TLX

Make
Acura
Segment
Sedan

The National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA) has issued a recall for 19 examples of the 2022 Acura TLX luxury sport sedan due to potentially defective tires. This does not affect any updated 2023 model year examples.

Per the NHTSA bulletin, the tire manufacturer and supplier, Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations (BATO), discovered that the tires fitted to this small batch of TLXs might have sustained cuts and tears to the bead area during the sorting and loading process.

This type of damage could potentially expose body ply cords or bead wires. This could result in the tire losing air or lead to damage within the tire itself. How exactly did this somewhat unusual situation occur?

BATO has identified a protective plastic "shoe" located at the base of a robot arm used to unstack tires that somehow rotated out of position. This may not sound like a big deal, but it exposed a sharp edge on the robotic arm to the inside of a specific batch of tires. Therefore, the edge might have cut the bead area during the unstacking process.

The problem was initially identified in late summer/early fall at a BATO warehouse when 1,051 tires made specifically for the TLX were returned by a vendor because of suspected damage.

Fortunately, only one of those tires was damaged, but BATO could not make any changes.

Honda and the NHTSA were notified in early November, and the VIN range was confirmed earlier this month. Honda engineers ultimately determined the issue was severe enough to issue the safety recall.

As of this writing, the Japanese automaker is unaware of any related crashes, injuries, or warranty claims. Affected owners will be contacted by mail beginning on January 30, 2023.

The free fix is beyond simple: a dealer will inspect all four tires and replace them if deemed necessary. Owners who may have already discovered the problem and paid for a replacement tire(s) out of pocket will be eligible for reimbursement.