Other visibility problem on the 2000 Acura TL
1 fire 2 injuries 3 of the 27 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When other visibility problem gets reported
Owners of the 2000 Acura TL report other visibility problem at a median of 80,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles, from 18 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 75,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 45,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 145,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 97,468 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
6% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 47,000 miles | 61,280 miles | 81,500 miles | 125,500 miles | 144,468 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 a fire and 2 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $150–$1,400 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 8 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2009, at a median of 1,000 miles, and latest on the 2008 at 100,000 miles.
By volume the 2000 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Oil in rear view mirror exploded and splattered on both front seats of the car. Luckily it happened overnight when I was not driving the car or it could have created a traffic accident. Dealer was not surprised apparently happened in quite a few instances.
I took my 2000 acura tl into the dealership to have the transmission replaced under the extended warranty. When I picked it up from the dealership 3 days later there was a dividing line in the top of the mirror. Above the line and the mirror is clear, below the line the mirror is tinted. There appears to be fluid that has leaked out from in between two pieces of glass (one being the actually mirror glass and the other being a second layer a glass that traps this fluid. I have to keep something in the car to keep the liquid from dripping on the interior of the car, because it is my understanding that this fluid will destroy plastic and leather. I have contacted the mirror's manufacturer magna-donnelly, inc. I hope they will send me a free replacement mirror and that my interior is not ruined before the replacement arrives. *jb
The rear view mirror in 2000 acura tl failed. When it failed, it leaked some corrosive liquid onto the gear shift of my car. As far as I can tell, this failure was caused by heat as it occurred on a hot day. Acura has done nothing to correct the problem and it seems to be happening to quite a few cars (http://tl.acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78061&highlight=rear+view+mirror). *tr
Also reported on the 2000 Acura TL
Other powertrain problem
Complete transmission failure
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
Airbag inflator rupture
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 27 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does other visibility problem happen on the 2000 Acura TL?
Across 18 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 80,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other visibility problem on the 2000 Acura TL?
27 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed