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So it was time to show my son the ropes of buying his first used car. He had inherited $5000 from his uncle, so that was our ballpark figure. I gently suggested like a 1999 Honda Civic with medium miles, but he has a bit of a Steve Jobs high taste streak, so he couldnt find anything for the first few weeks. He finally saw a 2001 VW Passat and fell in love with the black paint, the swoops, and the good handling and all the gadgets. But we looked it up on Consumer Reports and saw how awful a reputation it had for almost everything failing on it every 3 months. What nailed it was seeing ANOTHER Passat being towed into the used car lot. I suggested he look more at Honda and Acuras, as I’ve had two Integras, since 1984, with excellent luck, only having to replace the odd alternator or caliper.
Anyway, we stumbled into a 2003 Acura TL and test drove it and I showed my son how to check thw ires, the sterring for tightness, the suspension over bumps, check the idiot lights, check for blue smoke on startup, and it was a 95 degree day so it only took 15 minutes of driving to verify the engine stayed cool. We decided and bought it on the spot. And thought we were lucky.
Now we look on the internet and find out that Acura really dropped the ball and made unreliable transmissions for 4 years, and then it’s unclear whether they applied a little cooling pipe addon fix and whether that made any diff. And there are weak hints that aftermarket sources have better clutch packs. And hints that Acura reprogrammed the ECU for slightly less smooth and slow shifts but less clutch pack wear. And other folks say the problem is with high second gear temps and that the cooling oil pipe fix does or dos not make much of a difference. Another plausible sounding expert says you can bypass most of the problems by manually shifting past second gear every time.
Anyway, this transmission works fine, now, at 171,000 miles, but what do you suggest we do? Drive gently? Drive 1-3-4-5? Be sneaky and resell the car before the tranny conks out? Have a fun male-bonding time and overhaul the transmission ourselves when it conks out? And can we remove the transmission without a big lift? I know, lots of hard questions, that’s why we come here.
Last option, wait til it conks out, then gently explain to son where we went wrong, in looking for flash over substance, not checking the Consumer Reports used car guide for black dots, and mentioning the parallels between flashy cars and flashy women– i.e. high maintenance and how they’ll often leave you stranded, in the rain, crying. (he has already learned that other lesson, at least twice already).
Many many thanks in advance.
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If the car has 171k on it and know transmission problems.
Drive and enjoy the car. Check and see if the trans has already
been changed if your lucky.If it does go bad get a manufactured transmission
don’t waste your time or money trying to rebuild it. If you wanted to change
the fluid with Honda OE trans fluid.3 quarts great.I wouldn’t psych yourself out by reading about the problems on the internet. I bet if you search “problems with [insert car here]” You will find a bunch of stuff no matter what kind of car it is. If it works fine now, then just enjoy the ride.
If the transmission does go out eventually do not rebuild it unless you REALLY know what you are doing. I am rebuilding one at the moment and it is a LOT of work that must be done in a clean environment and needs to be done by the book to be done correctly. And even “the book” leaves out important information that you need to be able to discern for yourself based on your knowledge of how these things work.
Ya know…I would say that every car has it’s black dots. You will never find the perfect car. Being the year and mileage that it has, you can expect anything to fail at any time.
I would just take car of it in regards to maintenance and hope for the best. If something goes wrong with it then deal with it when and if it happens.Yes every car has an issue but your right avoid avoid avoid used VW’s. Unless your love tinkering and constantly working on a car and have lots of disposable money then sure buy a VW. But other than that always listen to consumer report. They have a great reputation and know what they are talking about. Also they are great because they are subscriber funded, there fore unbiased like other car mags. that get their funding from the automakers for advertising.
In terms of the 2003 understand that it has a Honda J series engine and the J series i believe uses a timing belt and not a chain and will have to be changed especially with that mileage. So take that into consideration. Find out if the timing belt has ever been serviced because that will be added cost right there.
Those cars a pretty solid and if taken car of like any Honda product will last the life time of the universe.
Not sure if you will be paying for fuel or your son but since it is a V6 it will use more fuel than the Honda Civic.
Also the Honda civic uses chain timing belt which never needs changing.
I have learned by my mistakes, just make sure your son knows what he is getting into don’t be sold by the Acura logo. Civics sell so well (and rarely seen being towed away) for a reason.
Good luck, buying your first used car and going getting new licence plates for your car is a very exciting experience.
Also I believe that car uses premium fuel so it is an added expense and if it does use it, As eric says, do what the manufacturer recommends in the manual.
To be honest in my opinion the 99-2003 Acura TL and CL are the worst cars Honda ever made. For several years all I did was warranty work on those vehicles. The transmissions are only the tip of the iceberg. BTW, I’ve had several cases where I had to put another transmission in after it had already been replaced. I’ve seen them start to fail at 80K. They also have issues with warping rotors, wheel bearings, front suspension, headlight inverters, EGR problems, ignition coils, clock light bulbs, timing belt tensioners, CD changers, seat heaters, security systems, outside temperature gauges, ABS problems, tires if you don’t use the same ones as what came on the vehicle, catalytic converters, and that’s just the stuff I could think of off the top of my head. It’s also been mentioned that you need to run premium fuel which is an added expense. The TL got better in 04 but I would look for one 05 and above if I wanted to get into a TL. I would also look for a manual transmission as the later models also had automatic transmission issues for a few years after 03.
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