Anonymous

Reviewed a 2011 Acura Sedan FWD with Technology Package on Feb 20, 2015

By the time I am reviewing this car, Acura has stopped producing this car. And that is a bummer. This was the only car (when I bought it in 2011) that was directly imported from Japan (All others - MDX, TL, RDX, RL were manufactured in USA of select imported Japanese parts). After driving my trusty Corolla for 8-9 years, when it was time for me to upgrade, I wanted to make a rational decision by optimizing brand, luxury, price, features. At the end the Infinity G35 and TSX came on top (BMW 3 was close but it lost out on interior space). The clincher between the G35 and TSX was the price that the dealer offered to me. (I did test drive both and there was only minor difference in their performance). With relatively fewer horses (201 in the non-V6 model), the car provides ample gallop. Initially, I had some issues with the way the electronics worked (I am an engineer that likes to break down and reconstruct systems - so I am pretty intuitive about them). For example, often, the BT audio would not connect or when I would be connected via the USB cable, the songs would not load and it would default to BT or sometimes when you switched the ignition off in the middle of a song, it would not pick up from the same point, especially when you moved interfaces (BT to cable or vice versa) and so on. I have to say though, all of those issues seems to have gone away (or in-noticeable) over time (and I did not do any firmware update yet). But when I upgraded my phone to iPhone 6, sometimes, the BT phone interface would not work (that is a new problem and may be I will need to do a hardware disc update to take care of this after all). Some people may not like the dashboard interface with too many buttons - but I think I like the very tactile feel of various buttons and the way they are laid out - it grows over time on you. The engine is very reliable - I have kept my car submerged in ice and snow for weeks in record New England cold but it has never failed to start on the first attempt. The tires do lose pressure in the cold very frequently (go down from 32-33 to 24-26 psi) but they gain pressure by a few PSIs when you start driving. When driving on rougher roads, the cabin noise can be more than when you are driving inside a Lexus (which I think has the best interiors among lux cars). Overall, as I said, this is a very good car for the money - Acuras in general, I think, offer much more superlative value for similar (or even better) luxury features than comparable, more vaunted models from BMW, Jaguars, Mercs, Audis etc. It is indeed a good thing that most people don't know about that - because if they discover that, those of us who love Acuras will have to pay higher for the brand. In Pre-2011, many of the electronic features in this TSX were really premium - and which came at a reasonable cost compared to other luxury models. Woefully and understandably, as in-car electronics are improving by leaps and bounds every year, the fairly advanced geeky features (such as the Multi Instrument Display - MID or the BT phone or the GPS - which is touchless) in the TSX already look obsolete compared to 2014-15 models. It is a bummer that TSX production has been ceased as Acura streamlines its brand line-up. But the ILX is a little too small (and made on the Civic platform) - TLX may be a bit too pricey. TSX would have fit neatly in the middle - especially if they had kept on updating the model in terms of electronics and other features. Hope you all find this review helpful.