2023 TLX Type S Electrical Nightmare
I bought a 2023 Acura TLX Type S with 19k miles, from an Acura dealer in South Florida (Rick Case Acura) back in March 2025. When I bought the vehicle, a few weeks later, I noticed that the driver side speaker was blown so I had taken the car back and had it looked at. The vehicle was sold as a CPO giving me 100,000 or five years from the manufacture date warranty. This of course, covered the cost of the replacement speaker.
Fast-forward to a couple months later after having the speaker replaced, all of my power windows, including my sunroof, stopped working suddenly. Due to Florida spontaneous rain, a quick fix resulted in me unplugging the battery, allowing for all the electronics to reset this allowed me to roll my windows up, and leave them up out of fear they would be stuck down in the midst of rain. Later on, the issue will continue to occur out of the blue, usually when it rained. At the time, I didn’t know this, but a wiring harness in the driver side door was getting soaked which resulted in a short circuit. The issue would randomly occur, but not often enough for me to drive the car 45 minutes and leave it there to get it looked at.
About nine months later from my purchase date, I moved back to Maryland after graduating college. This is where I noticed every time I washed my car, the power mirrors would sometimes stay stuck closed upon locking or unlocking the vehicle and my power windows wouldn’t work as previously stated. And then took it to my local Rosenthal Acura where they kept the vehicle for a couple days and found the issue which was rooted in the wiring harness in the driver side door. I let them know about the work the previous dealer did in Florida, so Rosenthal Acura reached out to Rick Case to see if they would cover the cost of parts and labor for the replacement harness. They agreed, and car is returned back to me about two weeks later.
All went well with the vehicle for another couple of months, got me through the winter with no issues. Then I started to notice the same issue reoccurring with the windows about 3 weeks ago. This time it wasn’t just the windows, but the power mirrors sounded like they would struggle to open, and the ambient lighting completely went out in my interior. After leaving my car at Rosenthal Acura for two weeks, they concluded that this time it was a short circuit in the passenger side panel resulting in the ambient lighting not working. They also replaced both of my mirrors entirely (I was told they do not just replace the mirror motors).
I just got my car back on Monday, August 3, 2026. I thought the headache was over. Everything worked great and as designed. Three days later on the 6th, we had a thunderstorm. I went down to my car to run an errand and noticed my mirrors didn’t open upon unlocking the vehicle as they normally would. I knew this is already a bad sign due to all the stuff I’ve been dealing with throughout ownership. Once again, my ambient lighting was not turning on.
Pure frustration has hit me at this point. I’m contemplating selling it. Is my car a lemon? Was there something wrong with the car that was not shown on the carfax? (Other than front end damage that resulted in needing a new front bumper). Do I reach out to Acura corporate? All the work to this point has been covered by warranty, and I’ve never been haggled by the dealer about honoring it. It’s such a shame, I’ve wanted this car for so long, and it’s a shame how many electrical issues I have had with it. Any input on next steps that I should take would be very much appreciated.
I plan on taking it back into service tomorrow.