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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  2008 Acura TL Type-S - 2008 Acura TL
  By Spend a little more! - June 8 - 8:34 pm

  Ive liked the TL since the re-design in 2004 but I never liked the fog lights integrated with the headlights. Good when they separated them in 07. I looked at the BMW 328i, Lexus IS350 and Audi Quad S-line, the TL-S beat them all. With the list of standard features on the TL-S vs. paying a lot more money for it, with the others, it just made more since. Quad exhaust, power, hid lights, red interior lights & rims set this car apart from your standard TL. Its worth spending a little more to stand out. This car is a blast to drive & gets plenty of looks. Im getting 22 mpg city, not that great, but I didnt buy it to save gas. Cant tell a diff with the HPT tires.

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  Good quality built in North America??? - 2002 Acura MDX
  By Puma - June 8 - 10:00 am

  The car is well biult but a few inches too high. Sunroof too small for this size of a car (much smaller than competiotion). Lumbar support very primitive, not effective.

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  TL rating - 2002 Acura TL
  By Toni Donnet - June 8 - 10:00 am

  The car has had excellent reliability. Its power is marvelous and the ride is comfortable. The interior could be buffed up a bit to make it match the cars performance capability.

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  acura 3.2 TL - 2003 Acura TL
  By jmreiss - June 8 - 10:00 am

  this vehicle has everything the sedan driver could want. Power, confort and convience. If price is an issue there is no better sedan than the TL. It leases at unbelievable numbers and the American Honda Lease has many advantages with no disposition fee and the $1500 damage waiver. All in all, Acura has put together an unbeatable package.

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  Great relief!!! - 2017 Acura MDX
  By RG - June 7 - 10:15 am

  Ive owned it for about a month and from all my experiences so far, Im very impressed with quality of interior as well as luxury feel of the car. Ive driven German cars for the last 5 years and decided to go back to old reliable Japanese-made cars and couldnt be more relieved. After spending a ridiculous amount for maintenance on my 328 iX Drive, looking forward to owning this car and not worrying about the next pothole or the next maintenance project that will cost thousands of dollars.

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  This is Simply a Wonderful Automobile - 1999 Acura CL
  By Ken Kreps - June 6 - 1:09 pm

  Bought new, it has gone from being our first car to our second car and has proven to be an outstanding buy. Its comfortable to drive, looks great, has many great features, gets wonderful mileage (29-30 on the highway on regular). True, for its age it is is a low mileage car (just a few hundred over 60,000). No maintenance other than routine. In nine years we have replaced the tires, battery, alternator, brakes, and recently, the timing belt and water pump. All of these are routine for a nine year old automobile. We will drive this car easily another 3 or 4 years, as there is no way we could purchase nearly as fine a car for its current fair market value. This was a great buy for us.

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  Great Sporty Sedan - 2002 Acura TL
  By JS - June 6 - 12:36 pm

  I picked up my 02 TL in Florida and drove it up to Minnesota about 64,000 miles ago. I now have 112,000 miles on it and it still drives just as nice. I just put in a timing belt, brakes, rotors, crossover cooling line. Acura gave me a 100,000 mi. warranty on the transmission since there were issues with a select few. The only thing I notice is that there sometimes is some hesitation when shifting into D5. You have to wait 1-2 seconds before applying the gas. Great fuel mileage. 26-28 city / 28-31 hwy. Record trip was made with a 34 mpg tank.

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  After 130,000 miles - 2002 Acura RSX
  By sjava - June 6 - 12:04 pm

  I have more than 130,000 miles on this car. I lowered my car with aftermarket coilover. All the problems I got are associated with the suspension. Other than that I had zero problem. Im getting 29-30 mpg on 80% hwy and 20%city. I love the fact that this car looks like a coupe but its a hatchback. The hatchback provides so much utilities, youll be surprised. One time I picked up a 52" LCD TV and the store employee said no way I can load it to my car but I did. There is no other car that provides so much fun, utilities and 30 mpg.

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  The jury is still out - 2008 Acura MDX
  By CDouty - June 6 - 11:39 am

  Ive had my MDX for three weeks and cant say that I love it. Chose it over RX350 because I wanted something different - around here if you drive an RX you see yourself coming and going. Had 3 MB MLs, very happy with them, especially the last one, but didnt like the new ones. The MDX feels very solid and safe, and my daughters think the interior is huge. It is no longer than our ML, but it is wider. Acceleration kind of sluggish, mileage so far not as good as my MLs. The interior looks cheaper than my 2005 ML, but in fairness, so did the standard interior of the new MLs. Too much gadgetry for my taste, but my husband drove it to work one day and loved it. Hope it grows on me.

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  Acura MDX review - 2016 Acura MDX
  By Peter Goldfarb - June 5 - 6:55 am

  The ride is very comfortable and quite, acceleration for this size of vehicle is not bad. I found one issue with car: if you put the smart car key and smart cellular phone (iPhone) in the same pocket - your phone may not work or (and) you cant start car.This happened to my wife (she keeps her phone and car key together in her purse).