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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  Beautiful Car - 2006 Acura TL
  By PhxSun - October 25 - 10:11 pm

  I bought this car in October of 06. Fun to drive and fast! I love the way the car handles and a very quite ride. The navigation is really nice. The exterior and interior are sporty. I am 63" and I am comfortable. Gas mileage is great.

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  2006 Nighthawk Black/Black - 2006 Acura RL
  By Michael Dee - October 25 - 9:56 pm

  This perpective from trade in of a beloved 530i..New RL is tight & high build quality. Impressive ride comfort, great handling & power. Nav and other tech interface is intuitive. End of yr incentives added to strong value equation. Other: good view of road, clear displays day & night,good driver position & cockpit orientation. Many plus comments from passengers and wife (who drives an Audi A6 quattro). Now for winter drivin & more time to wash & wax it! Looked at GS350,530xi but Acura best perf/value/quality solution. Dealer contact in NH A++

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  Its Only A Car! - 2006 Acura TL
  By Carlos A. Lopez - October 25 - 7:20 pm

  Nice to drive and own but fuel economy for heavy footed people like me doesnt go too well with this car! V6 is great but you pay for what you get. Overall good, quality vehicle.

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  Best cae I ever owned - 2007 Acura RL
  By Ben - October 25 - 4:03 pm

  Quality, perfect never back to dealer for anything except for free car washes. I owned Porsche and BMW, quality can not compare - great value and better overall perfomance.

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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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  CL-S - Great to me - 2001 Acura CL
  By cl in mn - October 23 - 9:12 pm

  I bought my CL-S w/Nav early (May 00) - and enjoyed having a car that wasnt too common,yet a real sleeper in performance (can run with some fast cars). I never had the transmission replaced that seemed so common - but watching it close (Acura stepped up and extended warr for all to 7 yrs/100K - a stand-up thing to do for a car company). The rest of the cars quality has been great - literally nothing has gone wrong. Had a squeaky sunroof and rear cargo lid - but both were fixed early in the cars life. I still ENJOY driving this car 6 1/2 years later.

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  Acura MDX: Delivers with Value - 2006 Acura MDX
  By R. Harris - October 23 - 4:50 pm

  Just bought a EOY 2006 and what a value. Loaded it came in under $38K and then added a GAMIN GPS 52 for $500.00 saving $7,000.00.

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  Get it with a stick shift for fun times - 1994 Acura Integra
  By Hotrod - October 22 - 5:13 am

  I bought this car a year ago mainly cause I wanted to learn how to drive a stick shift car. Im the 3rd owner, it has over 120k miles on it and it is by far the most fun to drive car Ive ever had. This is a great car to learn how to handle a stick and clutch. One thing Id like to share with everyone is that when I first got it the gas mileage was lousy. So just for kicks I added some fuel injector cleaner to the gas tank and changed the air filter. That turned out to be just what the doctor ordered cause I noticed a huge increase in power and mileage went up nearly 50%. So if you sense a loss of performance in your vehicle now you know what to do first. Pass it on.

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  Great value luxury - 2006 Acura RL
  By cls1 - October 21 - 9:18 am

  2006 RL Tech package, great car. Very comfortable quiet ride. I have looked at Lexus, BMW, Infiniti, this is the greatest car for the value and standard options which are optional on the other vehicles. The options on this car compared to the other vehicles would cost 10-15K more. The ride is second to none. Build quality is excellent. Highly recommended.

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  Good, but not perfect - 2006 Acura TL
  By evo34 - October 20 - 3:24 pm

  See pros and cons below...