Acura Stops TLX Sales Due to Faulty Parking Lock

2015 Acura TLX Exterior V6 SH-AWD (Credit: © Acura)

The Acura TLX has been a huge success for the Japanese luxury brand, as it’s sold over 15,000 units since hitting dealers in mid-August 2014. That’s a massive boost for Acura, as its sedans have long been slow selling relative to the brand’s SUVs. With its huge sales success, Acura will likely use the top-down approach — trickling the TLX’s design and features down into other models — with any new cars and redesigns moving forward. Despite all of its success, it’s not all roses for the TLX, as Acura has just issued a stop sale after discovering a flaw. This stop sale will be followed up by an official recall next month.

According to a report from Automotive News, the hot-selling TLX has a flaw in its parking lock on the nine-speed automatic transmission that could result in the car rolling away even after the driver engages “park.” Fortunately, Honda — Acura’s parent company — found the issue early and hasn’t heard of any injuries or damages caused by this flaw. An official recall will follow on January 6, 2014 and the issue will be fixed free of charge.

This recall is limited to the nine-speed automatic transmission, which only mates to the 3.5-liter, V-6 engine. If you have the 2.4-liter engine with the dual-clutch transmission, this recall does not affect you.

I don’t anticipate a small recall like this impacting the sales success of the TLX. Minor flaws like this happen some times, and the fact that it was caught prior to any injuries should help avoid any bad press from swaying buyers’ decisions.