The 2015 Acura TLX is the most competent compact sports sedan to come out of Japan and the one most likely to be a threat to the reigning BMW 3 Series, our current Editors’ Choice for a compact sports sedan. The Acura TLX is cat quick, quiet, and chock full of driver assists to protect dumb pedestrians and its own momentarily inattentive drivers.
The TLX succeeds both the Acura TL midsize and TSX compact sedans. A combination of radar and cameras share information to provide improved adaptive cruise control, pedestrian detection and braking, forward collision warning and braking, lane keep assist that self-steers on highways, as well as the more commonplace blind spot detection and rear cross traffic alert. It has two new engine choices, two new transmissions, and a super-quiet cabin. Dinged in the past for having too many confusing center stack buttons, Acura cut them to 20 and it’s not enough; you’ll curse the missing tuning knob and the difficulty adjusting navigation volume.
How Acura changed to be more competitive
Acura decided it had one too many sedans in a four-vehicle lineup where the majority of sales came from two SUVs — our Editors’ Choice Acura MDX that is a top-ten seller among all luxury cars, and the smaller Acura RDX. It combined the middle two cars, the compact TSX and the midsize TL, into the 2015 TLX, that is 190 inches long, still big for a compact sedan. That leaves the Acura ILX, a compact based on the Honda Civic and due for a refresh to enliven sales, and the premium Acura RLX that is new.
With the TLX, Acura engineers delivered a sensational sports sedan. The base model is cat-quick with a 206-hp four-cylinder engine and Acura-designed eight-speed double clutch transmission and torque converter. Many drivers won’t need more and they’ll appreciate the 35 mpg highway rating (24 mpg city, 35 highway, 28 combined). The 290-hp 3.5-liter V6 is quicker still, using a nine-speed automatic, with either front-drive or all-wheel-drive and a torque vectoring system — Acura’s super handling all-wheel drive (SH-AWD), that uses individual wheel braking on deceleration and a lighter, simplified rear differential on acceleration to overdrive the outside rear wheel in wet or slippery conditions. It’s rated at 21 mpg city, 31 highway, 25 combined.
AcuraWatch: 9 ways to save your bacon
The Acura TLX provides as many as nine driver assists and bundles them under the term AcuraWatch. A rear camera with dynamic guidelines comes standard. The Tech Package, a $4,000 option (standard on the all-wheel drive 3.5L), includes forward collision warning with car and pedestrian detection, rear cross traffic monitor (cross traffic alert), lane departure warning and lane keep assist.
The advance package, another $3,000, adds stop-and-go adaptive cruise control with low-speed following (creeping along in traffic jams), collision mitigation braking with even more pedestrian detection, and road departure warning, which is a more aggressive, pull-me-back-from-the-abyss enhancement to lane departure warning. Front and rear parking sonar is also in the advance package though it’s not a part of AcuraWatch.
It’s an impressive collection, topped only by some accident-avoidance features in $100K cars such as the Mercedes-Benz S-Class that can swerve to avoid cars and pedestrians. The tech package is also where you get navigation, a color LCD info display in the center of the instrument panel, the superb ELS sound system engineered by Grammy-winning producer Elliott L. Scheiner (10 speakers, 490 watts), HD radio, and leather seats. The advance package has ventilated seats, remote engine start, and LED foglamps to go with the standard LED headlamps and tail lights. It also uses haptic feedback, a vibrating steering wheel, for driver alerts such as lane departure; the cheaper models use an annoying beep.
Acura continues its long-running scroll wheel mounted vertically in the center stack. It works well when you’re stopped; when you’re moving, you’ll prefer the scroll wheel on the console with a palm rest, as Audi, BMW and Mercedes use. Acura has had the scroll wheel for years and it hasn’t improved any with the disappearance of the shift lever as a sort-of arm rest.
On the road
Hop in the new TLX and you’ll be impressed by the fit and finish and then by the simplified center stack; you won’t have to hunt for some of the controls at the base of the stack. Pairing your phone takes about a minute: Press the phone icon on the center stack, it sees no paired phone and asks if you want to pair one. You just enable pairing on your smartphone, wait for a connection, and confirm the pairing code is the same on the phone and in the center stack. Done.
Fire up the engine then push the drive button on the center stack to get moving. There’s no big transmission lever. The gear selector is a row of buttons: Pull back on the rectangular R button to back up, press the circular D for drive, and tap the P button to park. Paddle shifters let you manually shift gears. You will notice almost no wind or road noise; Acura filled many of the hollow steel cavities in the side frames with insulating foam. With either engine, the car accelerates quickly and both are good at the almost-lost art of passing on two-lane roads.
Because the TLX can be so quiet, the trim lines with active noise cancellation synthesize a little engine noise when you’re travelling in sport mode. That’s accessed by a button marked IDS (integrated dynamics) that shuffles among eco, normal, and two sport modes with remapped throttle response, shift points, steering feel, and auto stop-start (smoother than the 3 Series). It would be a lot for the driver to manipulate separately (image above).
The front-drive cars have PAWS, or precision all-wheel steering, that slightly change the angle of the rear wheels to help you cut a tighter corner and make an emergency maneuver. At low speed, they steer in the opposite direction as the front wheels; at high speed, they can move in the same direction for smoother lane changes, much as some dogs seem to walk sideways as they walk forward. Acura adds agile handling assist (AHA) on PAWS (front drive) cars; it’s a form of torque vectoring. Where the SH-AWD V6 has mechanical torque vectoring, AHA brakes the inside wheel when you’re decelerating. The effects are similar: brake the inside wheel in a turn (AHA) vs. overdriving the outside wheel (SH-AWD).
Audio is good on the base model and superb on the models with the tech or advance packages. You’ll be blown away by the sound you get from a relative handful of speakers (10 vs. the base model’s seven). This is the time when passengers may find themselves annoyed by the lack of a station tuning knob. Audio includes Pandora, Aha, satellite radio, and Apple’s Siri Eyes Free that lets you use the steering wheel button to address your iPhone by voice, at the expense of no features being available directly from the phone. Acura says no comment about plans for Apple CarPlay to remap a handful (initially) of iPhone features to the center stack LCD. But most automakers who’ve adopted Siri Eyes Free will move on to CarPlay in 2015; in most cases CarPlay will not be backwards compatible with already-built cars.
The driver assists work well. Adaptive cruise control goes down to 0 mph and resumes. Lane keeping assist (lane departure warning) keeps the car centered in lane as long as you keep your hands lightly on the wheel; it’s what self-driving means now. If the car senses you are leaving the roadway, it will jerk you back and brake.
If you’re carrying back seat passengers, they’ll be reasonably comfortable. I thought the outgoing TL was a bit roomier in back (it was four inches longer). The new TLX is very close in roominess to the 3 Series, but then the TLX is a half-foot longer. The trunk is huge for something classified as a compact car.
Room for improvement
Most of the disappointments with the TLX will be in the center stack and Acura’s shortsighted focus on driver only. Acura says for nine out of ten trips, only the driver is aboard. You’ll curse Acura’s failure to include a tuning knob, especially for moving among satellite radio stations or long playlists. To be fair, the excellent roller wheels on the steering wheel give the driver but not passenger control of tuning and volume. There’s only one USB jack in a car with room for five; that’s just plain dumb and it can’t be a cost issue, since Acura retains the CD player. (The USB jack does produce 10 watts, enough for a tablet.)
Want to heat or cool the front seats? Most cars have a button for that. With the TLX, you tap a seat button on the lower LCD, a new screen pops up, and you tap one-two-three times for max heat or cold. If you’re on a bumpy road, you may have to tap a couple more times to undo a missed finger tap. You get two 12-volt adapters, in the center stack and in the center console, but none for those occasional rear seat passengers. Neither of the TLX options, tech or advanced, includes a 120-volt adapter.
Acura continues its long-running scroll wheel mounted vertically in the center stack. It works well when you’re stopped; when you’re moving, you’ll prefer the scroll wheel on the console with a palm rest, as Audi, BMW and Mercedes use. Acura has had the scroll wheel for years and it hasn’t improved any with the disappearance of the shift lever as a sort-of arm rest.
That’s pretty much it for problems with the TLX other than Acura’s long-running simplified options and ordering system: base model, tech package, and advance package. Unlike Burger King, this is have-it-our-way marketing and it simplifies things for Acura and the dealers, less so for the person paying for the car. That used to be the logic of Asian automakers when cars spent a month in transit to the US. But the TLX is built in Marysville, Ohio, no more than three days away from any mainland US dealership – if Acura offered factory custom orders, as BMW does.
Should you buy the 2015 Acura TLX?
The new TLX is so good, you’d be crazy not to cross-shop no matter which compact sports sedan you’re initially considering. The main competitors will be the Audi A4, BMW 3 Series, Cadillac CTS, Infiniti J50 (the former G37), Lexus IS, and the just-revamped Mercedes-Benz C-Class.
Some buyers will ding Acura for being a front-drive design, but precision all-wheel steer and super handling all-wheel drive take away some of the issue. Your choice may come down to cockpit amenities and technology. See if you’re annoyed by the reduced center stack button count and the cockpit control wheel with wrist support. Those are the biggest issues.
While base price is competitive, Acura wins over the German competition on price even more because it limits how many options you can buy. Add things like the head-up display, go for the turbo six engine, and you’re looking at a 3 Series well over $60,000. Among the current entry-premium compact sports sedans, the Acura TLX seems to match and exceed the competition except the 3 Series. (A new C-Class, not yet tested, is being launched simultaneously with the TLX, so my comparision is with the outgoing 2014 model.)
The cabin is super quiet, performance and handling are excellent, and the loss of 250 pounds and four inches of length make the car seem more sporting. To experience the best Acura has to offer, you want the TLX with the advance package that includes all the driver assists. At the least, get the tech package if you can live without adaptive cruise control and parking sonar (a cheap adder that could have been in the tech package). My suggestions: the four-cylinder TLX with the tech package that is good value and goes farther between fill-ups, at $36,000 with shipping, or the six-cylinder with all-wheel drive (SH-AWD) and the advance package, loaded, $46,000.
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