OVERVIEW Acura gets almost everything right PROSGreat engine, sharp handling CONSInterior could look a little more luxury VALUE FOR MONEYLots of features and performance for the price WHAT TO CHANGE?Throw that pushbutton shifter off a cliff HOW TO SPEC IT?Id go all the way to A-Spec The first letter in SUV is meant for “sport,” but that ain’t necessarily so. No matter how low-slung or sporty a crossover is, it simply can’t duplicate what a car can do, and Acura’s TLX is a great example. Good-looking, powerful, and a sharp handler, it proves you shouldn’t send a crossover out to do a sports sedan’s job. The TLX got a makeover for 2018, and so it continues into 2019 with almost no changes. It’s available with a 206-horsepower four-cylinder engine and front-wheel drive, and that version adds the top-level A-Spec package for this year. Instead, I had the TLX SH-AWD (Super-Handling All-Wheel Drive), which swaps out the four-banger for a V6. All-wheel-drive models start at $41,190, but my tester, the fully loaded Elite A-Spec, rings in at $51,190. The naturally aspirated 3.5-litre V6 is a sweet and potent performer, knocking out 290 horsepower and 267 lb.-ft. of torque. It pulls hard, even at higher speeds when you need passing power on the highway, but it’s also smooth off the line when you’re accelerating moderately from a stop. It’s mated to a nine-speed automatic, but no pun intended, that’s where my admiration for this car shifts gears. Not with the transmission itself, which does a creamy-smooth job of changing cogs, but with the hot mess that passes for its shifter. There’s no need to invent the PRNDL lever, which has done us just fine for the last however-many decades (and if you must, a dial shifter is equally good in my books). Here we have a mismatched stable of buttons and a toggle for the gears, requiring you to look down and see if you’ve hit the right one. Please, Honda (and Acura), send this design to the scrapyard. In addition to styling cues, the A-Spec package adds wider tires, sharper-tuned electric power steering, and screwed-down damper settings. It complements the all-wheel drive, which sends almost all of its power to the front wheels in straight-line cruising, but which transfers as much as 70 per cent to the rear on acceleration and hard curves. When you’re rounding a bend, more power goes to the outside rear wheel to help tuck the car in. Between the engine, the suspension, and the car’s relatively light weight, this thing can’t help but put a smile on your face. Inside, the TLX hits some high and low points. The seats are well-bolstered and very comfortable, and on the Elite and Elite A-Spec, the driver’s seat has a power cushion extender, and both front chairs are heated and ventilated (which you adjust with a somewhat confusing set of icons through the centre screen). Legroom in the rear seats is a little less than generous, although a six-foot passenger back there said he had enough headroom. Compensation for that tighter rear leg room is a sizeable trunk, made even more useful with two bins hidden under the floor. The divider between lets you securely stash items within reach, and they don’t roll around the trunk. Acura’s always straddled the fence between sports and luxury, and there’s usually something about its vehicles that suggests it can’t make up its mind. The TLX cabin’s luxury-car quiet, with just a touch of the engine’s throaty growl making its way inside. But then the interior’s plain design, its dash a wide swath of plain hard plastic, looks far less premium than I’d expect in a car that tops $50,000. The infotainment system is divided into two screens, which leaves the navigation up top and the map always viewable. The bottom touchscreen handles other functions, including stereo, phone, climate settings, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and inputting the navigation commands. But here’s another issue. There’s voice recognition for many functions, including some for the nav system. You can talk to the car, and it will obediently bring up and let you select any previous destinations you’ve entered, take you home if you’ve set that address, or find nearby points of interest, such as a gas station or coffee shop. But if you want to enter a new address with voice, rather than tapping it in, you’re out of luck. Cars sold in Canada don’t have that ability. Seriously? At a time when I’m rating navigation systems on whether they’ll let me say the whole address at once, rather than having to keep hitting the “talk” button to speak one line at a time, the TLX can’t do either one? Yes, most people rely on their phones for guidance, but if Acura’s going to stick a map in the dash, it really should have full functionality, and not just for the U.S.-market cars that can listen and obey. This might seem like a relatively minor complaint overall, especially in a car that performs as well as this, but annoyances seldom go away the
Origin: Car Review: 2019 Acura TLX