Honda Car Forum

I called Acura to register my complaint about the tires. At first, the Acura representative seemed to not know anything about the problem, but after I told him I investigated the tire vibration issue on the internet, he acknowledged the issue. He would not tell me how many calls they have had, nor the status of the investigation. He also said that the vibration should go away after the tire has 'warmed up'. This is not the case on my car. As I live in Santa Barbara, CA, it never has cold weather, and I have driven for an hour and still feel the disconcerting vibration at 50 to 60 mph.

His words are that the Acura engineers are investigating the problem and have reached no conclusion. There is no way to be notified of a resolution unless a safety recall is issued. This is highly unlikely.

If Acura decides to issue a Technical Service Bulletin (TSB), the only way to know is to tell your Acura service manager about your car's tire problem and see if he mentions this TSB. I certainly do not care for this method of not notifying owners if/when Acura has a resolution.

I did check the Bridgestone Turanza EL42 ratings on tirerack.com, they were rated nearly last, 32 of 35 in comparable tires. What a terrible choice. I can't imaging why Acura would choose these tires for their best selling car. Bridgestone offers one of the best rated tires in the same category, the Turanza LS (rated 3 of 35). It's owner rating is 2.7 out of 10. Not one of the owners would ever buy this tire again.

It's disappointing that Acura shows such little regard for their customers to choose this terrible tire -- and now not agree that the tires should be replaced at no charge.

I asked the Acura rep if I would be reimbursed if I replaced the tires at my own cost. He said he couldn't comment, but thought that if Acura came up with a recall or a TSB, they would probably repay owners who bought new tires.

- Russ

Have you made any progress with Acura regarding the EL42 problem? I think
that they should offer an upgrade to the Turanza LS-Z. I would think that
a pro-rated program would be fair. Perhaps $200 for a set where the owner
has <5K miles, $300 for 5-10K, $400 for 10-15K miles, and $500 if the
vehicle has 15-20K miles.

On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 16:54:41 -0500, "ClarenceDuffy"
<maxbialystock@charter.net> managed to remove the duct tape and said:

>Have you made any progress with Acura regarding the EL42 problem? I think
>that they should offer an upgrade to the Turanza LS-Z. I would think that
>a pro-rated program would be fair. Perhaps $200 for a set where the owner
>has <5K miles, $300 for 5-10K, $400 for 10-15K miles, and $500 if the
>vehicle has 15-20K miles.

Why the heck is Acura putting "touring" tires on a performance sedan?
This Turanza EL42 and the Michelin MVX4 crap from the previous
generation TL are both "touring" tires.

--
I put 2 and 2 together and got 22.