CarComplaints.com Notes: The 1999-2003 Acura TL has a known & widespread defect with the transmission.
Honda fixed some vehicles with a recall in 2004 by changing the oil cooler return line. To settle a class action lawsuit in 2006, Honda extended the transmission warranty on some of these Acura TL's to 93 months / 109,000 miles.
Now these vehicles are past the warranty limit, so buyer beware.
10.0
really awful
Crashes / Fires:
3 / 0
Injuries / Deaths:
1 / 1
Average Mileage:
40,890 miles
About These NHTSA Complaints:
This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
Transmission downshifts randomly in automatic, or will not upshift. In sport shift mode, transmission may refuse to upshift or downshift when supposed to and will only shift after repeated tries. Also in auto, transmission will sometimes temporarily shift completely out of gear then back in.
The transmission had been exhibing some shifting problems a few days leading up to the failure. When it failed, it would not shift up to 3rd gear. I tried to turn the car around to head to the dealer and was momentarily unable to shift into drive or reverse because it would not engage. After about 5 tries I was able to shift into reverse and then back into drive and limped the car to the nearest parking lot where I waited for a tow truck. Had this happened on a highway it might have been much more serious. I have heard of people with a cl or TL (same transmission) that have had their transmission fail when doing 60+ mph and it shifts down into 2nd without warning. Very dangerous!
Dangerously faulty transmission caused me to crash vehicle, slipped into "park" at high speeds on freeway locking-up tires. Faulty rotors/brake pads cause steering wheel to "shimmy" at braking.
- Midway City, CA, USA
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Transmission will start to slip out of gear, starting from 2 to 5th. Contacted dealer, and the dealer was not willing to do anything.*akdealer told consumer to bring vehicle in. After inspection, it was determined the transmission needed replacing. A rebuilt transmission was put into vehicle.
Acura has defective transmission design.. they needs to recall all transmission or have a lifetime warranty replacement on part/labor on this kind of transmission.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Weston, FL, USA