2015 Acura TLX - Edmunds Road Test

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2015 Acura TLX - Edmunds Road Test

When we last left the action, our long-term 2015 Acura TLX needed service. The dashboard chimed in to let us know that the B16 service was due, so we scheduled a dealer visit and dropped it off locally at Hooman Acura of Santa Monica.

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5vzfe

Wow, if I had a new car I probably would take it to the dealer for service while it was under the warranty but as soon as it was out of warranty I'd do maintannce myself. $102 for a differential fluid change is tough for me to justify. I changed my front, rear and transfer case fluids for less.

ayao

It's a little bit apples-and-oranges but the fluid itself for an M3 rear diff is $50/500mL and it takes 2 1/2 bottles of the stuff ... so depending on what lens you are looking through this might not be such a bad value proposition.

5vzfe

Yikes. I did the work on an old 4Runner, without any fancy differential mechanicals or high performance aspirations, so it uses regular gear oil. I guess that's where the cost difference lies.

s197gt

Why in the world would the differential fluid need to be replaced that often??? I have never heard of a car needing it that often.

ayao

It probably has something to do with the the SH-AWD wizardry making the rear diff work overtime?

bankerdanny

s197gt said:

Why in the world would the differential fluid need to be replaced that often??? I have never heard of a car needing it that often.

My thought too. 7,500 - 15,000 mile life for diff fluid in a world where engine oil, which functions in a far dirtier and high stress environment, can go 10k miles between changes, just seems wrong.

chol92594

I like Acura/Honda and all, but seeing this service cost breakdown really makes cars with free maintenance look appealing. Yeah, the cost of that included service is factored into the cost of the car, but I'd rather just lump that extra cost into the monthly payments instead of paying out of pocket. For example, my mom's 2013 Tiguan has free service for 3 years/36k miles. That's not an overly generous allotment, but it's something to consider.

As far as taking the car to the dealer for service, I'd still probably go to Acura until the warranty ran out. Better to spend a little more and not worry about potential warranty claim issues down the road due to having the car serviced at a shop that would probably give Acura reason to challenge any warranty claims.

s197gt

i take my cars to the dealer for the most part, too. unless major work is needed i have found the ford, mazda, bmw dealers i deal with to be about the same price or even cheaper than the indy. for example, a 4-wheel tire alignment at the bmw dealer is $130 vs. $150 at the indy i used to go to. the dealer oil change has dropped to $79 and a loaner bmw is included vs $130 at the indie and no loaner.

people just presume the "stealer" is more expensive but that isn't always the case anymore; particularly for preventive maintenance items.

henry4hire

i went in for a "free oil change" as part of promotion and they were terrible. It took like three hours, they advised me I need over $1000 in repairs, they forgot to wash my car (which is part of the service) and they did a terrible job of washing it when I reminded them to do it. They also skipped over some parts of the inspection and they didn't apologize once about any of that. I never go to dealers, and now I remember why.

allthingshonda

Although people hate paying dealer service prices, myself included, I've learned that not using the manufacturers fluid for transmissions and cooling systems will cost a lot more later down the road. Especially Honda. Their transmissions and cooling systems love their special sauce. Acura says to use DPSF (Dual Pump System Fluid) in the AWD rear diff. Honda uses Dual Pump 2 fluid in AWD CR-V's and Elements and VTM-4 fluids for the Ridgeline and older Pilots. Why they just don't make one fluid for all applications is beyond me.

kirkhilles1

I don't have 4WD in our Pilot, but my understanding was that it was pretty straightforward. I think the fluid was something like $50 total online, but it was like a half hour job at most.

kirkhilles1

I have a problem paying $100+ for "inspections" on a 15k Honda. Isn't the whole point that they do these inspections for free, so that they can find things that are broken and fix them under warranty? I'd be pissed to throw away that money if nothing was wrong. Look at it this way: if it fails on its own during warranty, its free, so the only advantage of doing this would be to catch something that might fail out of warranty and have it fixed now which probably isn't likely.