FastFurious

HI All,
I bought brand new Acura RDX 2019 in July last year, It has hardly 8000 miles on it..

I faced this scary situation few days ago, I was driving my RDX while it was raining heavily, the rain stopped after some time, I was driving on highway and all of a sudden "Check Engine Light" started blinking, car started shaking, speed dropped to 30-40 mph and the car could not go faster than that.
I was lucky that there was no car right behind me, I somehow changed lanes & took the very first exit. Stopped the car in safe pace. I turned off the engine and turned it back on. And the Check Engine Light disappeared.

I reported it to the dealer, they checked but strangely there was no error code they found. They did few road tests. They are working with Acura Tech Line for help. They tried reproducing the problem by spraying water on the car because they suspected water entering engine could have caused this problem. Still They could not reproduce the issue. Dealer is saying it could be one off thing, so take your car back and hope it doesn't happen again.
The car is still with the dealer, its been 9 days already.

I want to know if anyone has experienced this type of issue on their Acura RDX 2019... Please share your experience and next steps you took. What are my options

I am worried driving this vehicle, My trust & faith in RDX 2019 & Acura brand overall is shaken. I feel i paid 50K US$ to buy a problem than peace of mind.

Thanks.

robnalex

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RDX-Rick

According to the owners manual, a blinking MIL indicates an engine misfire.

If water was being splashed, or significant tire spray was occurring, it's quite possible that the water was shorting out electronic circuits under the hood (the ignition coils in particular), causing a misfire.

When the light does blink you are suppose to pull over in a safe place and turn off the engine for 10 minutes, and then restart it. You actually did perform this step, but didn't wait the full 10 minutes.

The manual recommends that if the light continues blinking after restarting the engine, that you see the dealer. If the light does not blink when you restart, then the manual does not suggest you do anything.

You may never know the cause of your blinking light, but under your driving conditions, a misfire caused by water is a strong possibility. In addition a misfire would cause the symptoms of rough running and a lack of power which you did experience.

I also feel that Acura was aware that this problem could occur, to the point of printing instructions on what to do if it should happen. Because of this awareness, I wouldn't place this problem into the category of completely unexpected, but rather a temporary problem that resolved itself as Acura expected.