15th Apr 2008, 08:29

I have a 2000 TL with 115k miles on it, and it went out on me on the Grand Central Parkway on the way home from New York to Baltimore. It downshifted on me violently when I was going 50 mph. It is quite a scary experience.

I took my car to Lee Myles and the grand total is gonna be $3000! I was amazed that the tranny was so expensive, but from looking at the comments that seems to be par for the course.

I was only planning on keeping this car for another year or year and a half, but now I am going to ride it until the wheels fall off, given the size of my investment in the rebuilt transmission.

I owned an Integra prior to the TL, and after this experience, I will never buy an Acura again. This is heavily disappointing to me, and I wish I had taken this to get looked at prior to the 100k mark. I feel violated that they would build these cars with such poor transmissions.

16th Apr 2008, 13:30

I own a 2000 TL, bought new, currently have 191,000. Acura sent me a transmission recall notice in October, 2004. I had noticed the tranny was making a high pitched wine in low gears. They had the car for 5 days and gave me a brand new loaner TL while they replaced the entire tranny for free. I did not have an extended warranty. I believe this to be incredibly great service and product warranty. Of the several hundred thousand TL's sold, the 40 negative comments I've seen above don't make this a bad car. Yes, the tranny was not good, but Acura backed it up. Obviously, some of the dealers gave horrible service. This has been a great car for me vs. the Fords, Jeeps, Plymoths, Porsches & Toyotas I've owned over my 35 years of car ownership.

16th Apr 2008, 23:56

The entire transmission on my 2000 TL was replaced for free by Niello Acura in Sacramento. It was well beyond warranty (had over 90,000 miles on it). I have nearly 200,000 on it now. I took it in as a response to a recall notice I had received in 2004. This has been the best car I've owned (I've been buying new cars since 1973). Acura (and the dealer) did an excellent job standing behind their product (especially because it was out of warranty). Yes, they had a transmission problem, but they addressed it. When I had transmission problems with my Chrysler, I had to pay for it (replaced the tranny 2 times before it hit 100,000 miles)... will never buy another Chrysler product because of the way we were treated (as compared to Acura). I've stopped buying Fords for the same reason.

Consumer Reports have been right on the money on my last 3 car purchases, so now I only buy cars with a history of above or well above reliability. Since I try to keep my vehicle for 250,000 miles +, reliability is a huge concern. (Consumer Reports depends on millions of driver's inputs to put their ratings together and have no car company advertisements in their books so they can remain unbiased).

17th Apr 2008, 16:54

I have had a 2000 Acura TL for 5 years. I currently have 141k on the car. I had the transmission replaced at 92K under warranty and the dealership gave me a loaner car. The only problem I have had with this car is the transmission, other than that the car is a great car for the money and is a excellent ride. The structural integrity of the car itself is great. Curbs are no problem. I would purchase another TL especially now that the transmission is no longer the same and the consumer reports state that it is excellent.

31st May 2008, 11:39

I have a 2000 TL with 160k. It is now at the dealer getting its third transmission since last October. I had an extended warranty and, thus far, the dealer has done all of the work at no expense to me. I'm just hoping that the latest transmission works, as I can't imagine this will go on forever.

20th Jun 2008, 17:09

I have a 200 Acura TL. All of a sudden today, the check engine light and TCS lights came on simutaneously and was followed by the gears "skipping." Took it to the local Acura dealership here in Knoxville and was told, after looking at it for 5 minutes, that it requires a new transmission at the low low cost of $2500! I need to know the status of a class action lawsuit...

3rd Jul 2008, 00:37

I have a 2002 TL-S. A couple of years ago (about 40,000 miles) a service light came on. The car ran fine, but I took it into the dealer, and they said there was a transmission problem and put a new one in under warranty.

I now have 70,000 miles on the car and again took it in for routine service. Nothing really wrong, but didn't seem to be running as smooth as usual.

They noticed a transmission leak and a little transmission noise. Again, they replaced it under warranty. Assuming I keep it another few years, I will take it in before 100k and have the transmission fully checked.

I like the car and haven't had many problems. I had a wheel bearing go out, and that's it other than routine maintenance.

After reading the other messages, I am impressed with my dealer, since I never knew I had a problem, but they were very proactive in replacing the transmission in both cases.

Also, the dealer is open for service late and on saturdays, plus they have always had a nice loaner available, so it has been painless. They have competitive prices, but I would buy again from them and not worry about getting that last $500 on a deal.

The car is nice. However, it is obvious that the transmission is a product defect, and the fact the dealer is stepping up to the plate on this is to their credit. If they hadn't taken care of it, I would have been quite upset. However, they have made the overall experience good, in spite of this issue.

All I can say is that the dealer service relationship has been positive, and that I will continue to use the dealer. They seem to be very concerned with their reputation. I live in Chicago, and a lot of people don't have the luxury of multiple dealers. Nevertheless, it seems like a good idea to use a dealer for service. By the way, the regular service is somewhat expensive, but not excessive.

By the way, the entire transaxle setup is really complex, and the model s has more power, so I am not shocked that this has been a weak point. When I had the wheel bearing replaced, they showed me the setup and it was really complex compared to the older US cars that I personally worked on.