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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  My 3rd Acura - 2004 Acura TL
  By carnaught - November 4 - 8:43 am

  Well, I should have known after two prior so-so experiences with new Acuras. The car is less than exciting to drive, quickly develops multiple rattles and vibrations and has inferior service to my experience with Lexus and Mercedes. In fact, the car is very inferior in all aspects (except with its looks) with any Lexus Ive owned. This will probably be my last Acura with my repetitive disappointing experience.

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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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  Poor Quality - 2004 Acura TL
  By nefarious - October 9 - 10:00 am

  Ive had a terrible experience with this car and quality of build. The car has paint shrinkage in the base coat causing sand marks to appear in the finish. The car bumper cover is also peeling on the sides were mounted to the fender because of excess stress. In addition, the car has many rattles and idles rough. This car cannot compare to a 3 series BMW or Lexus ES330. Dont make the mistake and purchase this bug infested car. Their reps even admit to the rattles and the dealer admitted the paint peeling issue on the bumper covers. What a car!!!!!

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  Glorified Honda Accord - 2002 Acura TL
  By disappointed_guy - September 30 - 2:00 am

  I found that it was a glorified 6 cylinder Accord with a little bit better tuned engine. I was relatively pleased with the engine and the performance but thoroughly disappointed by the rampant reuse of Honda Accord parts and peices all over the car. I was disappointed by some vibration related noises that I started hearing after a few months. The seats and the seat belts are also very noisy in the front. The navigation system is very good. The stereo is very very ordinary, no base and very poor amplification. The price was good. The exterior looks good only with a spoiler, else it is a bit rounded from the back.

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  Love It and Hate It! - 2005 Acura TL
  By M Moore - September 18 - 4:46 am

  The car design is extremely stylish. I love the exterior design. The seating is not made for comfort, the front seats are uncomfortable for long periods, After four months of ownership, creaks and rattles came from the interior. The car has several serious blind spots. My main complaint is with the transmission. It slips upon acceleration, jerks when you drop from 55 to 40 (not by braking, but by taking your foot off the gas) and my top frustration with the transmission, the differential whines when driving and sounds as if you are driving a truck, rather than a TLC (total luxury car)

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  Sell by 90k - 2001 Acura MDX
  By Nate - September 9 - 2:48 pm

  We bought the MDX over the BMW X5 only because of the third row seating. We loved the car untill 90k miles. We have replaced two front struts $700, two motor mounts $600, SRS electronic part $520, spark plugs - Acura wanted hundreds to do them so I did the work. Timing belt and 110k service was over $1000. I am tired of the warning lights comming on every time I turn around. Only dealer can turn them off. My miles are 90% highway on the Acura.

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  Get the Honda Accord instead - 2002 Acura TL
  By sucker - August 31 - 10:00 am

  This car is a overpriced honda accord. The suspension is not tuned which cause the car to become a bucket of rattles. Ive visited my dealer 4 times and they have yet to fix everything. If you want a good buy...dont get this car...its a k-mart special...a fake psudo lux car.

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  Dont buy this car - 2006 Acura RSX
  By masterbulk - August 20 - 9:30 am

  Strut noise will haunt you. It would be the most embarrassing new car you would ever own. The noise started 3 months after I got the car (3700 miles. They kept saying they are working on a permanent fix. Its Aug as of this review date. NO FIX!!!! Worst part. The dealer refused to replace the struts several times. I had to go to another dealer to have my struts replaced. But they say the noise will come back. I guess we just have to replace the struts every 15000 miles

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  Never Again. - 2002 Acura CL
  By austexdesigner - July 31 - 11:17 pm

  My 2002 Acura 3.2 CL S-type has eaten its second transmission and it has only 58K on it. The first one went out at 38K. All Acura seems to be doing with this "recall" is replacing the transmission with a new one of the same faulty part. I know two other people who have had at least 2 transmissions in this same year/make of car. For any new car, this is just unforgiveably lousy reliability and quality. (especially for the price range that this car was in as a new car.) I will never buy another Acura product again after this experience.

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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!!!