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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  Acura - Great Vehicle - 2006 Acura RL
  By mjg1629 - October 8 - 7:13 pm

  Great autormobile for driver, not so great for passengers. Front passenger seat should be 6 way to go up and down, not just forward and back. Back seat area is small for long trip for two guests. For driver a perfect car,best Ive ever owned and Ive had them all.

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  Denver 2002 TLS - 2002 Acura TL
  By Denver Guy - October 8 - 11:59 am

  Im the original owner and have been thoroughly pleased with this car, so much so Im having a tough time deciding on if to sell and which new car to buy to replace this one. It would be logical to purchase another TL but I dont care for the current body style. MY TLS has been very reliable and economical with only routine maintenance and just a few recalls (tranny). It also still looks great inside and out! Suggestions for Acura: put better tires on the new cars. This car drives so much better after the original tires were replaced.

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  Very satisfied with our choice - 2005 Acura MDX
  By JDog - October 8 - 4:40 am

  We looked at the usual suspects in this category. Ultimately, we went with the MDX as the best overall combination of drive quality, convenience and comfort - its a great car.

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  Disappointing for a Luxury Automobile - 2017 Acura TLX
  By Dimitri - October 8 - 2:36 am

  This is my 6th Acura. 2017 TLX, 6 cylinder with Technology package. I turned in a 2013 TL, which I really liked but the lease had been extended three times. The 2013 was a superior automobile to the 2017. In more detail: The road handling is very good. The steering is precise and communicative. The road noise has been improved considerably. The stereo is the known ELS which is very good. The bad news: The technology is archaic, behind the times, totally disappointing, head scratching, how ACURA allows their automobiles to be designed and sold this way. The Honda Civic and the Hyundai Elantra (!!) are years ahead in terms of technology than the TLX. The menu selections are awful, a lot of duplication. The response time is amazingly slow, to the point that one does not know whether it works. The software did get "hung up" once, during the first week but it recovered. If technology is not important, it is a very solid car and fun to drive. But since technology is an integral part of the driving experience, it is a rather disappointing car.

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  This one is a keeper - 1994 Acura Legend
  By joey - October 7 - 11:08 pm

  Great car and comfortable to ride. I bought the car mainly because of its reputation for reliability, and so far so good.

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  Excellent car to own and drive - 2004 Acura MDX
  By Midlifemom - October 7 - 7:20 pm

  I drive 40K a year. Perfect vehicle. Decent mileage (20.5 on highway). Will not tip like Sequoia, 4Runner. Excellent in rain, snow. Excellent sound. Very perfect vision all around for driving safety. Good in curves, swerving. Mirrors great, melt snow. Tows my boat great, out of steep ramps. Windshield banked so no chips from rocks. Fog lights catch deer on dark highway at night for you, safer. Passes fine. Pick up fine. Looks pretty. Never, never, never screws up. Have never had to have it fixed. I have 113,000 miles. Very fine car, recommend it. Others I have had are Yukon, Sequoia, Mercedes, Volvo.

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  Great Vehicle with Terrible Infotainment - 2016 Acura MDX
  By Mike - October 5 - 2:05 am

  We recently leased a 2016 MDX AWD with Tech Package. If we were to do it again the smart money would be the base awd model with the AcuraWatch safety feature package. Let me explain why....First off the car rides, accelerates, stops, turns, and everything else regarding moving extremely well. Even the headlights are exceptional. The interior seating design and the way they slide is also great. The safety features shake the steering wheel if you depart your lane and warn you when other cars are too close. Whats left is the way you interact with the controls in the dash and on the steering wheel. Every single thing about the interaction with the controls is unnecessarily complicated. In many cases it takes an extra click or 2 in a menu than in other cars. For example to turn seat heater on you need to click a button on the screen, select the heat level, then close the sub-menu. In every other car on the planed you click the button once to turn on the seat heat then another click to change the heating level. I consider this annoying, but not a deal breaker. Then you get into the gps. The gps takes longer than most to figure out how to do the basics. Its cumbersome to enter an address. The guidance is also poor. Sometimes there is no audible instruction on when to turn and a strange map of your turn with a flag that isnt always oriented the way you are travelling. To sum it up you are better off placing your phone with google maps over the nav screen. I can only hope there is some kind of update to enable android auto or the apple car os. Last but not lease the Bluetooth connectivity doesnt play nice with my samsung galaxy s6. Every 30 seconds or so it pops up an error it cant import the phonebook. A quick google search indicates this is a common issue for many. Then you quickly find out the text interaction is terrible. When you get a text a notification takes over the entire screen asking what you want to do (imagine you were getting ready to make a turn following gps). So then when you act on the notification you have to pick from a very small list of predefined reply messages. Every other car I have used including cheap rentals allow you to speak a text reply. My other vehicle is 2015 ram 3500 with uconnect and it does all of this with no issues. In a day and age where so much of your interaction with a vehicle is the electronics acura needs to do a much better job. The kicker is you pay thousands extra for this tech package and get terrible tech bundled with some really good safety features. After having the MDX a few months I can say I would buy it again, but would not get anything above a base model awd with acurawatch.

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  Very Happy Wife - 2007 Acura MDX
  By BIgd... - October 4 - 1:04 pm

  So far just getting used to all the gadgets has been a challenge. I really like the feature when you unlock it but forget something and have to go back. You can program it to lock in 30, 60 or 90 seconds after you may have inadvertently unlocked it and forgot. Great security feature. I have taken it on a few long trips and am also very happy with the cruise control especially on steep hill climbs like I have in BC,Canada. I have set it at 80 MPH and climbed a 12%-18% hill grade and maintained it for the 2km hill climb. Awesome!! I actually like the navi control knob that some people seem to hate.

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  Thirsty - 2007 Acura TSX
  By disco1999 - October 4 - 4:25 am

  Will consume just about the same amount of gas for a 4cyl as a 6cyl TL, the TSX lacks power. No XM radio available even in the navi package.

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  TL Interior Noise around Windows - 2006 Acura TL
  By David Alexander - September 26 - 4:42 pm

  Both driver and passenger windows leak air having no frame around the top and sides. Sunroof leaked air with dealer installed visor, money refunded for poor design. Front seats need adjustable side supports, for they are fairly wide buckets. Nav system large display very nice, but system does take practice to use. Keep the nav book in the glove box for quick referance. Door side moulding worth the money, as well as flaps for the wheels. Plenty of power and rides well, with good balance of ride and handling. Gas mileage is very good for the size and power you get in return. Has a refined, yet sporty look.