Overview & Reviews

User Reviews:

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  SH-AWD: Willing Engine but lazy transmission - 2015 Acura TLX
  By Scott - October 25 - 7:53 am

  If you interested in owning a SH-AWD V6 TLX, heres what you need to know. The V6 is a great engine with typical Honda growl and furious acceleration. Unfortunately, the 9-speed automatic gets in the way of truly exploiting what this engine has to offer. The transmission is consistently caught hunting for the correct gear when you dig in for more power, unless your using the Sport + mode which does bring the transmission to life. Unfortunately, Sport + mode also brings with it a "rev matching" downshift program that proves to be harsh for all on board, nothing like a manual heel and toe downshift. Left in Sport mode (not Sport+) the car does a decent job of being sports sedan but leaves the driver wanting more. Its too bad this engine cant be had with Acuras more precise dual clutch automatic (4 cyl only) or a manual transmission. The SH-AWD V6 is best suited in day to day use for people looking for luxury over performance. To that end, Acura does offer an engine start / stop system to improve fuel economy that shutters the engine at a stop light. Unfortunately, engine restarts are a bit rough and do catch the car off guard when you need more than a small amount of power off the line. Additionally, the stop / start feature will kill the engine on occasion, only to restart it 60 seconds later for no apparent reason and then shut it off again after moving a few feet in heavy traffic. Other tech features include Acuras blind spot monitoring system. which is very accurate and can easily tell the difference between a guard rail and a car in your blind spot. Unfortunately, the lane keeping assist seems more like a waste of money than an actual feature. The system can barely detect lane markers and consistently fails to engage. During my week with the car, the navigation system was consistently beat by Waze and Google Maps on my iPhone. Both offering better directions and more accurate arrival times than Acuras system. Apple CarPlay would have been 100 times more useful than another dated navigation system like that offered in the 2015 TLX. Overall, this is a good car. Its quiet. Its fast. However, it sorely needs a better transmission and better technology package. In all, the base TLX with an inline 4 and Acuras dual-clutch automatic provide a much better value as long as youre willing to bring your own Smartphone along for the ride.

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  I prefer the 2016 tax over ilx - 2016 Acura TLX
  By Kathi - October 2 - 12:32 am

  I traded in my 2013 ilx to buy the 2016 tlx. I could no longer take the road noise on the tlx- my husband and I could hardly have a conversation. The tlx is much quieter- not quiet, but much better. I was hoping for better gas mileage for a 4 cylinder, 24 mpg I really like the blind spot warning and the compas / street name at the top of the instrument cluster. The trunk is huge but wish it opened further when poped open. The plastic handle in the trunk for closing is hokey- your supposed to pull it and quickly get your arm out before it hits ya. I like the new headlights but miss the fog lights my tlx had. I was looking for a car that was luxury inside as I drive a lot but wanted good gas mileage and low maintenance expense and am hoping this will be it. My two prior cars were BMW and I got tired of writing huge checks for repairs and didnt like that people treated me like I was rich or a show off, the Acura to me is less flashy but still nice inside

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  IMPRESSIVE, Smooth - 2016 Acura TLX
  By Mike T., Chesapeake, VA - September 23 - 6:54 pm

  The Jewel Eye LED headlights are bright! I live in the country and have to drive dark roads and on my daily commute to work often times rainy highways where if you have mediocre headlights you cant see the freeway lanes. I have several cars, a couple have traditional halogens, HID and high end Xenons on my 911 Carrera S, these 2016 TLX headlights are bright! They penetrate good in fog and rain! I have read posting that the Dashboard Controls are over complicated, I say otherwise as I got the brief from the dealer sales rep. I in my opinion that is very intinuative. It actually make it easier to set those vehicle systems that were so hard to set up in older cars to your personal preference a breeze to set up. For example, if you dont like to wear out your LED lights cause they keep turning on and off as you approach the vehicle or your door locks un locking when you put your gear in park, or your cabin lights staying on for 10, 150, 30 secs after you close ther door, that is now so easy to setup in that menu system. On older cars you have to unlock, lock door twice, turn on & off ignition, turn key on...etc etc just to reset these configurations, now its all in the menu and simple to setup. In regards to engine power, I think the 2.4cc engine is just fine. The "Normal" and Sport IDS mode will pull the car just fine. Traffic light to traffic light, to highway entrance acceleration is well sufficient for what this car is designed for. I drive sports cars at the track so I know acceleration and turning and braking qualities you need for the condition its needed, and this TLX 2.4 is just fine. Not super pull youd get from muscle cars or high performance sports sedans. I just got the car couple of weeks ago and I will post another review after 6 months. I advise folks that are contemplating getting one is to read the Experts/Edmunds Engineers write ups. They have a section for it.

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  Horrible Transmission - 2015 Acura TLX
  By Arjun - September 21 - 2:38 am

  After many years driving BMWs, I decided to try an Acura in 2015. This car has a 9 speed automatic and it has terrible shifting. It goes faster when you take your foot of the gas because it slips into neutral and jerks horribly when shifting down into 2nd or 3rd gear. It has to be worth a class action lawsuit for the defective transmission on a premium car.

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  I will never buy Acura again - 2016 Acura TLX
  By Eric - September 3 - 2:05 pm

  I will never buy Acura again. This is my second Acura and fifth car manufactured by Honda. I have been a loyal Honda customer, had two Accords and a Civic. Loved each one. Then, when my spouses Mercedes C300 4matic got totaled, we decided to try 2013 Acura TSX 4cyl (Tech package), and we were very impressed with it. Car had certain finesse about it, the interior was made of quality materials, it was crafty and had a decent feel about it. Engine and transmission were flawless. So, needless to say that when we received an invitation from Acura to trade in our older TSX for a brand new TLX (for the same monthly leasing price, with zero out of pocket costs, tax, tags, registration included) we were excited and jumped on it. Dealership was great, their customer service and finance department catered to all of our whims. They took off over $5000 off MSRP and we ended up leasing 2016 SH AWD TLX V6 Tech package with literally no cost except the first months leasing payment ($33/mo over TSX tech, but this is AWD, V6, nearly $10K more expensive car). But werent we disappointed when we got behind the wheel! Yes, there is no way you can buy so many options in a car for $37,000 if you got with BMW, Mercedes or Audi. But at what cost! First of all, let me say it was completely convoluted idea to build a car with "fuel economy at any cost!" idea and put a V6 engine on it. If you want to cater to fuel economy crazy consumer why bother to attach 6 cyl engine to it? The end result is completely convoluted, lame, jerky and I should say overall TERRIBLE performance on the road! First of all, this car drives like under-powered 4 cyl and NOT anything like V6. Transmission hesitates and "thinks" for good few seconds before it decides what gear it will shift, so God forbid you are on a highway passing a car and a 18 wheeler is quickly approaching you. It will ride all over you and glue you from trunk through your hood before your transmission would even begin to decide what gear it should shift into. I have never had a car with such a horrible transmission. Car just never moves! As if this was not enough of inconvenience, this car will remind you what a foolish choice you have made when you eventually slow down in a traffic without pushing the break pedal. It will jerk and pull forward each time it shifts from one of its higher gears towards the lower, and oh boys, doesnt that car have plenty of gears! 9 in total! Stay away from this car! Let Acura know that they must live up to the image they have established in earlier years and deliver quality cars as they used, or else we wont buy it from them again! I personally have no intention to touch another Acura once our lease comes to an end. I could live with extremely ugly design of the grill some genius designer came up with once upon a time (just who came up with the idea of putting a beak on it!), but I will not tolerate a car that handles like a dirt truck while claiming to be a luxury vehicle. And please, just because you are targeting certain socioeconomic demographics dont assume we are blind and cant notice how cheap and LOW QUALITY the interior design and quality are. This car has nothing of 2013 TSX , as far as interior design and quality are concerned. And I have said enough of its drive-train already. In one word: just stay away from TLX.

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  Vibration - 2016 Acura TLX
  By Changmin - July 16 - 8:10 am

  Purchased on end of August, only drove 799 miles. After got new car, on the way back to home, felt vibration, sent back to dealer, changed four tires. Still feel vibration at 75 to 80 MPH speed, sent back again, mechanic checked it and felt the vibration, The mechanic also tested driving the dealers loaner car (same model), he felt this loaner car vibration too. service department manager told us that manufacturer know this problem, we have to live with. very angry!!!

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  Transmission negates the V6 - 2016 Acura TLX
  By indio82 - July 5 - 10:33 pm

  I currently have an 06 TSX. It is still in great shape and handles great, but it is 10 years old and Im looking for something with a little more power. So Ive been eager for the TLX to come out. So I was severely disappointed when I test drove the V6 AWD version. The transmission completely neuters to V6 - seriously, it feels like a really under powered 4 cylinder. It has no power when you put the pedal down. It shifts just just when you think you are going to get in the power curve. My 4 cyl TSX feels more powerful than this V6. There is NO WAY I would want this driving in rush hour traffic, when you need the car to quickly react when trying pass or merge into highway traffic. The steering was...weird. Ive test driven the Lexus IS 350 (V6) and the Volvo S60 (5 Cylinder turbo). They both had better throttle response and steering. The Volvo has less HP than the TLX per the numbers, but you wouldnt know it due to the TLX transmission. The cabin controls are overly complicated. Just because you can put everything on a touch screen, doesnt mean you should. I shouldnt have to sit with the "IT specialist" to learn how to adjust the cabin temp. The push button shifter was...odd. I guess you get used to it, but it would take a while - and I shouldnt have to put up with that learning curve. In summary: the transmission ruins the car, but the button shifter, steering, and overly complicated cabin/nav/radio controls dont lend itself to liking the car either. I rejected this car from my list.

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  Third Acura - 2016 Acura TLX
  By Geo - June 20 - 7:58 pm

  This is my 3 Acura product. Ill have to admit I was less than happy with the 8 speed transmission when I first purchased this car approx. 1 1/2 years ago. It would bang and was very abrupt in shifting in the lower gears. After taking it back to the dealer, I found there was a fix, a software download for the transmission. Since then it is so much nicer to drive. My only other complaint would be the steering doesnt have the feel like my Tl did. Other than that it is a very good car. Its extremely quiet on the highway and very comfortable.

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  I must be lucky - 2015 Acura TLX
  By Damian - June 1 - 7:44 pm

  None of the problems I have thus far read about in the other reviews have crossed my path. Zero! Even the mention of acceleration not being up to par is far from my experience. One of the outstanding aspects of the 9 speed is the two dog teeth gears, one in the low range for fast departures from a red light, and another for amazing passing acceleration from 65 on up! On a lonely interstate I can easily pass a car doing 80 with a simple touch of the accelerator to a speed of 100. And it is anvil tough and quiet. I have driven the car for three years now with no complaints. The nav system is fun to use when I drive to places I have never been before just to explore new vistas and then hit the Home button. There is never an issue with becoming lost. The best technical aspect comes into play when backing out of a parking spot between two trucks that are parallel parked next to me. I cant really see beyond them whether a car is coming or a person is starting to walk towards the back of the car but the radar warns me in both situations! It sees around both trucks and warns me to stop. That is outstanding! What is simply less effective however, is the lane keeping tech. This is due to the fact that the highway does not maintain its lanes in top condition, so that when the paint ages, the car sometimes does not spot the lane correctly . Also, the self driving mechanism works at most for about 30 seconds at a time at which point it demands that you take control of the wheel for at least a second before it re-engages. However, it was never touted as an autonomous driving machine, like a Tesla, but it is fun to watch it drive around curves on its own. I like the soft material it uses in the interior but the push button mechanisms did at first take getting used to since I previously drove a 2000 TL with the combination manual/auto transmission. (That car also had no squeeks or rattles for the 15 years I drove it!). I also like that you can read the air pressure of your tires on your dash board along with the cars recommendation when to get oil. And as far as creep goes in city traffic, I have never experienced the jerkiness from 2nd gear to 3rd or any other jerkiness ever. It is smooth from first all the way to 9th gear. I am very happy I bought this car and glad the dealership reduced the price $300 simply because I said that would be the only way I could get under my credit limit, which was true. Putting it on my credit card allowed me to get 2% back which I thought was a good deal. As to gas consumption, I got 36 mpg on straight highway driving using sport mode. I like sport mode since it lets me react more quickly in case of emergencies. However keeping it in that mode in city driving I noticed I get less than the 24 (?) its supposed to get, but not by much. And I went with the PAWS because I believe the stop/start driving in the SH-AWD is not good for the engine or the transmission despite the gas saving. Besides, having 4 wheel steer around curves means you can take curves faster without needing to accellerate to keep the car in line. It automatically stays in the correct attitude around curves due to the rear wheels turning. It is simply a fun car to drive, anywhere! In re-reading this I noticed I have left off minor perks like the huge size of the trunk, the ability to lock my car by calling Acura, the rear view mirrors automatically changing to a darker glass if the car behind you is using his brights (admittedly an advantage that has been around a while), heated seats (I did not opt for the cooling seats), leather and one cool car color called Phantom Blue Pearl, where the pearl has to do with tiny specs of gold that show up under sunlight or lamposts at night but you have to look carefully for it. WHat can I say, I am a happy camper!

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  Great Car, Great Deal - 2016 Acura TLX
  By GLENDON dockery - March 25 - 11:50 am

  Research