Overview & Reviews

Acura is an upscale automaker known for offering cars with impressive levels of luxury, features and performance. It's come a long way in a short time, however, as the history of Acura is relatively brief. Parent company Honda introduced the Acura brand to the U.S. market in 1986 in an effort to create a separate luxury division for its products. At first, it was just a two-car show: the Legend sedan, which was the first true Japanese luxury car sold in America, and the Integra sport coupe and sedan.

Though essentially a marketing creation for the North American market, the Acura brand was immediately successful. Consumers liked the features, performance and upscale image of Acura cars, along with the fact that Acuras were backed by Honda's reputation for reliability and low ownership costs. In 1991, Acura introduced its crown jewel: the all-aluminum NSX sports car, which offered performance close to that of other exotic cars while undercutting them in price.

As Acura's product line grew in the 1990s, however, the company struggled a bit. Some of its products were duds, and it risked alienating loyal customers when it replaced the Legend and Integra names with alphanumeric designations. The company jumped on the hot luxury SUV bandwagon in the mid-'90s with the SLX. Unfortunately, the SLX was just a rebadged version of an Isuzu SUV, and its quality did not match customers' expectations.

For the new millennium, Acura revamped its product range. An all-new SUV called the MDX debuted, sporting numerous family-friendly features, including a third-row seat. The Integra was replaced with the RSX sport coupe, and an all-new entry-level sport sedan called the TSX was introduced after that. A complete redesign of its most popular model, the midsize TL sedan, followed, as did a redesign of its flagship RL luxury sedan.

By mid-decade the NSX was gone, but Acura filled out its model lineup with the street-performance-oriented RDX compact crossover, the TSX wagon and the ZDX, a fastback-styled crossover that placed unique styling over practicality. Today Acura is still trying to find its ideal niche but there's no denying the quality of Acura's vehicles, nor their appealing mix of performance, technology and value.

User Reviews:

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  Do not Buy TLX v6 - 2016 Acura TLX
  By sh shr - September 6 - 12:03 pm

  Terrible acceleration, woeful transmission. buy honda v6 touring

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  Dont buy it! - 2003 Acura TL
  By rockpub - August 14 - 10:36 am

  Have had 3 transimissions in this car, so far, not to mention little annoying items that dont work or break (air vents close when fan on high, center console latch broke within 2 months of purchase, etc.). Given the purchase price and expected quality, am extremely disappointed in this car. Will never buy another Acura!

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  Disgusted Owner - 2007 Acura MDX
  By Disgusted Owner - June 25 - 7:56 pm

  This car has been in the shop continuously. Driver door rattles, windshield leaks, interior trim was never fastened down, window regulator had to be replaced, steering wheel needed to be completely repositioned - one thing after another. I never thought an Acura would be this poorly built. The engine and handling is great, the interior is cheaply made and slapped together. Gas mileage is poor but it is an SUV. I would not recommend this vehicle to anyone. Dealer has worked hard to fix, but the factory sent them a lemon to sell me.

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  Regrets and more regrets - 2017 Acura TLX
  By Benny - June 6 - 5:39 am

  I thought Acura was a good brand. Made a bold and regrettable decision in buying this car. I feel Acura is going to just push these horriblr cars out and hope for no traguc results. I am terrified to take this car on the highway. It does not move. Expensive regret. Purchased. Counting days to unload.

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  $5000 More, Get an Audi Q7 - 2007 Acura MDX
  By EricExcaliber - June 2 - 8:43 am

  I real let down by Acura across the board. I have always bought acuras, but this is one is a let down. It eats gas like a V8, it is very umcomfortable if you are over 5ft. It is very bumoy and the engine struggles. 300hp feels like 220hp. The center console will have you feeling you about to blast off into space. And the pencil thin steerling wheel feels like a 1980s Car. The third row cannot even fit teenagers at all. It does fell like an suv, it is more like a wagon. And for this price tag you can get an Audi Q7 fully loaded,or even a BMW X5 So i did , A Audi Q7 4.2 premium.

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  Cant wait to get rid of it! - 2005 Acura TSX
  By skico - February 18 - 11:01 pm

  I realize my car is 2 yo, but I feel obligated to tell people of my exp w/ Acura and my TSX. I drive a lot for my job, so need a good, safe, comfortable, reliable car. Id heard Acura was that car. Never in my life have I been so disappointed in a car. This car has left me stranded, things were breaking in the car 3-4 months after I got it no pickup, awful in snow. I dont feel safe in car, and dont trust that it will get me where I need to be safel - in fact, everytime I drive long distances, I get very nervous that the car will strand me somewhere b/c it has in the past. I cant wait to get rid of it, and I doubt I will ever buy an Acura again.

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  ask lots of mdx owner before buying this - 2003 Acura MDX
  By unhappy guy - December 14 - 10:00 am

  Brake problem, click/clunk brake everytime you start this vehicle. Tranmission clunk when shift from drive to reverse, or from drive to park. Gas tank sloshing. It really annoy you with brake noise. Pay more than 40k and you expect these things to exist?. Scary thing is the dealer admit all these problems but cant do a thing to fix it?. THey said these are as "design" ????

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  I cannot believe what I am reading - 2003 Acura TL
  By sadhondaowner - December 8 - 10:00 am

  Okay, Honda/Acura has to pay people to put this stuff on here. I HATE THIS CAR and everyone that owns one hates it too. I have found one guy that loves his TL (he had a saturn before). Other than that, its so saddening to see the overall moral of this car is at the dealer. Transmission problem that Acura will not take responsibility for, squeaks beyond imagination, sunroof leaks, bad brakes, Hissing in the AC which is so loud the music will not cover up. OH, its horrible. I dont know how anyone would like this car. I have been a loyal honda owner all my life. I have had nothing but honda. Never again, this is the worst car ever!

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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.