Would You Like A Crack With That Dash?

Third Generation Acura TL

            Acura, an automotive brand that is produced for the American market, is labeled as the luxury end of Honda. Surprisingly, the third generation Acura TL (2004-2008) has received a lot of criticism for its lack of reliability. Riding on the coat tails of Honda’s history and reputation for being well built vehicles, Acura has failed to ensure quality and reliability when making the third generation TL. Not only have they failed to ensure that they are making a reliable vehicle, but they also do not stand by their product by helping consumers with costly repairs of the defective parts on the third generation Acura TL.

            I am the owner of a 2006 Acura TL, as an owner, I have experienced the company’s unwillingness to own up to the defective design of certain parts of the car. They have, however, issued a recall on the power steering pump, which is the cheapest repair out of all the issues consumers have had with the third generation TL. Although my car has low miles, I have had to repair multiple defective parts. Because I performed most of the repairs myself, some of them were cheap, but some of the repairs were very expensive. With all the repairs I have performed on the car, the majority of them were due to poorly designed parts.

            When I traded my Mazda 3 in for the Acura TL, I thought I was getting out of a money pit, but in fact I was only trading up for a much nicer, more expensive money pit. Don’t get me wrong; I love my Acura TL more than any other vehicle I have ever owned, but I wish I wasn’t constantly putting money into it to make sure it runs and looks how it’s supposed to.

            In 2003, the third generation TL replaced the ugly second generation TL, and it is the most beautiful and elegant Japanese car ever made. I used to dream of owning an Acura TL, and when I found a manual Acura TL (manuals are almost impossible to find), I failed to do what every smart consumer should do, and that is RESEARCH CONSUMER COMPLAINTS on the car before you buy it! For all those years Acura was making the third generation TL, all I cared about was the elegance and beauty of the car. When I went and test-drove the Acura TL, I was sold. I brought the car home, parked it in the garage, and couldn’t stop thinking about it for weeks. All I wanted to do was drive that amazingly fast and beautiful Acura TL.

            The first issue I had with my Acura TL was the rear alignment, and it turned out that the stock camber Acura uses for the TL are not adjustable, and because they weren’t adjustable the alignment issue couldn’t be fixed. A few hundred dollars later I had an after market rear-camber kit that allowed me to get the rear alignment fixed. Since then, I have had costly repairs ranging from a new clutch, to fixing defective electrical components like the blue tooth hands free link system. The defective part that has put me over the edge is the stupidly designed, but very beautiful dashboard. The Dashboard is designed to expand in the heat, and shrink in the cold. In extreme temperature changes, as it shrinks and expands, it cracks. I have experienced this first hand, and let me tell you; when you’re driving this beautiful car around town, and look down at your cracked dash, it makes you feel like you’re driving around a piece of junk. I have researched multiple forums and consumer complaint sites, and found that this is a very common problem. It is so common that most third generation Acura TL’s have cracked dashboards. There is no reason that a low mileage “luxury” sedan should have these kinds of issues. I can get past the mechanical problems that I fixed on the car, but when it comes to a $2,000-$3,000 fix for the dashboard, I am done!

            There were a few consumers who were able to get Acura Corporate to pay for some of the repair, and in some cases, dealerships covered the remaining costs so the consumer didn’t have to pay out of pocket for the dashboard replacement. Over the last 6 months, I have personally escalated the defects of my dashboard all over Acura Corporate, and they are unwilling to offer me a cent towards the dashboard replacement. Acura needs to stand by their product, and they need to make it right for consumers who are dealing with the multiple defects the Acura TL has. Mechanical issues are one thing, and can usually either be blamed on “normal wear and tear”, or driver error, but the defective dashboards in these cars need to be taken care of. My hope is that eventually Acura will have to issue a recall on the dashboards just to show consumers that they stand by their product.

Back to just driving the old truck around instead.