CSR

Acura · NHTSA safety record

2014 Acura TL

Every safety complaint, recall and defect investigation the US government holds on this vehicle.

17

Complaints

0

Crashes

0

Fires

0

Injuries

0

Deaths

Owners of the 2014 Acura TL have filed 17 safety complaints with NHTSA between April 2014 and March 2026. The most complained-about system is the air bags, named in 8 of them (47%). The typical failure was reported at 36,000 miles, the median across the 5 complaints that gave an odometer reading.

NHTSA has issued 3 recalls covering this vehicle.

Recalls (3)

AIR BAGS:FRONTAL:DRIVER SIDE:INFLATOR MODULE

19V500000 · June 27, 2019

The defect
Honda (American Honda Motor Co.) is recalling certain 2013 Acura ILX, 2015 RDX, 2005-2010 and 2012 RL, 2009-2014 TL, 2010 and 2012 ZDX, 2007-2011 CR-V, 2011-2013 and 2015 CR-Z, 2009-2013 Fit, 2013 Fit EV, 2010-2011 and 2013 Insight and 2007-2014 Ridgeline vehicles. These vehicles are equipped with driver frontal air bag inflators assembled as a recall remedy part or replacement service part, that may explode due to propellant degradation occurring after long-term exposure to high absolute humidity, temperature and temperature cycling.
The risk
An inflator explosion may result in sharp metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants resulting in serious injury or death.
The remedy
Honda will notify owners, and dealers will replace the driver frontal air bag inflator, free of charge. The recall began August 12, 2019. Owners may contact Honda customer service at 1-888-234-2138. Honda's numbers for this recall are S5B and W59.

Honda (American Honda Motor Co.) · up to 1,558 vehicles across all model years covered

AIR BAGS:FRONTAL:DRIVER SIDE:INFLATOR MODULE

19V182000 · March 6, 2019

The defect
Honda (American Honda Motor Co.) is recalling specific 2003 Acura 3.2CL, 2013-2016 ILX, 2013-2014 ILX Hybrid, 2003-2006 MDX, 2007-2016 RDX, 2002-2003 3.2TL, 2004-2006, and 2009-2014 TL, 2010-2013 ZDX and 2001-2007 and 2009 Honda Accord, 2001-2005 Civic, 2003-2005 Civic Hybrid, 2001-2005 Civic GX NGV, 2002-2007 and 2010-2011 CR-V, 2003-2011 Element, 2007 Fit, 2002-2004 Odyssey, 2003-2008 Pilot, and 2006-2014 Ridgeline vehicles. The affected vehicles received a replacement driver air bag inflator as part of a previous Takata inflator recall remedy or a replacement driver air bag module containing the same inflator type as a service part. Due to a manufacturing error, in the event of a crash necessitating deployment of the driver frontal air bag, these inflators may explode.
The risk
An explosion of an inflator within the driver frontal air bag module may result in sharp metal fragments striking the driver, front seat passenger or other occupants resulting in serious injury or death.
The remedy
Honda will notify owners, and dealers will replace the driver's air bag inflator with an alternate inflator, free of charge. The recall began April 10, 2019. Honda owners may contact customer service at 1-888-234-2138. Honda's number for this recall is O41. Acura owners may contact customer service at 1-888-234-2138. Acura's number for this recall is U40.

Honda (American Honda Motor Co.) · up to 1,101,534 vehicles across all model years covered

AIR BAGS:FRONTAL:DRIVER SIDE:INFLATOR MODULE

16V061000 · February 3, 2016

The defect
Honda (American Honda Motor Co.) is recalling certain model year 2007-2011 Honda CR-V, 2011-2015 CR-Z, 2010-2014 FCX, and Insight, 2009-2013 Fit, 2013-2014 Fit EV, 2007-2014 Ridgeline, 2013-2016 Acura ILX, 2013-2014 Acura ILX Hybrid, 2007-2016 RDX, 2005-2012 Acura RL, 2009-2014 Acura TL, and 2010-2013 Acura ZDX vehicles. The affected vehicles are equipped with a dual-stage driver frontal air bag that may be susceptible to moisture intrusion which, over time, could cause the inflator to rupture.
The risk
In the event of a crash necessitating deployment of the driver's frontal air bag, the inflator could rupture with metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants resulting in serious injury or death.
The remedy
Honda will notify owners, and dealers will replace the inflator, free of charge. The recall began March 2017. Owners may contact Honda customer service at 1-888-234-2138. Honda's numbers for this recall are JY0, JY1, and JY2.

Honda (American Honda Motor Co.) · up to 2,232,187 vehicles across all model years covered

Defect investigations (1)

An investigation means NHTSA has decided a pattern is worth examining. A preliminary evaluation is often closed with no action; an engineering analysis is the stage that usually precedes a recall.

Electrical overstress

EA19001

Closed engineering analysis · opened April 19, 2019 · closed September 19, 2024 · led to recall 20V024

the air bags

The Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) opened this investigation to determine if the failure of airbags to deploy during severe crashes, in certain vehicles, was the result of a safety related defect.  During the investigation a complex failure was studied that can result in non-deployment of subject vehicle air bags and other restraint system devices in severe crash events. The subject vehicles may be equipped with an airbag control unit (ACU) for the supplemental restraint system (SRS) Electronic Control Unit (ECU) manufactured by ZF-TRW.  The ECU receives signals from crash sensors mounted in the vehicle and deploys the vehicle air bags and seat belt pretensioners in accordance with manufacturer design specifications.  The ECU in the subject vehicles contains a model DS84 application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) which controls the communication of the crash sensor signal, firing commands (i.e., when to deploy the airbag(s) and/or pretensioners), and fault information (e.g., diagnostic trouble codes). In September 2016, FCA announced recall 16V-668 for certain model year (MY) 2010 to 2014 Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep products manufactured with the subject ZF-TRW ACU.  In this recall, FCA discussed an EOS condition that resulted in a failure of the subject DS84 ASIC, which caused air bag non-deployment.  FCA noted that the defect condition had only been observed in vehicles equipped with sensor harnessing routed across the front of the vehicle.  Other FCA vehicles that also used the subject ACU, but were not equipped with cross-car harnessing, had not experienced EOS failures, despite similar time in service. During the course of this investigation, ODI sent two separate Information Request (IR) letters to six vehicle manufactures (including FCA, Hyundai, Honda, Kia, Mitsubishi, and Toyota) and one IR letter to ZF-TRW.  These IR letters resulted in ODI receiving comprehensive data from these manufacturers and suppliers. Studies of this data found that the DS84 ASIC does not have sufficient protection against negative electrical transients or electrical overstress (“EOS”) that can be generated in certain severe crashes.  An electrical transient occurs when the electrical power supplied to a circuit changes momentarily over a short duration of time.   In these severe crash cases, the crash sensors and other powered wiring can be damaged and short circuited so as to create a negative electrical transient of sufficient intensity and duration (that are outside the vehicle manufacturer's specification) to damage the ASIC before the restraint device deployment signal is received by the SRS ECU.  This damaged signal can lead to incomplete or nondeployment of the air bags and/or pretensioners.  Airbag non-deployment and/or lack of pretensioner operation can increase the risk or severity of injury in a crash.A total of 8 fatalities and 14 injuries were associated with known EOS events. The common element in all investigated manufacturers vehicles is the SRS ECU containing a DS84 ASIC manufactured by ZF-TRW.  The risk associated with the ASIC is equally shared among all OEMS involved in the investigation.  The actual real-world risk can be mitigated by other factors which were assessed by ODI during this investigation. The first mitigating factor involves protections built into the ACU design which protect the DS84 ASIC from damage.  There are multiple strategies and levels of protection employed by different OEMs that provide effective EOS mitigation.  The two most common strategies at the ACU level are circuit protection diodes on the remote senor signal lines, and current limiting resistors that protect critical components. The second mitigating factor is found at the vehicle level and involves the location and routing of the wires leading from the crash sensors to the SRS ECU.  If the wires are well protected in a crash and are not routed with other power wires carrying large currents, the risk for an EOS event is significantly reduced or eliminated. These design specific factors combine to produce a spectrum of risk for the vehicles equipped with ACUs using the DS84 ASIC.  Given the many of years of field exposure, it is possible to divide the subject population into two groups; vehicles which have experienced EOS events, and vehicles which have not experienced EOS field events. Four of the six OEMs involved in this investigation have experienced EOS field events on at least one of their models equipped with a DS84 ASIC.  All vehicle models (including the Toyota models identified in the Failure Report Summary of the opening resume for this investigation) with field events have been recalled.  In an abundance of caution, ODI kept this investigation open five years to monitor field performance and did not identify any field events on vehicles not included in existing safety recalls. Given the spectrum of risk identified in this investigation and that all vehicles with a demonstrated unreasonable risk have been recalled, ODI is closing this investigation. ODI is closing this investigation with the following manufacturer safety recalls: 16V-668, 18E-043, 18V-137, 18V-363, and 20V-024.  With the recall actions taken by the subject vehicle and equipment manufacturers, this investigation is closed. The closing of this investigation does not constitute a finding by NHTSA that a safety-related defect does not exists on other model or model year vehicles outside of the recall scopes. The agency reserves the right to take further action if warranted by the circumstances.

What owners report

Complaints naming each system. One complaint can name several, so these add up to more than 17.

AIR BAGS 8 47%
STEERING 2 12%
VISIBILITY 2 12%
ENGINE 1 6%
POWER TRAIN 1 6%
STRUCTURE 1 6%
UNKNOWN OR OTHER 1 6%
WHEELS 1 6%

When the complaints arrived

By the year NHTSA received them, which is not the year the failures happened. They peaked in 2016 at 9.

2014 2016 2026
2014 to 2026, the last of them a part year

In owners' own words

Quoted from NHTSA's complaint file. These are unverified accounts by the people who filed them, not findings of fault.

ENGINE
I have a 2014 Acura TL. I have kept up with all the maintenance on my car since day one including getting my oil changes every 3,000 miles or a little under 3,000 miles or even when my dash would say 30-40% oil life.And when it gets to 30-40% oil life the dash board dings check oil. This time my dash board dinged at 60% which I found very odd- My husband checked my oil dipstick & I had no oil- I’ve been parking my car in the same spot in my drive way for the last 10 years so no oil drain marks & the car is not showing any signs of burn oil such as any type of smoke. I go to the dealer to buy a quart of oil- parts guys asked me for model and year of my car- I said 2014 TL he comes back with

NHTSA complaint 11721653, quoted in part. Filed by an owner and not verified by NHTSA or by us.

STEERING
After driving the vehicle for about 30 minutes a red flashing dash warning light came on with an alarm that there is a power steering problem, after which power steering was lost. Parked the vehicle for two hours to have dinner and then proceeded home with normal steering until reaching home when the same dash warning light and alarm occurred. The following day had vehicle towed to dealership to diagnose the problem. They could not duplicate the problem, and no computer code of failure was recorded, therefore they could not therefore proceed to execute a repair, so I picked up the vehicle and drove home. I called Honda customer service to open a case number for my issue and the called the

NHTSA complaint 11607280, quoted in part. Filed by an owner and not verified by NHTSA or by us.

UNKNOWN OR OTHER
On Monday, August 30, 2021, just south of Temple, Texas on I-35 south, the sun roof shattered. It was about 89 degrees outside.

NHTSA complaint 11431061. Filed by an owner and not verified by NHTSA or by us.

WHEELS
My 2014 Acura TL with 36,000 miles has developed serious aluminum alloy wheel corrosion and metal peeling on all four (4) wheels and results in intermittent tire pressure loss. The Acura company refuses to replace at their cost the defective material alloy wheels which cost and the dealer is requesting per wheel $357.00 plus 245$ plus labour and for new tire pressure sensors located inside on the mag wheels. I believe that they did not use the proper balancing weights which are clearly recommend that Acura weights be used. I have investigated the cause of this problem by consulting with automotive engineers and it is certainly in their view related to poor quality mag surface coating which

NHTSA complaint 11424865, quoted in part. Filed by an owner and not verified by NHTSA or by us.

STEERING

56,700 miles

MY CAR ONLY HAS 56,700 MILES ON IT AND THE EPS FAILED WHILE I WAS DRIVING THE CAR. NEARLY CAUSED A SERIOUS ACCIDENT WHEN THE STEERING FROZE AND I COULD NOT MOVE THE STEERING WHEEL.

NHTSA complaint 11181151. Filed by an owner and not verified by NHTSA or by us.

AIR BAGS
TL* TAKATA RECALL. THE CONTACT OWNS A 2014 ACURA TL. THE CONTACT RECEIVED NOTIFICATION OF NHTSA CAMPAIGN NUMBER: 16V061000 (AIR BAGS) AND STATED THAT THE PART WAS NOT AVAILABLE WITHIN A REASONABLE TIME FRAME TO SCHEDULE THE RECALL REPAIR. THE DEALER DID NOT GIVE A SPECIFIC DATE FOR WHEN THE PART WOULD BECOME AVAILABLE. THE MANUFACTURER COULD NOT PROVIDE AN ESTIMATED DATE FOR WHEN THE CONTACT'S VEHICLE WOULD RECEIVE THE RECALL REPAIR. THE CONTACT WAS NOT EXPERIENCING A FAILURE. VIN TOOL CONFIRMS PARTS NOT AVAILABLE.

NHTSA complaint 10925912. Filed by an owner and not verified by NHTSA or by us.

Compare

Other years of the Acura TL

Model year Complaints Recalls Deaths
2013 62 3
2012 130 3 1
2011 20 3
2010 64 3

Other 2014 Acura models

Every Acura on this site — 71 vehicles, 113 recall campaigns and 3 open investigation s.

If this is your car and a dealer keeps failing to fix it, your state's lemon law may require the manufacturer to replace it or buy it back. What each state asks for , read from the statutes.

Where these numbers come from

A complaint is one owner's account and has not been verified by NHTSA or by us. A vehicle with more complaints is not necessarily worse: models that sold in larger numbers collect more of them. How this is counted.

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