Come on Honda. This powertrain belongs in a hot hatchback. Remember those? As for the RDX, give it a small six – or possibly a diesel four – and the ability to pull my 2000 pound camper.

Both vehicles.. are exactly the type Honda / Acura should have never made.. going back 5yrs.

The TSX is the Accord for Japan and China. Its smaller, lighter weight, faster and has a better design. It also has a wagon option.

Women driving X3s, Rxs, Muranos, Rogues… and they want the RDX? Every vehicle in that class is severly lacking in point. Each is dragging the brand down lower.. and lower to the point of deminshing what the brand stands for.

The first gen TSX was a fantastic car.. Ive driven it for short time periods. Light weight good looking and fast. Fast forward to current gen.. and ya got a porky POS that SHARES its 3.5 motor with the TL?! Why are two vehicles in competing markets sharing the same motor? Ya cant stuff a turbo 4 into the TL, its just too big.

And the current TSX.. man what an abomination.
As for as the RDX… as much as I do like the CRV in theory.. its a painful execution. And to charge MORE money for it from Acura.

I started driving in Accords, a 92 then a 96 then a 00. I was hopign for a 05.. but the current stuff, is too damn big. Its being yanked around by a underpowered 4cycl, yanking around a HEAVY ass car, and hoping for decent economy.

I cant bear to see Honda go mainstream.. but its happening. And I cant buy a car from them.

Id rather cut my ties and by a Mazda 3 hatch. At least I can enjoy driving, turn off the NAV system.. and work the CVs for once.

They dumped the perfect size TL for the current gen.
They screwed up the size for the RL.
They made the MDX bloated and expensive.
RDX isnt well thought out, and competes with other castrated garbage from BMW and MB, inaddition to the EX and VENZA.
TSX.. is just an abomination.

I can only wish they return to what made them great before people who want size and sleeping at the wheel turn Honda… into Toy*yawn*ota.

I own a 2005 TL which came with summer Bridgestone’s as OEM. When temps drop to near freezing they turn rock hard and handling is ‘frightening’. Don’t even think about snow!

However, with euro type, winter tires handling is fine. The stability control kicks in frequently when starting off from a light or stop sign after a good snow, however it is easily managed.

A lot of people like(d) their earlier TL’s and TSX’s and were hoping that the new generation would be an evolutionary type update that freshened up the design, while fixing some of the weak areas of the cars performance.

Unfortunately, we got cars with snowplows for front ends and Buick suspensions.

I considered a TL (previous generation 2004-2008), yet I heard bad things about it’s snow traction. Seems odd to have snow traction problems in a FWD car, so I shied away. The new TL looks horrendous and I’ve never liked the look of the RDX, the rear of the car just looks odd. The MDX is very nice looking and seems to have everything you want in a larger mid-size SUV, and it’s sales show that.

Well, de gustibus non est disputandum and all that. I like the way the TSX looks, inside and out, and I like the new Mazda 3 a lot, and I stand by my point: most of the people I hear complaining about in the looks of these cars were someone (mentally or emotionally) invested in the previous models. I don’t think there’s an “objective” ugly here. I think there’s a reaction to the styling of the models being different. In other words, I think the car fan demographic (can we agree that all of us reading TTAC fall into that?) is overly conservative in their taste.

Consider an analogy with the Prius. This is another car that “car fans” consider to be butt-ugly. Yet among my friends who own Priuses, I can tell you that the MPG performance is probably one of the last reasons they bought the car. The primary reason is that Toyota, however much I personally don’t like it, have created a car that, when you get in it, feels like a spaceship. It even looks like a spaceship. It’s a spaceship!

So I respect that you want and like conservative styling on cars, but to some of us out here, that sort of styling is boring. It’s likely that the market is wide enough to accomodate both of our respective tastes.

Let’s not just hide behind the grill about the TSX’s ugliness.

Yeah the grill is ugly (and it’s spectacularly worse on the TL), but the TSX is ugly ALL OVER:

- Disproportionate proportions.
- nonsensical notches
- terrible taillights
- Seemingly completely random slashes along the sides… some where the sides meet the horizontal surfaces…
- Visual *noise* everywhere, and its loud.
….
- And just when you rush inside to escape all the visual noise, you’re assaulted by a cacophony of Ugly-Stick-Sculpted curves, colors, buttons, circles, dials inside.

What a terrible, terrible waste.

And put me down for GJCATL’s analysis as well. I pretty much agree on those points — where is Acura going; they have lost me as an Acura devotee (’92 GS-R!+ ‘04 TSX) and recommender.

I’m actually in the market for a car, and realize I’m a bit lost without Acura in the market anymore. Where’s the fun-to-drive, personal-luxury (don’t flaunt it) value play? Not at Acura.

The Japanese are doing a lot of really, really stupid shapes these days. There’s pretty much nothing in the Acura line I’d go near, Toyota’s cornered the market on the belt-pulled-up-to-the-nipples high-beltline-little-window look, etc.

I found it interesting that they get an Odyssey about 75% the size of ours. It uses a higher powered VTEC 4-cyl engine that looks like it gets decent mileage. I expected them to have the same sized minivan.

That being said, if the B&B could design a vehicle that deserved to be named for a high explosive (in the good way), what traits would it have?

The RDX ride is a worse version of the oxcart the X3 is. I like firm rides-but the RDX and X3 are just stiff, not compliant.

The MDX hits the mark perfectly for the class. The RDX misses the mark the same way.

Great motor…..find it a home….attached to a proper manual transmission.

I think one mistake people make consistently about the Acura brand is to lump it in direct competition with BMW, Infiniti, and Lexus and then ask the question “So, ignoring price considerations, which one of these is better?” But the fact is that to get into “the same” in those other brands, after configuration you’re typically looking at between $3k to $10k (or more) in additional costs. So I don’t find “Oh, the BMW 3 series is ‘better’ than the TSX!” to be a terribly persuasive argument. When talking about cars, “better” is a meaningless term if it doesn’t take price into account.

I think Acura has discovered a seam in the market (especially in this economy) and is mining it to great effect. Certainly, their sales data back that up.

Unfortunately, Acura is at a complete dead end for me, as far as any future purchases go. They took what made them a great success and threw it away for completely inexplicable reasons

I liked the days when Acura came fully loaded and at the time of purchase, you picked color and whether or not you wanted navigation for about $2k more. Simple. Easy. The cars were great, you could show up at the corporate environment during the week and have fun with it on the weekend – and Acura’s had the additional benefit of making you look like you spent more money than you actually did. Now you have to spend substatially more money to get navigation as part of a “tech package” – which is a complete 180 from where people are at, buying portable navi systems because the $2k was considered to be too much. So how does it make sense to lump navi into a $5k or $6k package?

If I was where I was in life in my 20’s and Acura had it’s current lineup, I wouldn’t be able to get into the brand. At the time, the TSX was too much. It took the RSX experience to sell me on the brand and, when I could afford to move up, I looked at Lexus and BMW, but stuck with Acura because of the great expereince and the ease of buying. I wanted to like the RDX when it came out, but the styling is, for me, a bit too “feminine”. They either went too far or not far enough with the style. To me, it looks a bit bloated to speak to the supposed performance that lies underneath. I test drove one and had one as a loaner – it just didn’t seem worth the money. We were teased with drawings of a new, sleeker TSX with turbo and AWD and we got a bland boring-mobile that looked nothing like the drawings, didn’t address the lack of power of the original and actually softened up the handling! To be fair, some people like it, mostly older people, from my observations, but not for my money. The new TL is just bizarre. It’s a polarizing look, some like it, I don’t. I like to fly under the radar, as many people do. I want a good looking, quality vehicle that more spaceship than just “flashy.” Cars can be customized for flash, and, truthfully, thats the best way to get to individuality and extra attention – add wheels, add a body kit, etc. That’s why the dealership has an accessory catalog. Why do the new Acura’s need to come with expensive option packages, bizarre styling cues and sub-standard, “weak” looking wheels? The 08 TSX and 09 TL “base” models look like stripper models because of their wheel packages. The base wheels on these models do nothing to compliment the styling. Their predecessors simply had better wheels out of the gate – makes a huge difference in the parking lot, look-back-over-your-shoulder, do-I-want-to-buy-this appeal. I could go on, but I just don’t get the direction that Acura has gone in. I was locked into the brand but now I’m just floating free.

So where, as a customer, do I go next? As others have said in these discussions, it looks like Infiniti G-series is the next step up for original TSX owners and a fine replacement for 08 and prior TLs. Sorry Acura, it was fun while it lasted!

Would the brand even be missed?

Engines are a bit smaller then North America, and there’s a diesel available, however it is the same platform.

In Australia, there is no Acura brand. This does not mean there are no Acura cars. The NSX, Integra, MDX all sold there as Hondas with an ‘H’ on the bonnet (hood) rather than the ‘A’. I don’t think the TX or TL ever sold there but my memory of Honda’s alphabet soup is unreliable.

The RDX is currently the best looking product Acura makes – but as of 2010 it gets the bizarre giant silver schnoz like the rest of the line (spy pics have already been seen). That’s the end of Acura as we know and love it…

Yes, the engine would be great in the TSX, but then the TSX no longer has any sporting intentions whatsoever.

-Jeff

So the only Acura that’s aesthetically working for us (not considering an RL…) is the RDX. What I’d give for a TSX/euro accord wagon that wasn’t ugly…

Cross shopping vs. an Audi A4 Avant. The car is for my wife so she’s driven both, I’ve not. They both sticker for the same amount (audio w/out nav, rdx with…), and it seems to me if the actual price was the same, the Avant would be an easy winner. I think we’d only take the RDX if there was a significant price difference.

I would expect, however, the actual price of the RDX to be considerably lower — thus far I’ve not gotten that from the dealer (and that’s including a pile of loyalty cash from Acura. I’m wondering if the days of 30k RDXs are behind us (have they constrained supply hugely?)… or maybe my Acura dealer just thinks I’m an idiot.

Like fingernails on a blackboard, so go The Blogs Of Our Lives… :-)

Honda is losing it.
Going mainstream is never good for a company.
In general, years ago, Compared to other marques in any given category, Honda was the lighter vehicke , had higher rpm motors, had the more efficiency in all engineering parameters, and had more driver oriented vehicle dynamics.
Beaver toothed Accuras, porky Pilots, bloated Accords, Avalanche jr. Ridgelines? No thanks. Only the Fit, S2000, in some ways the Insight, and perhaps the Civic have the Honda attitude of the 80’s & 90’s .

It’s R-O-G-U-E, as in “rebel”, not Rouge, as in “french for red”.

Rogue.

Thank you.

That being said, with the way Acura let a whole Ugly Gang (cf. “ugly stick”) beat up on the new TSX, I wouldn’t be seen in one even if it had BMW’s sweet twin-turbo inline-6 in it.

Oh, about the RDX. Yeah, it sucks. And it’s fugly. And clumsy. Next.