Model years › Acura TL

2006 Acura TL

Complaints about this year name crack far more often than the model's other years — 25% of them, about 63× the usual rate of 0.4%.

NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.

What the complaints were about

• crack — 27.1% of this year's complaints, against 0% across the model's other years (135.6×). Owners wrote it as: crack, where passenger, where airbag, crack passenger.
• dashboard — 32.8% of this year's complaints, against 4.8% across the model's other years (6.9×). Owners wrote it as: dashboard, dashboard cracked, dashboard cracking, side dashboard.
• airbag — 37.2% of this year's complaints, against 11.9% across the model's other years (3.1×).

Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.

Also unusual this year

• dashboard — 33% of complaints, 7× usual
• airbag — 37% of complaints, 4× usual
• dash — 24% of complaints, 5× usual

What owners wrote

DASHBOARD IS CRACKING ALL OVER THE PLACE TO THE POINT THAT THE AIRBAG IS NOW VISIBLE ON THE DRIVER SIDE.

Dashboard cracked. Internet search revels this is a Acura TL fleet wide issue. Cracked dashboard may rip airbag during deployment rendering it useless, impede airbag deployment, or send shards of plastic during airbag deployment.

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.

Recalls for this year

• 19V182000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
• 19E068000 VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL Fixed free of charge.
• 06V270000 EQUIPMENT
• 08V091000 STEERING Fixed free of charge.
• 11E022000 SUSPENSION Fixed free of charge.
• 05V510000 AIR BAGS

Own a 2006 Acura TL? What happened to yours?

Loading comments…

How this was worked out

Every year of the Acura TL was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.

This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.

Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.

Every year of the Acura TL →