Actual email information sent to Acura Coporation:

I purchase a Certified Pre-owned 2012 Acura TL in May of 2014. After I purchased it, a few months later I noticed a lag at times between automatic gear shifting. I paid no attention to it, because I never owned an Acura TL before, so I thought this was the way it was supposed to operate. It had been doing this for months after I purchased it. Up until last month, I was trying to overtake a semi-truck on the freeway in Walnut Creek, CA heading home the gears severely lag for the first time. When this happened you could feel the car thoroughly drag and immensely stall and slow down. This caused the semi-truck to almost rear end me! This made me incredibly nervous! After this incident I simply drove my TL close to home trying my best to avoid freeways until I could make an appointment to bring it in. I set up an appointment on 07/01/2015 to have it checked out at the Acura of Concord dealership in Northern California. However, I was leaving work 10:30am on 07/03/2015 driving on the street and my TL severely lagged and the gears loss power again, causing the engine to seem as if it were about to stall. Since this happened, I took the my TL immediately in to be looked at by a Acura service at the dealership in Concord.

The service department consultant K had one of his master mechanics test drive my car. The master mechanic verified that after he completed the test drive with me,that he could feel there were definite gear and transmission issues that needed to be immediately addressed. When he was test driving the car with me on the freeway he said he could feel the gears not shifting properly and could see the tachometer fluttering up and down. So he said my TL needed to be brought in so a thorough test could be completed on it. I told the service consultant K that I was leery about driving the car over the weekend since I had some freeway driving to do. However, he advised that there was nothing he could do. He stated there were no loaner cars he could give me! He said I would have to try to drive it over the weekend and bring it to the regularly schedule appointment at 8:10am on 07/07/2015. Fortunately no accidents occurred! LOL! However, I must admit I was distressed over the fact that no effort was given to try to put me into any one of their operational cars for safety. I would have even accepted driving another functional certified pre-owned vehicle that I saw they had on their lot at the time. However, I didn't let K know I was aware this, because I was hoping he would make this suggestion on his own. If he need management approval this would have been okay with me. I have excellent insurance and driving record, but none of those offers were extended to me! So the level of customer serviced I received perturbed me a bit, especially due to the seriousness of my vehicles situation.

I'm also sending this email just in case this is a possible recall issue you may have not noticed yet. I went on your website and I noticed no were no recall issues listed for my vehicle. I also worried to if they have to open the vehicle up will this have a domino affect in causing possible damage to other sensitive parts in my Acura TL since your company built my model vehicle with the engine parts so close and compact to one another.

Thanks Acura for listening.

There was a shifting problem with my car and after consulting with an independent technician I took my 2012 Acura TL to Acura of Hamilton on November 6, 2014 to find out what the issue was with the transmission. The symptoms were as under:

TRANSMISSION HAD HARD SHIFTING AND AT LOW SPEEDS IT WAS SHIFTING TOO QUICK AND I NOTICED DOWN SHIFTING WAS NOT SMOOTH. FROM TIME TO TIME. I COULD FEEL VIBRATION FROM TRANSMISSION WHILE SHIFTING GEARS When I first brought my car to Acura Of Hamilton, they charged me a diagnostic fee of $135.60. Their result from the diagnoses was that I needed to change the fuel to premium grade. I was told that this would fix the issue. I did as I was instructed and drove car for a few days. The change of fuel did not help at all. I went back to them several times and I had to explain the problem to them but every time they made me feel that I was wrong.

After all the aggravation they told me that there might be an issue with the transmission fluid. On November 16, 2014 they charged me for $111.05 for the transmission service. I drove the car after the transmission service. I noticed that the issue was still there. This time when I took my car back to them they kept my car for 7 days and then told me they found a problem with the torque converter. I was told that they have to order the part. I took my car back home and after 15 days I received call from Jerry and she told me the part for my car is in. I took my car back to them again and they replaced the part on November 27, 2014. When I picked up my car I immediately noticed the RPM dropping and making a noise when shifting. When I was trying to stop the car it was very hard to brake. I did not have these issues prior to that. When I took my car back, the employees at Acura of Hamilton asked me if I was pressing the brake pedal properly. This question offended me a lot because I am not an idiot and I know how to use the brake pedal because I have been driving for years. They kept my car for another 2 days. This time when I went back they told me there was a computer issue and that they have fixed it. Unfortunately the issue was still there. I took the car back but they said that they couldn’t find the problem. That’s when I decided to take my car to different Acura dealer. I took my car to Acura on Brant in Burlington on December 10, 2014. They charged me diagnostics fee and they said they were going to reset the computer. I was told to come back if I have this issue again and yes the same issue was there. I took my car back to them on December 12, 2014. I picked up my car 5 days later on December 17, 14. When I drove my car I noticed that the problem was still there. I told the technician that was there and he acknowledged the problem. I was told that they were going to contact the Tech Line and that they will inform me about the next step that they have to take to address the issue. I still have not heard back from them. To top everything up this morning when I started the car the original shifting problem of bad shifting is back.

After speaking to Acura Customer Service Rep as per their advice I went back to Acura of Hamilton to ask for refund for the diagnostic charges because my car is still under factory warranty so I should not be paying for diagnostic fees when my car is actually having warranty issues. Also the money I paid for the transmission service since it was unnecessary, as it did not fix the issue. I tried to explain this to Jerry but she was completely rude towards me. She was so disrespectful and she used her hands to gesture for me to leave. She told me that she was not going to refund me anything.

I am utterly confused and frustrated. My car is only a couple of year old and it is having issues and no one is able to fix it. My car is still under warranty; I should not be having any of these problems with it. I’ve also lost wages because I was running around taking and picking up my car from Acura dealerships not to mention leaving it with them for days when I had to pay to take ride to work. I expected a much higher level of service from your company as I am a repeat Honda customer. I am quite disappointed. I do not want to spend any more time and money on this problem, I am asking you to fix the problem immediately and I also expect a full refund of unnecessary expenses I had to pay for. Furthermore I strongly recommend some type of customer service training for your employees at Acura of Hamilton.

I purchased my 2012 certified Acura in May 2013..I have taken my car to Tischer Acura (where it was purchase) for almost a year about the same problem. I kept telling them it was something wrong with the car as far as it stalling or hesitating to drive. But each time, I was told they could not find anything wrong with the car. So I waited and thought that it may be just me...But then it would do it periodically and stop.. I took it back again...still 'We can't find anything' they said.

In February of 2014 it was getting progressively worse and still they told me it was nothing wrong. After a few more times, I am more than frustrated at this point. I drove my family on vacation (a little Leary at this point) and while we were on the highway in 65/70mph speeds, my car jerked a few times and then slowed down which almost cause a few cars to slam into me. I kept stepping the gas and for about 10 seconds nothing and then it kicked back in, jerked me and then drove normal...

When I stop at lights and go to accelerate, it stalls and then kicks in for after about 3 seconds...Finally I took the car back to the dealer again on Aug 3rd 2014, same complaints.. Now, I need a transmission... Well duh!!!...I needed that a while ago but yet no one could find anything wrong with the car each time I brought it in...Thank God I have a warranty but what if I didn't and all this time had gone pass and it ran out.. they would be handing me a $4000.00 bill to pay..