the winter goes to crap (26-27 highway) and if I have errands with frequent stops then it will be difficult to start.

Now that we're off of winter blend my MPG is back up to around 31.5. Under the right conditions I get a little above 32MPG. The issue has never occurred in the summer so I don't think it's the fuel pump relay. I don't really have any good ideas as to what the problem could be, other than possibly the Fuel Pressure Regulator.

elfnumber1

Holy crap dude, my mother is closer to 22-23... what's wrong with my car??

Chojun

Mine has 196K on the clock and I haven't changed out any of the sensors. I need to check my plugs to be sure but I think I might be getting good MPG because I'm running lean.

RONE

That's the mileage I get, too.