Other engine problem on the 2012 Acura TL
Only 7 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When other engine problem gets reported
There are 8 reports of other engine problem on the 2012 Acura TL, 7 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 6th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 59,000 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
Putting it right typically runs $300–$4,000 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 12 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2012, at a median of 60,000 miles, and latest on the 1996 at 245,000 miles.
By volume the 2003 carries the most reports, with 11; the 2012 has 8. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
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.
Purchased my new 2012 sh-AWD acura tl advance in march of 2012. The car had less than 100 miles when purchased and currently has 5k miles (january 2013). The car vibrates when driving at speeds between 40 and 80 MPH. It feels like the tires are flat spotted or wheels are out of balance. The wheels and tires have been checked and confirmed by the dealer on 2 separate occasions as ok. The dealer classified this vibration as a "vehicle characteristic." I'm worried it is the sign of a major issue they don't want to deal with. *tr
Car went in for 100k service. Vehicle was diagnosed as also needing valve adjustment. While valves were being adjusted a bad camshaft was identified as cause of noise. I paid to have camshaft replaced but have been in automotive field 50 years so I know unless there is a problem this is not a normal wear item.. I asked for the old parts after the repair. Inspection of the old camshaft showed only one lob had unusual wear which again is unusual. I did a rockwell hardness test on the suspect lobe and the very next lobe and found a significant difference in hardness. The non worn lob was 47.9c and the failed lob measured 42c. I looked on line and noticed many other acura/honda owners had posted messages about the same failures. I contacted honda customer service and gave them this same information. About three weeks later I received a call letting me know they didn't,t feel responsible because the car is out of warranty and I used a honda dealer for the repair rather than an acura dealer. I don't understand the the second excuse because the engines in both these vehicles are pretty much the same
On 7/20/2017, I was driving on I-680 s towards fremont ca. I was driving roughly 70 MPH. When I was about to pass a car, all of a sudden, the engine lost power. I hit the gas paddle all the way down, and it didn't work. As I felt a significant loss of power, I pull over to the side and stopped the vehicle. The engine shut down immediately when I came to a complete stop. I tried to restart my car, but it does not work, and the engine check light popped up. I had my insurance towed my car to oakland acura, as I did an oil change there on 7/19/2017. After an inspection, oakland acura indicated that the intake and exhaust valve does not open and close normally. A value adjustment will solve the problem. I felt that it's pretty impossible for all the valves to be malfunction all at once. Thus, I asked the technician are all the valves malfunctioning, the technician said should be. I then asked whether such a problem is caused by an improper oil change since they did my oil change the day before, and I only drove 25 miles after the oli change. The technician said, "I don't think so". I further asked whether it's an engine design problem…
Also reported on the 2012 Acura TL
Airbag inflator rupture
Other steering problem
Other powertrain problem
Torque converter failure
Loss of power steering
Excessive oil consumption
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 8 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 8 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 engine problem happen on the 2012 Acura TL?
Across 7 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 60,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other engine problem on the 2012 Acura TL?
8 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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