Hello, I have a 2002 Acura TL type s, which I bought in January of 2021 (you know where this is going, notorious transmissions). I love the car very much and it drove quite well except for the occasional slip out of gear that it would do going down a certain hill near where I lived. Now, I was told by a mechanic who was probably wrong to change my atf, and I did that sometime in the fall in 2021. It wasn't long afterwards that I noticed my transmission had started to get louder and I could feel that something was going to happen because I knew the car and had driven another TL for years. Well sure enough when I was on a long drive at one point in October, I had a code thrown that was for TCC solenoid, and I think it was p0740. Well, it wasn't an hour later when my car decided to slip out of gear and not go back in. long story short we were able to get the car to drive most of the way back home but eventually it wouldn't go any further. It would move a little bit but when you applied gas it would actually cause resistance and I don't know what that problem is, all I know is I had it taken to a mechanic. I paid the mechanic for a rebuilt transmission, and he called me the next day and told me that he had a transmission from a 2005 type s that he could grab and rebuild now which would be faster because all of his lifts at his shop were taken by other cars at the moment, and this would be a faster way of getting my car out as he could pull one of those out from his yard right now. So we went with that one, and a few days later I had a working TL again.
The problem is, I had a new problem. So as soon as I got home and started driving it off of the freeway I was noticing an issue I never had before, which was that the entire car would shake or shut her, if you will whenever I would hit about 30 mph. It would happen seemingly with fourth gear, but the car has tiptronic shifting, and the problem doesn't seem to happen most of the time if you use that, or at least not as bad. Naturally, with the one year warranty the mechanic gave me I took the car back to him. He drove it around and drove radically with fast acceleration and tried to say there was no problem, but I told him to drive it normally, to which he said, just drive it manual. I explained to him that the car should work normally because it's going to be driven normally. So he brought out his expensive snap-on code reader, you know the ones with the giant screen and he's didn't find any codes but he went to cylinder misfires and showed that there were a few cylinder misfires so maybe it's an engine problem. I explained to him that I know I'm not a mechanic, but I know that the only thing that was changed was the transmission and apparently according to him the TCC. So he said to try swapping around the ignition coils since the spark plugs were brand new NGK Iridium's. So I swapped them around and seemingly some numbers did change, so he said okay go and buy some new coils and put those in. So I did buy some new coils which did not fix the problem and the numbers changed as far as cylinder misfires on his code reader. so I returned those and got some other ones because he insisted that could be the only thing that's wrong and he didn't want to put the car up on the lift to check it because he didn't want to waste time when it could be something far easier, to which I said I have a warranty for a reason. Well after the 6th time going to him and still not fixing the problem the car still shutters with the fourth gear transition going from 30 to 40, and now it seems to be getting worse. Could it really be the ignition coils and I just happen to get unlucky with bad ones? Could it be that he is lying to me? I still have the warranty on paper, but it's not necessarily itemized which someone told me is a requirement in California, again hearsay. Could it potentially be something else? the car shutters really bad for a few seconds but then it seems to be fine. When I first got the car back from him I did feel like it was not as powerful as it once was, and also the model of TL that he said he got it from shouldn't even be compatible from the research I did but again that could be wrong. All I know is I paid for a rebuilt transmission, had it done, but now I have a car that does not operate properly and whether or not that problem is related or not, it seems likely, and it worries me because I've never felt a car shutter this hard. He said it would only do it on inclines when he was giving the car back to me but it does it all the time. It is enough to spill your drink. There's also a sound under the hood that I did not notice until the last couple of months that sounds like a fan speeding up or like air gushing through something for just a second and it doesn't seem like it is synonymous with the shuttering but it does happen for a second when I'm accelerating and I don't see anything happening on my tachometer when it happens. I'm really worried about my car. I used to just replace my car with a cheap used car if something like this happens but the market's not as great as it once was and I do really love this car. Please help me if you can, I know this was a lot of information, but I feel like it's best to have the whole story to try and figure out what's going on. If you have questions I will gladly answer.
It is also worth note that he also said it could possibly be related to the motor mounts, as he replaced the one in front but I don't think he replaced the other one or the ones under the transmission. I tried to edit this in and make a few miracle or clarifying edits but I seem to be unable to edit the OP.
The mileage is currently at 222,000 and when this all started was about 5,000 mi ago
Only thing you can do now is get any current codes read and find a real mechanic this time. It sounds like he got a trans out of a junkyard wreck and put it in your car without a rebuild. You have the same problem with the new (old) one as you did with the old one.
Well the old one never shuddered, but yeah that's probably what he did. I will say that there are no codes that come up and have not been any codes which is the frustrating part.
Hello my name is Tom and I have posted about this problem before, but I have new updates and really a wonder what I should do. I'm hoping I can get help from Scotty or a moderator on this one.
My original story was here: https://carkiller.com/scottykilmer/qa/what-is-wrong-with-my-tl/#post-221302
Basically, I am almost at the end of the warranty that hasn't been doing me any good, and my car still was shuttering around the same speed so I decided to take the car to the mechanic again to see if maybe I could get him to do something to fix it. He had one of his guys look at it and do some "adjustments", leaving it vague, but saying that they were done to the tcc, and when I got in the car and drove it home it definitely wasn't shutting anymore or at least not as often, however what it is doing now is giving me a check engine light, the VSA and ! lights, and clunking really hard when shifting to reverse.
The codes I am getting now are p0740 and p1768, the latter of which is a code I have never seen before. To make matters worse it looks like he also never put my plastic engine cover back on which now he can't seem to locate. I'm getting really sick of this mechanic, and he keeps telling me that what I really need to do is change the upper front mount, the one by the timing belts. It's funny because I told him it wasn't shutting anymore but now it has this new problem and he says that the only thing I need to be fixing would be that amount and that nothing he did adjustment was would affect whether or not the car shakes even though the whole reason I brought the car to him was to alleviate the shaking. If I bring the car to you to alleviate shaking and you suggest to do something to fix it you can't later say that there's no way that could have fixed it unless you're a compulsive liar but I guess that's what I'm dealing with. Anyway it looks like this is probably going to have to be legal action, but is it possible my transmission could be good and my TCC is bad? Maybe vice versa? What should I do, because I still want to get this car up and running and this transmission is still under warranties as well as the TCC which he apparently changed at one point, but I really don't know what to do. I guess a mechanic having five stars on Yelp and Google isn't good enough these days. He had previously told me that he would swap in a different transmission and make sure it works and just not give me warranty and we could call it there and never have to do business again, but then I take the car to him and he tells me that that deal is off the table too. Somebody please help with your wisdom
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