2018 Acura TLX Review: First Impressions and Photo Gallery
CARS.COM — Acura’s freshening of the 2018 TLX, its bread-and-butter mid-size sedan, is light — but it does what it needed to do.
The 2017 TLX, appearing at the New York International Auto Show, is pleasant enough to look at, but bland. It’s fun to drive, particularly with yank-me-through-a-corner torque-vectoring all-wheel drive, but didn’t look it. And then there was the balky multimedia tech that was shamed by the latest Honda Civic.
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The drama deficit gets more boost than you’d expect from new sheet metal from the windshield forward. It’s nicely taut and more muscular. And at last there’s a grille that needs no apologies; the “diamond pentagon” from the Precision Concept looks great (and not just because it replaces the “beak”). A new A-Spec version builds on that look with more aggressive visual tweaks and wheels. And it’s not just for looks — there’s a bit more driving edge with suspension upgrades and steering tuning.
Only hands-on experience will tell if the multimedia fix delivers. A quick test found the system faster and less menu-driven, and there now is smartphone integration. Though it keeps the unusual two-screen configuration, Acura says the assignment of information and tasks to one or the other screen is more logical, less confusing — audio on the touchscreen below, navigation and smartphone mirroring above (managed with a controller and buttons). At least there is still a real volume knob.
Whether any of this will divert shoppers who these days come into the Acura store heading straight for the MDX and RDX SUVs, however, is another question.
