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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  MDX Review - 2002 Acura MDX
  By Jason b - July 2 - 10:00 am

  This car is great! The ride is smooth, quiet, and fun The MDX has great pick up and good horsepower (240) The only bummer is that it takes premium gasoline but it gets good fuel economy 19/24

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  Near Perfection. No competition - 2003 Acura TL
  By Acura1 - July 2 - 10:00 am

  The TL type S puts the competition to shame. We drove the Infiniti G-35 and there was no comparison. The transmission is exceptional. The acceleration is awesome. When using the sport shift feature the Acura gives you total control after second gear. The manumatic in the Infiniti takes over if you hold it a lower gear for too long. It defeats the purpose. Interior is very user friendly. Exterior is slightly on the modest side with a bid too much chrome for a sport model.

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  Great overall car - 2006 Acura TSX
  By kaiger - June 30 - 8:19 pm

  Those who say this car is underpowered are either comparing it to true sports cars or theyre driving the automatic. This is a sedan. Its not meant to break any quarter-mile speed records. For what it is, it is quite sporty. The 6-speed manual is great. The gears are crisp, it accelerates well and you cant beat the features for the price.

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  Truly a Legend - 1994 Acura Legend
  By chip - June 30 - 5:21 pm

  I bought this car new and I drove it into the ground (traded it in on a new TL). The Legend was a great car. It was traded in with 275,000 miles on it with only a few problems. The only reason I traded it was because I got hit 3 times in a 1 month period (none of the accidents were my fault). I am convinced that the electrical system started to have issues after getting in the first accident. I loved that car so much I actually want to buy another one.

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  Very happy - 2006 Acura TL
  By JOHN - June 30 - 11:49 am

  Purchased 06 TL plus nav. What a vehicle! I get almost 30 mpg, it has plenty of power and is exactly right for me.

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  Excellent Car! - 2001 Acura CL
  By Cash - June 30 - 12:43 am

  Got this car with 58K on it and now has less than 65K. Absolutely love this car, no probs so far. ABS and side airbag turned on and dealership took care of it. Wish I had bought a type S. When I got it, I tinted my windows black, recently put some black rims on it and smoked out the front and rear tail lights. Next project to put some lambo doors and pop up navi and dvd player. This is my 3rd Honda/Acura and will absolutely stick with them! Next car is the TL.

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  Type S - 2007 Acura TL
  By Bertinoj - June 29 - 10:28 pm

  I owned an 04 TL, and an 05 RL. I traded that RL on a G35 coupe. Loved the G35, but really missed the Acura product. So, this past June 25th I walked into an Acura dealership and negotiated a deal on a 07 TL type S. A lot of the bells and whistles of the RL, faster and more stable than the TL. How can you go wrong. Not as fast as the G35, but so much more refined, and a pleasure to drive.

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  Great car, even better sound system - 2007 Acura MDX
  By Ryan - June 29 - 7:39 pm

  Ive owned my MDX since October 06, have about 8,000 on her. Really a top notch SUV. Ride and handling are smooth and accurate. The interior design of the car is absolutely stunning. Seats are very comfortable and although some controls not in the most convenient of places, where else would you put them? There are a lot of features in this car. The navigation and voice recognition are excellent as is the handsfree phone operation. The most impressive feature is by far the DVD audio stereo system. The sound that comes out of this thing is beyond description, especially if you have a DVD audio disk. Overall, clearly one of the best SUVs out there today.

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  This is Acura quality??? - 2005 Acura TL
  By SadPanda - June 29 - 1:23 pm

  I did a lot of research before buying my TL. Every car I looked at had *something* wrong with it, so its hard to get a good picture of reliability from the forums. Acura has a great reputation though. I decided to pony up $6K more than I had intended to spend to ensure I would not have buyers remorse. Nine days after the purchase I totally regret buying this car. The lack of quality is a joke. A very bad joke. Im ready to eat $1000 if the dealer will buy the car back from me. My previous two cars - a 92 GMC Sonoma and 00 Mustang GT - didnt have ONE problem in the first year, let alone 3-4 in the first 9 days like this TL. :(

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  Great car, but... - 2005 Acura TL
  By jimh615 - June 29 - 12:58 am

  My TL is nice to drive, hampered only by seemingly constant nit-picky little problems like the auto window up stopped working, the check engine light came on, the brake rotors warped (I have the Brembo brakes), a rear seat belt was installed wrong, third gear was hard to get into (a new lubricant solved that), rear part of roof liner came loose, clutch pedal became rough and ratchety. The navigation system software (algorithms) are horrible. No matter what setting you use, it will take you all over the place before getting you there. The trip computer has a number of miles to empty its worthless!! When it reads 0 miles left, you can still go 70 miles on the highway and have fuel.