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What year was your first car?
Choose one below!

A) 1940 and older
B) 1940-1960
C) 1960-1980
D) 1980-1999
E) 2000 or newer?

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Acura RDX a solid luxury crossover with great ride

The 2013 Acura RDX is more spacious, more luxurious feeling and a better all-round performer than its predecessor, which was no slouch.

The interior is roomy, comfortable and quiet. Its power hatch welcomed a big load of luggage. Everything looks and feels right for a small to mid-size crossover.

At its base is solid performance that any luxury crossover owner would want.

The 3.5-liter i-VTEC V6 delivers a healthy 273 horsepower, up from 240 with the previous turbocharged four-cylinder. But the turbo delivered it with more low-end oomph. This larger engine is silky smooth harnessed to Acura's six-speed automatic that features SportShift, including paddle shifters behind the steering wheel. I doubt most drivers will use that feature often, but it's a perk if you prefer more performance.

Despite weighing just 3,838 pounds, the RDX feels heavy, some might call it substantial. That adds to its luxury feel, but the steering effort is a tad heavier than some folks might expect in this size of a crossover.

The RDX handles well with fairly quick steering. It's easy to control on the highway and on winding back roads. There is slight body lean in tight turns, but nothing unusual for this type of vehicle.

The ride was stellar. I had up to five adults in the RDX much of the weekend and most commented on its comfortable, quiet interior. The ride, which is well-controlled with a multi-link suspension in back and MacPhearson struts up front and a 105.7-inch wheelbase, tends more toward luxury than sport.

Also standard on this model is all-wheel-drive and four-wheel discs brakes with ABS. Traction control and stability control make it a good vehicle for sloppy weather.

Gas mileage was a disappointment. I got just 17.6 mpg while the EPA says to expect 19 mpg city and 27 highway, up from the previous turbo's 24 mpg highway. Premium fuel is preferred but not required. My test was close to 80% city, much of it stop-and-go, and I did have either luggage or five people aboard 90% of the time.

Inside, the dark gray metallic RDX was nearly recording-studio quiet. The 2013 model features a better-looking and easier to understand dash, and a load more soft touch surfaces, from the dash to the doors. Leather padding inserts in the doors felt and looked great, and the brown over tan interior leaned heavily toward sitting room comfort.

The RDX's seats are broad and just mildly contoured with the tan leather being soft and smooth to the touch. Head and legroom front and rear are generous, so five adults rode in comfort. The second-row seats fold down to create a flat large cargo area.

I like Acura's dash layout, with the two main gauges directly in front of the driver and behind the power tilt/telescope leather-wrapped steering wheel. Gauges are black with white numbers, nothing fancy, but easy to read.

The RDX also has push-button start, two memory settings for the power driver's seat, two-speed heated front seats, a big glove box and storage bin between the seats, and overhead there are visors that slide, HomeLink, plus a sunroof with shade.

A big navigation screen is easy to see atop the center stack, and actually was easy to adjust via a large soft-touch knob mid-dash. There are six radio channel buttons, dual climate controls and eight large climate-control buttons to direct the air where you want it and at what velocity, if automatic isn't handling it for you.

On the steering wheel's hub are radio, cruise control, phone and trip computer buttons, again all easy to see and figure out

Other tech features include a multi-view rear camera, a 360-watt stereo with 10 speakers and the AcuraLink communications system with Real Time Traffic info, which is invaluable in larger cities. Also included in the package were the power hatch, fog lights, HD lights and auto climate control.

The RDX is competitively priced at $39,420. Add $895 delivery and you're looking at $40,315. There were no options. An entry-level model with a six-speed automatic starts at $34,320 and moving up to an AWD model pushes that to $35,720.

Overall, the RDX is one of the nicest crossovers I've driven in a while, with excellent ride and interior comfort.

RDX Navigation System

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ILX Driver's First Impressions

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NADAGuides.com Recognizes 2013 Acura RDX Amid Record Sales

Fresh off of record June sales for its nameplate, the all-new 2013 Acura RDX has been singled out as NADAGuides.com’s Featured Vehicle of the Month for July. Citing traits that most likely appealed to many of the 3,090 U.S. consumers that bought an RDX last month, the auto-research site recognized the latest generation of the compact crossover for its sleek looks, advanced performance and fuel efficiency.

Sales of the Acura RDX were up an impressive 189 percent in June compared to the same month last year, and year-to-date the utility vehicle has moved 11,273 units, an increase of 59 percent year-over-year. The 2013 RDX went on sale in April, and it has since drawn attention from buyers and industry experts alike; the Acura crossover was recently named a Top Safety Pick by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety as well.

“A crossover is supposed to be versatile by definition, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a competitor that offers a more complete package than the new RDX,” said Joel Avery, general manager of Acura of Peabody, an Acura dealer in Massachusetts. “The RDX was already a sought-after vehicle, but the 2013 model has a stronger, smoother and more fuel-efficient engine, added interior space and a stylish new interior design that has further enhanced its appeal to our customers.”

The 2013 Acura RDX features a new 3.5-liter V6 engine that produces 273 horsepower while returning up to 28 mpg on the highway, an increase of 33 horsepower and four miles per gallon compared to the 2012 model’s smaller four-cylinder engine. That new powerplant is accompanied by a wider track, a longer wheelbase and a lower center of gravity to improve the RDX’s handling and ride.

Inside, all passengers of the new RDX get more legroom and shoulder room, while Acura’s Active Noise Control technology and standard leather seats make for a quiet, comfortable cabin. Cargo space has also increased to 76.9 cubic-feet, opening up about 16 more cubic-feet for storing gear or groceries.

Ensuring that every driver can stay connected during their commute, the 2013 Acura RDX comes standard with a five-inch color display for Bluetooth hands-free phone calls, Pandora internet radio and a SMS text message function that can read incoming texts to drivers and send pre-written responses. Meanwhile, an optional navigation system adds voice-recognition capabilities for audio, climate control and directions.

“The new RDX is just as much a fit for the daily commute into Boston as it is for trips to the White Mountains on weekends,” Avery noted. “It has the communications technology to make you more efficient during the work week, but it also has plenty of cargo space and capability for whatever getaway you might have planned come Friday evening.”

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Acura ILX: Lower Expectations, Better Results

AN ONLINE OUTFIT named TheCheeky sells an anticheating wedding band; the inside of the titanium ring is engraved with the words “I’m Married,” in reverse, so that after a few months the words are indelibly imprinted on your finger.

Or you could drive this car.

The Acura ILX strikes me as a second-marriage car. This, the brand’s new bottom rung ($26,795), is a roundly sensible, tolerably attractive little luxer with very decent build quality, diverting performance and a score or more of easy-to-use digital amenities. It also has a substantial pedigree for safety and reliability in the Acura name, which is spelled Honda in most of the world.

Note how very levelheaded and moderate those qualifiers are, how very selfless. The hottest engine you can get is a 2.4-liter, 201-horsepower four-cylinder. This is the sort of ostentatiously rational choice made after long kitchen-table deliberations with your wife—your second wife—and it represents a compromise along multiple axes. Not too spendy, not too flashy, safe and fun, but not too fun. There’s nothing extreme about this car, all well and truly between the margins. We’ve learned our lessons. The meds are working.

Your first marriage? That’s the one where you blew all your savings on a lifted and camouflaged Ford F-250 Super Duty with a folding deer stand in the bed. Money was an issue in your first marriage.

But there’s something else there, too. There’s a spark, a flicker of renewed optimism. As troubled a brand as Acura is, it still has some lingering aspirational heat. And it’s clear the kids in Torrance are trying to turn things around. One move the company is making, long overdue, is the effort to emotionalize the brand: Exhibit A, the NSX, reborn as a supercar hybrid and coming in 2014; Exhibit B, a product-placement deal with Marvel Studios’ “Avengers” film series, which is brazenly awesome and vice versa.

The other move is to reset the entry vehicle, and that’s where the ILX comes in. The ILX’s base price comes in $4,110 below that of the possibly departing TSX—a pretty big interval, and one that represents an obvious retrenching on Acura’s part, reflecting more sober expectations. In other words, Acura is kind of just starting out again, having been schooled in disappointment. I think it will appeal to people likewise situated.

Sure do miss that pickup, though.

You ordered nuts and bolts? The ILX is based on the Civic’s front strut/rear-multilink platform and built in the ancient Japanese enclave of Greensburg, Ind. The powertrain choices are three: a 1.5-liter, 150-hp four with a five-speed automatic; a 111-hp hybrid with 39/38 mpg city/highway fuel economy; and, like our test car, a 2.4-liter, 201-hp, 170-lb.-ft. in-line four with six-speed manual transmission, the very same powertrain as in the sporty and ornery Civic Si and the TSX.

There’s a relative shortage of fun, tossable entry-luxury cars with manual transmissions available, so the ILX with the stick wins happiness points on that score alone. The ILX’s program engineers also gave the car a more well-seated and refined feel in its ride and handling than the donor Civic. Among the upgrades are new, fancy dampers with two-stage valving, providing limited damping in the first few centimeters of compression, then firming up for long-stroke events. The effect is subtle, but it’s there. The ILX also enjoys a higher-rate steering ratio for a crisper steering feel.

Also noticeable is the uptick in ride isolation, which is to say the ILX has less of the tactile and audible thrum of asphalt under-wheel than does the Civic. When the engine isn’t vocalizing, the ILX’s interior delivers a handsome amount of calm and quiet.

The front-drive ILX carries about 60% of its weight on the front wheels, so the grippier 17-inch, 45-series tires that are available with the 2.4-liter engine package are welcome. With the additional grip at the nose, the ILX bites harder and holds a cornering line longer before it starts to push off in mild and manageable understeer.

The 2.4-liter—beloved in the Si—is just about impossible to dislike. The revs and widespread torque come eagerly when you call them, the engine spooling furiously to its shouty, 7,100-rpm redline. A hard upshift into second gear will coax a naughty little bark from the front tires. You won’t win many drag races in this car—0-60 mph is around 7 seconds—but the car has such a fervid, hustling personality, so much the dragonfly on a leash, you’ll hate to park it. I did.

The interior design is a multiorgan transplant from other Acuras. Here again the blithely futuristic switchgear and console, the same rotary controller in the center stack, the same twin-scalloped, ski-boat cockpit. Our ILX’s cabin was very nicely turned out with dense rubberized dashtop, stitched-leather seats and doors, alloy-like flourishes dividing the upper and lower dash and, in our test car, a lovely center-console fascia that I know can’t be metal but looks exactly like brushed anodized aluminum. Excellent.

Acura’s exterior design also resets with the ILX. These cars’ styling has been a strangely sterile exercise in modernism in the last few years, with a hard-to-watch identity crisis playing out in the nose-and-grille area. I believe I am the only human on Earth to like the Acura ZDX, including those who built it.

The ILX body shell puts a lot of visual distance between itself and the coupe-roofed Civic. The front overhang is more pronounced in order to visually lengthen the hood; and millimeters have been carved out to create a sedan-like trunk with a (very) short deck lid. The shape is more sculptural—there’s a pronounced lightline at the rocker panel and the beltline vigorously hitches itself up over the rear wheel arches—and yet more conservative. The ILX doesn’t require quite the explanation that other Acuras do.

So, we’re starting over, are we, Acura? Well, let’s avoid the mistakes of the past, stay positive, try harder. Love lifts us up where we belong.

2013 Acura ILX

Base price: $26,795

Price as tested: $31,675

Powertrain: Naturally aspirated DOHC 2.4-liter, 16-valve in-line four-cylinder with variable valve timing; six-speed manual transmission; front wheel drive

Horsepower/torque: 201 hp at 7,000 rpm/170 lb.-ft at 4,400 rpm

Length/weight: 179.1 inches/2,978 pounds

Wheelbase: 105.1 inches

0-60 mph: <7 seconds

EPA fuel economy: 21/32/25 mpg, city/highway/combined

Cargo capacity: 12.3 cubic feet

Monday Maintenance Tip: Avoiding Potholes

Potholes destroy tires, and the price of tires is rising sharply due to a supply shortage of natural rubber (yes, it still comes from trees, mostly in southeast Asia) and increasing demand from China, where car ownership is undergoing double-digit growth. Petroleum is also used in tire manufacturing, adding further to cost volatility. Blow out just one tire on one pothole and expect to pay out more – one major tire manufacturer increased prices three times in 2011 alone.

Damage from potholes doesn’t stop at tires. In a blink of the eye, you can experience $1000 of damage, possibly more, when your car hits a pothole – it’s possible to impair your car’s shock absorbers, suspension system, struts, rims and alignment as well. According to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the average additional vehicle operating costs due to rough roads in 2007 was $400, with higher costs experienced in places including Baltimore ($589), Concord, NH ($656), Dallas-Fort Worth ($512), Los Angeles ($746), New Orleans ($622), New York-Newark ($638), Oklahoma City ($631), San Francisco-Oakland ($705) and Tulsa ($703). Deteriorating roads and general inflation since 2007 likely pushed these costs higher.

But there are things you can do before, during and after hitting a pothole. A preventive strategy is more about preparation, driving skills and reacting appropriately when a pothole sneaks up to surprise you. We suggest you approach it on three fronts, as follows.

Adopt smarter driving practices

You can reduce damage with vehicle preparation and driving with good sense:

• Check your tire pressure to keep it at the tire manufacturer’s recommendation. If a tire is too soft, it handles poorly and in a sudden bump may rupture if the wheel rims pinch it against the jagged edge of a pothole. Over-inflated tires are more susceptible to damage as well.
• Have a clean windshield! Your field of vision is critical.
• Observe the traffic ahead of you – if other cars are swerving and stopping, it’s because of a problem in the road.
• Beware of puddles – what might look like a little surface water might have a nasty, deep and sharp-edged pothole lurking below.
• Reduce your speed on roads that are prone to potholes. Slower hits generally involve less damage, a simple matter of physics.
• Stay focused and pay attention to the amount of traffic in front, behind and alongside you. You might be able to avoid potholes but do not want to cause an accident while doing so.

React quickly, intelligently when a pothole is upon you

Assuming you drive defensively – and do not tailgate, which restricts your ability to anticipate potholes or sudden braking by the vehicle in front of you – here is what to do if you are just about to hit a pothole:

• Brake only lightly, if at all. And do something counterintuitive by letting off on the brakes entirely the moment before impact. Clamping down on your brakes at higher speeds not only tempts rear-end collisions but also compresses the front-end suspension system, increasing the damage.
• Hard braking can actually cause greater contact between the tire and the pothole where it might otherwise glide over it.
• Do not swerve in a last ditch attempt to avoid the pothole. Aside from creating a hazard for vehicles immediately behind and beside you, you risk hitting the pothole on an oblique angle, which can cause more damage to the tire, wheel rim and alignment than if you hit it perpendicularly.

Reduce the damage in the aftermath

Post-impact, the right moves can at least limit the extent of the damage:

• Immediately pay attention to whether or not you have a flat tire. If so, minimize how much you drive on it, pull off the road as soon as you can do so safely where you can change the tire to your spare. This will minimize the damage to your wheel rim.
• Even without a flat, there may be preliminary damage. At your next stop, check tire rims to see if they were bent, if there is visible cord material or bulging. This could fail later while driving.
• Note if your car pulls to one side without corrective steering. This suggests the wheels are out of alignment and need mechanical attention.

In most municipalities, you can and should report potholes to the streets department – use a smartphone app such as SeeClickFix or SaveMyTire.com, or the local 3-1-1 or other call-in line. You might also be compensated for your loses if that pothole was reported previously and left unfixed, however rules for this are determined on a city, township or county level.