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It bothers me that the replacement was not a redesign. And where Acura has had problems with these in the past, I would think they would want to nip this in the bud.
With the RX330 the VC, Viscous Clutch, F/awd functionality was abandoned and DBW was adopted "to protect the drive train", delayed engine rising torque in response to gas pedal depression in certain downshift requirement instances.
In the case of the MDX I suspect the failure rate might have a lot to do with just how often a high, but reasonable, acceleration rate is used on a highly tractive roadbed surface. "Driving" both front and rear diff'ls when operating on a highly tractive surface is ALWAYS extra stressful on the drive train components.
The TC may be the weakest link since nowadays they are generally made less robust now that they are bypassed so much of the time.
I doubt if you can be really certain of that. The SH-AWD firmware could have been revised to provide less rear drive functionality and that would be hardly noticeable for most driving conditions.
does anyone else have any similar stories? it just doesn't seem fair that there was no advance warning engine light or nothing just gone... on the freeway and the car hesitated while the gas was pressed and 5 minutes later no power absolutely done so frustrated
After driving the car for a few minutes, shut it off for a few minutes. Then start and drive it away. Sometimes at this point when we accelerate, we can hear this clunky noise from front or under the car that almost sounds like an old diesel bus. The noise goes away a few seconds later.
We took the car to the dealership but they said they couldn't reproduce it. Any ideas? Does it sound like a transmission issue? If not, what can this be?
Thanks.
CEL is a different story, what code..?
On the other hand the CEL may derive from the VTM-4 fault.
Your mechanic seems to be stumbling around taking your money without knowing the systems.
My brother had an 05 MDX and his transmission failed fortunately for him at around 90 k, within the warranty period. Same with his Honda Accord. Many posters have 2 and even 3 failed transmissions with their Acuras.
My 2000 TL's transmission slipped nearly every day during the warranty period and Acura did nothing to remedy it. We couldn't take the constant slipping and jerkiness and my daughter began to drive it. Drove her crazy also. It failed after the warranty expired and Acura agreed to "absorb $1000 of the $5,000 quoted for a new transmission." What a joke. I asked them to just send me a check for $1,000 and of course they denied this since this "reduction" occurred only if you paid their jacked up price on the tranny.
It took Acura's corporate office 12 days to make this "offer" to me which was made by a pleasant sounding female. She would assure me numerous times that Acura would be fair but she inevitably and predictably called back finally with no assistance.
We were in limbo for 12 days not knowing whether to buy another car or wait. I ended up selling it for parts to a junk yard. I never want to see another Acura again. Their attitude was always patronizing.
You point is well taken concerning having a non Acura shop do the work so you don't screwed again.
The MDX still has many transmission issues and I wouldn't be surprised if the new TL starts to develop them also.
Also. beware of posters here and on other sites defending Acura. There is little doubt that Acura employs others to monitor these sites and has them criticize those who legitimately criticize their products and practices.
I will feel vindicated if just one person chooses to not purchase an Acura MDX or TL based on posts like yours and mine. I owned over 10 Hondas and Acuras and recommended this product to others over the years. I feel that I unwittingly betrayed them.
I don't buy that. Nothing would backfire faster on Acura or any other automaker than to have a shill outed on the net.
Acura (and most all the rest) are doing fine responding to customer complaints on Twitter and Facebook and FourSquare and all the other social media sites, not to mention via their own internal customer service departments. They have plenty to do without trying to squelch complainers. That would be waste of time anyway, since every brand has problems with their cars.
People who have no problems with their MDX typically won't take the trouble to sign up with a forum just to report that their ride is working as expected. Unfortunate, but that's human nature.
http://autos.yahoo.com/news/woman-takes-unique-road-to-sue-honda-over-mileage-20- 120103.html
A woman who expected her 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid to be her dream car wants Honda to pay for not delivering the high mileage it promised. But rather than joining other owners in a class-action lawsuit, she is going solo in small claims court, an unusual move that could offer a bigger payout if it doesn't backfire.
A trial is set for Tuesday afternoon in Torrance, where American Honda Motor Co. has its West Coast headquarters.
Heather Peters says her car never came close to getting the promised 50 miles per gallon, and as its battery deteriorated, it was getting only 30 mpg. She wants Honda to pay for her trouble and the extra money she spent on gas.
Peters, a former lawyer who long ago gave up her bar card, has devised a unique legal vehicle to drive Honda into court — a small claims suit that could cost the company up to $10,000 in her case and every other individual case filed in the same manner.
If other claimants follow her lead, she estimates Honda could be forced to pay $2 billion in damages. No high-priced lawyers are involved and the process is streamlined.
"I would not be surprised if she won," said Richard Cupp Jr., who teaches product liability law at Pepperdine University. "The judge will have a lot of discretion and the evidentiary standards are relaxed in small claims court."
A win for Peters could encourage others to take this simplified route, he said.
"There's an old saying among lawyers," Cupp said. "If you want real justice, go to small claims court."
But he questioned whether her move, supported by publicity on the Internet and elsewhere, would start a groundswell of such suits. He suggested that few people would want to expend the time and energy that Peters has put into her suit when the potential payoff is as little as a few thousand dollars.
Peters opted out of a series of class-action lawsuits filed on behalf of similar Honda hybrid owners when she saw a proposed settlement would give owners no more than $200 cash and a rebate of $500 or $1,000 to purchase a new Honda.
The settlement would give trial lawyers $8.5 million, Peters said.
"I was shocked," she said. "I wrote to Honda and said I would take $7,500, which was then the limit on small claims in California. It is going up to $10,000 in 2012."
She said she also offered to trade her hybrid for a comparable car with a manual transmission, the only thing she trusted at that point.
"I wrote the letter and I said, 'If you don't respond, I will file a suit in small claims court.' I gave them my phone number," she said. "They never called, and I filed the suit."
She said she also sent emails to top executives at Honda with no response.
Aaron Jacoby, a Los Angeles attorney who heads the automotive industry group at the Arent Fox law firm, said Peters' strategy, while intriguing, is unlikely to change the course of class-action litigation.
"In the class-action, the potential claimants don't have to do anything," Jacoby said. "It's designed to be an efficient way for a court to handle multiple claims of the same type."
He also questioned her criticism of class-action lawyers for the fees they receive. Jacoby, who handles such cases, said lawyers who take on the multiple clients involved do extensive work — sometimes spanning years — and are not in it just for money.
"They're representing the underdog and they believe they are performing a public duty," he said. "Many of these people could not get lawyers to represent them individually."
American Honda's offices were closed for the holidays and no one could be reached for comment. Peters said the company has tried five times to delay the trial but each effort was rebuffed.
The upside of Peters' unusual move, she says, is that litigants are not allowed to have lawyers argue in small claims court in California. This means any award will not be diluted by attorney's fees. Honda would have to appoint a non-lawyer employee to argue its side in court.
"If I prevail and get $10,000, they have 200,000 of these cars out there. That's a potential payout of $2 billion," she said.
While she doubts that all other owners will take the same route, she suggests the penalty could be substantial for the company if a large percentage of the owners file individually.
A judge in San Diego County is due to rule in March on whether to approve Honda's latest class action settlement offer. Members of the class have until Feb. 11 to accept or decline the settlement.
Peters has launched a website, DontSettleWithHonda.org, urging others to take the small claims route.
I am considering a 2010 mdx 26,000 miles, I've read a lot of posts on the torque converter issues. If anybody has any info on percentage of vehicles with the issue or if this is anticipated to stretch across the entire model I would love to know before I jump in on one.
Donton
At the cost of being considered ridiculous, I have written to the pres/ceo if Honda to ask that he look into the matter. I will no doubt get a form letter in response, but after a while the sqeeking wheel may prevail.
Drive along at a relatively constant speed where the "solution" happens to lie right in the "middle" of two adjacent gear ratios and the ECU might prove to be indecisive in the extreme. Sounds as if you often encounter one of those mid-point gear ratio conditions.
In my experience using the cruise control whenever possible helps as even minor fluctuations on the accelerator position will/might exacerbate the problem.
Give the driver a "snow mode" pushbutton. Each time the engine is started the system defaults to "normal" mode. Revise the SH-AWD firmware such that absent being in snow mode minimum use is made of the rear drive capability for/during straight ahead low speed acceleration.
In snow mode the possibility, presumed possibly, of loss of traction would be increased so the firmware would revert to "robust" use of the rear drive, "drive" all four.
It might be worth noting that throughout the industry "AWD" systems that are derived from a FWD "base" seem to be having premature driveline component failure issues. The more functional, seemingly, the "AWD" system happens to be the higher the failure rate.
The early RX300 F/awd systems went through this, most especially 99, the first year, less so by '00, and was a noticeable, however relatively minor issue, for the remaining years of the RX300. As of '01 the F/awd system was completely lobotomized. A final fix, the adoption of DBW, was adopted beginning with the RX330.
As of 2010 the RX350 has a new F/awd design, in my opinion while not as adequate as the SH-AWD system, certainly a more functional design.
Catch 22.
It appears that with these F/awd systems derived on/using a "base" FWD design the more functional they be, the more likely premature drive line component failure will result.
As an alternative to the MDX I would suggest a serious consideration of the more inherently SAFE Porsche Cayenne V6 base, R/awd. The rear wheels provide the primary "drive" leaving the majority of the front tires' roadbed traction coefficient to the task of maintaining directional control.
so Ford recalls 1888 windstar vans for torque converter but acura is too cheap to recall theirs? Unreal
If you're a consistent "leadfoot" start putting aside repair funding NOW.
The only recall fix that might be appropiate would be a firmware revision to lower the % of time that the rear drive is engaged. Other than adding an SH-AWD off (default condition) function to the "snow" switch, assuming the MDX already has one of those.
Very disappointed in what appears to be a chronic problem. That said, the dealer was very quick to point out the problem, admit that "they have seen similar problems in a couple of 2010s" and tell us it (torque converter) needed to be replaced. Our lease is up next year. Had every intention of buying, but now I'm not so sure...
Very disappointed in what appears to be a chronic problem. That said, the dealer was very quick to point out the problem, admit that "they have seen similar problems in a couple of 2010s" and tell us it (torque converter) needed to be replaced. Our lease is up next year. Had every intention of buying, but now I'm not so sure...
Absent that need, unique to base FWD vehicles, there is no extraordinary driveline stress levels that must be accounted for in the R/awd design.
The Infiniti G20 and I30 were both FWD.... nothing about the Infiniti brand specifies that they are RWD-based..
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"were" both.....
If you live well south of the "snow line" you might consider have a mechanic simply remove the rear driveshaft.