2002 Acura TL 3.2 TLS from North America - Comments

I have Acura 2001 TL 3.2 bought in 2000. I never had a problem. I have been doing schedule maintenance with the dealer. I was not aware of having problem with transmission until today when my transmission acted up at 126K. I called the dealer and I was informed that it will not cover by warranty anymore and will cost $4300 to fix it. Then I started to get quote from other repair shops, the price is not different. One shop gave me an option to replace with used transmission, which has 66k miles on it for $2500 one month warranty. I did not make any commitment to anyone. Then I did google search and found this site. I am glad that I found this site and talked about goodwill fix. I called my dealer again and asked if they can do a goodwill fix. Then they asked me to bring the car in the shop and see what they can do. There is some hope now. I will keep posted. I thank you for all the posters.

I have an Acura TL 2000 with 86000 miles on it.

Sometimes during driving, the TCS light comes on for a few seconds then turn off and I don't have any problem with the transmission until now. On 07/04/09 I hit the curbside and the TCS, check engine, the D5 gear are blinking. I'm still able to drive the car, the only thing I feel different is at the start of driving, I have to push the gas pedal more. I brought the car into an Acura dealer and after a few hours, they called me and said all the codes point to the transmission. They quoted me $4000 to replace the transmission, but the service adviser told me he is going to talk to Acura since I have low mileage on it. Finally they called me and said Acura is replacing the new transmission with 36 months warranty, and I have to pay $1500 since the recall already expired.

I have an 02 TLS, and the transmission just went out on me last night (60,000 miles). I spoke with Acura service and they said that I am 2 weeks out of the extended warranty (if only the tranny could have gone a few weeks earlier!). While on the phone with Acura, I found out that the transmission was replaced by the previous owner at 30k (I bought it with 32k), so they recommended bringing it to a local dealer and seeing if they will do anything for me.. will keep you posted!

I have a 2000 Acura 3.2 TL which I bought used in 2003 with 57,000 miles. As of today, it has 157,000 miles and the VIN # IS listed in the hondatransmissionsettlement.com website.

It is doing the same as the other comments, slipping, stalling, D5 light flashing, and if I pull over, turn it off, then restart I can drive for a little while longer, but NOT much..

Like many of you, I don't have the money to fix it at $2K-$3500 from various local shops. I don't know if my criteria falls in or out of the guidelines, but I'm going to call the support # first thing in the morning.

Do any of you have any ideas about this? If you do, and you want to email me, my address is ILoveSanDiego_U2@yahoo.com

Thanks for any advice you can provide.

My post was the one before this, and I am still on with Acura client support, who say that they're not able to do anything. Said that I should take my car in for the recall of the 2nd gear, which I am not having a problem with to my knowledge; that I'm out of the warranty extension criteria on all counts, assigned me a case number, and basically said they could "feel my pain", although not in those exact words... This sucks!

Hi I have a 2003 Acura TL Type S, unfortunately it has a salvage title and the dealer said that there was nothing they could do to help me as far as the transmission starting to go out. They said that because it was salvage title they could not cover it, what type of approach could I try to take to help me at least pay somewhere closer to 1400-1600 instead of 4000 for a transmission replacement. My name is David, my email address is dfpreza@gmail.com. Let me know what ya think.

I have an 02 TL that started slipping just yesterday. Only have about 43,000 miles total - I'm second owner. This site has been very helpful. Will contact Acura Monday and hope for the best.

Does anybody know of a lawyer that will take on a case with transmission problems or has anybody took their case to court? I purchased an Acura and the transmission went after not even having the car a year. I need a lawyer! Help me. Please.

Wow this site is a bit frightening. I have a 2002 3.2 TL I bought new in 2001. The car has been good, but it is about to roll 200,000 k and all of a sudden the service engine light comes on. I took it to my local service guy and he tells me that the codes he is getting off his computer indicate transmission problems. He reset the light for me and told me it might not come back on, but within 48 hours there it was again. Then it went out and stayed off for days. But it is back on now and I have to address whatever it is. The funny thing is the car seems to run well except for a hum I have noticed that speeds up and slows down with the car. I never heard of a recall. My dealer never contacted me about any potential problems with the car.

So sell sell sell. No car keeps us stressed. Get another. Yo me it was worth it because of the trabs. We have GM now.

2003 TL Type S here. I'm on my 4th transmission. Only have 79,000 miles on the car. Driving down the road and I lose all power. The car goes in neutral. Hit the gas and it jerks back in gear. Take off and it jerks hard. Acura said nothing was wrong with it. They REFUSE to fix it.

I've taken the car to a couple of mechanics and they say from what I am telling them that it sounds like the Torque Converter. A $200.00 part. But the trans. has to be dropped to replace. You spend about $800.00 in labor. Still cheaper than a transmission though. Mechanics indicated that you can change your fluids and that helps. The converters can also do this for years with no problems.

I hope this helps some of you out there. I haven't replaced the torque converter yet but will be doing so in the near future.

So after replacing the torque converter the problem seems to be fixed for now. I wonder if this was the whole problem all along instead of transmission issues. I've been told by a few mechanics that they mimic one another. Your car starts jerking and pops out of gear or just goes into neutral. So hopefully this helps someone!

I bought a 2002 Acura TL S Type 3.2 in January 2004, it had approximately 28,000 miles and as of August 2009 it has 81,000 miles and the transmission has gone out.

I purchased the car from an Infiniti dealer and purchased an extended warranty. The car is currently at the Acura dealership in need of a new tranny. The extended warranty is offering to provide a used tranny with 77,000 miles and provide a warranty until Jan. 2010 -- the end of the 6-year extended warranty period or contribute $1,350 towards the $3,600 for the re-manufactured tranny the dealer will install with a 3-year/36,000 mile warranty.

I checked with a couple of Acura specialty repair shops and they informed me this TL generation is "infamous" for tranny problems. They suggested take the dealer re-manufactured one and get rid of it after the 36 months. One AAMCO shop manager said he average 3 to 4 TLs per month with this same problem.

I am really saddened because I was a really loyal Honda customer -- I have a 1992 Accord with 181,000 miles and it is still going, but I don't think I will buy another Honda product. The dealer said they will request a goodwill payment from Honda/Acura for the difference that I will have to pay, but did not think I would get a positive response. This is really disappointing for me to see what seems to be a "corporate rip off" of innocent customers. I will keep you posted on what the results are. I am glad I found this site.

I have a TL 3.2 that I bought brand new from an Acura dealer. The car now has about 84,000 miles and the transmission was changed 3 times (with one of them lasting just a few days). So counting the original one I have used up to now 4 transmissions!! I am starting to think of a new car. Guess what I am not going to buy.

I was ready to buy a 2002 Acura TL for 6200 bucks, but then I found this site after searching for hours online... needless to say that I have read every single comment in here solely because I am and have been a loyal Honda customer since I started buying cars, and I have even persuaded friends and family into buying a Honda, and I did not want to believe that Honda could possibly treat customers like that...

Yes Honda has made great reliable cars and I respect that, but to have such a major flaw in a luxury car design and not even extend their arm to loyal customers when presented with the problem until they get sued is a major breach of trust from my perspective.

The worst part is that Honda never fixed the problem, but only replaced the bad transmission with another transmission that will ultimately have the same ill fate..

I am no technician, but from the looks of things it seems that the real problem was not the transmission but the inability of the cars computer to communicate with the transmission properly.

So I believe that if I was able to come to this conclusion just by reading these comments, then I would expect 100 times more effort from Honda. after reading this I can honestly say that I no longer trust Honda in any way, nor will I trust any other car manufacturer. From now on I will only buy a car that I can do an extensive research on before buying.

Well I was going to go test drive a 2002 TL this afternoon. Thanks to this site I will just drive home, I already owned a Dodge Stratus and don't need to be able to right books on "What not to buy". Thanks to all who have posted!