Friday 27th February 2004

Acura TL

Robert Farago tests a posh Honda in the USA

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Front wheel drive sucks.  Case in point: the Acura TL.  Here’s a perfectly good car ruined by the simple fact that its front wheels have to steer and propel at the same time.  Give the TL’s gas pedal a shove, feed the engine some revs, unleash a bit of torque and, well, it’s all a bit too much for the front tires.  Traction takes a powder, taking with it any chance of giving the TL a proper thrashing.  In fact, you can’t even give the TL a mild slap on the wrist without a dramatic loss of steering control. 

What a shame.  While Toyota’s Lexus has firmly established itself as a distinct and worthy competitor to Germany’s finest, Acura is still trying to convince the world that an Acura is more than a Honda with a slightly bigger engine, leather, wood and a few toys.  Which, in this case, it is.  Anyway, given Honda’s impeccable engineering and build quality, there’s nothing particularly wrong with this “Acura as a posh Honda” product perception.  But there’s nothing particularly right with it either—especially when cachet (a.k.a. “snob value”) sells cars in this segment.

Distinct

The TL’s exterior highlights Honda’s struggle to raise Acura’s game.  Its designers have done everything possible to separate the Acura TL from its donor DNA: narrowed headlights, split front spoiler, indented swage line, raised side skirts, five-spoke alloys, rear lip spoiler, dual exhausts and sharper rear lights.  The end result is… a Honda Accord with a bit of Alfa Romeo 156 thrown in.  It’s not a displeasing design, but it isn’t terribly classy or, um, bling.

The TL’s interior, by contrast, is both.  High end materials have Cinderella-ed the Accord’s cabin into a comfort zone as sharp as a Chanel suit— worn by Missy Elliott.  Check out those hooded, backlit blue dials and glowing key slot.  Safe!  And if that’s not massive enough, pop in a DVD-A and crank up the 5.1 Surround Sound.  Yes, the new format means you have to buy all your favorite music again.  But the TL’s eight-channel audio attack easily justifies the re-re-re-investment.  Until BOSE unleashes its own DVD-A system (with better bass response), Acura’s boom box is about as good as it gets.  If not better. 

I wish I could say the same about the TL’s driving dynamics.  The trouble began the moment I slotted the test car’s five-speed auto box into Drive.  Er, Neutral.  Wow!  Who would have thought that Honda - sorry, Acura - could come up with a shift gate that rivals BMW’s iDrive for counter-intuitive complexity?  Once I figured out why I was going nowhere fast, I was free to explore the TL’s heart and soul: its engine. 

Motor

Honda makes some of the world’s best engines: smooth, powerful, tractable, free-revving, frugal and clean.  The TL’s V6 powerplant is typical of the breed.  Although the 3.2-liter engine stumps up only 30 more horses than the Accord’s [optional] six, it’s noticeably punchier throughout the rev range.  The TL’s two hundred and seventy horses (fed on Variable Valve Timing) fling the car from zero to sixty in a fraction under seven seconds-- provided you can find a way to coax and baby the go pedal at the same time.  Otherwise, you’re right back where we started: Wheel Spin City. 

To its credit, Acura’s boffins have attempted to mitigate the problem with Vehicle Stability Assist and an electronic traction control system.  No dice.  In a straight line, the TL’s nose squirm is annoying.  Around corners, it’s positively alarming.  The defining handling characteristic of this pretender to the mid-sized sports sedan throne is neither understeer nor oversteer; it’s no steer.  Press-on drivers will need both sensitive hands and nerves of steel.

Good Stuff

Bummer.  Everything else about the TL’s set-up is superb.  The double wishbone front and rear suspension allows just the right amount of road feel, without a hint of discomfort.  Four-way disc brakes combine consummate linear control with serious stopping power.  (The six-speed manual adds Brembo brake calipers up front.)  Overall body control is exemplary.  Granted, the TL is not a focused sports sedan in the 3-Series sense of the term.  But if Acura had bitten the bullet and built a rear-wheel-drive TL, I reckon it could have given Munich’s medium-sized meisterwerk a decent run for the money. 

Ah yes, money.  For value-driven buyers, the fully equipped Acura TL is a steal.  It offers quality, reliability and every conceivable luxury for thousands less than anything else in its class, and much above.  For the rest of us, the TL is maddeningly close to greatness.  Luckily, it’s only a matter of time before Honda/Acura follows Detroit’s lead and converts its premium products to rear wheel drive.  When that glorious day arrives, Acura will prove once and for all that it’s ready to play with the big boys.  

[stevenrt]

270 hp through the front wheels? What were they thinking!

[dinkel]

"Luckily, it’s only a matter of time before Honda/Acura follows Detroit’s lead and converts its premium products to rear wheel drive.  When that glorious day arrives, Acura will prove once and for all that it’s ready to play with the big boys."

I will wait for that day. Hopefully this will be soon coz I'm getting a bit bored with BMW looks . . .

[thirsty]

I looked very hard at these cars before I bought my CTS. Except for the front wheel drive, this one beats ALL the competition hands down (in that price range).

The interior is far superior to my CTS, but the final factor was front wheel drive. My wife would have never known the difference, and loved the TL, but I would have known, and from what I have read in several reviews, I am glad I did not buy it. The test drive was superb, but I wasn't exactly doing laps at the local track... especially with a salesman in the passenger seat.

[garya]

C'mon Robert, give it a break. Not everyone in the world wants to break the world speed record on the slalom course -- if that were true, we'd all be driving Caterhams. My wife and I drove the Acura TL for a week recently and found that it would be an excellent choice in terms of value for money for someone who wanted a comfortable luxury car with all the bells and whistles at a reasonable price. It doesn't pretend to be a 3-series BMW, but still puts enough power to the wheels (front though they are) to get a driver on the freeway safely and from stop to go on the steepest San Francisco streets. And that's all that the majority of car buyers actually care about, even if us hotshoes would like every car to make us feel like Mario Andretti on our way to our humdrum office cubicle. Perhaps your wife would even tell you that, while she was correcting the spelling of Chanel.

[smele]

Oh he is so right. I test drove one of these the other week, thought it sounded good on paper, well spced and a good price. It's a Honda after all can't be that bad to drive... Nope, it was pants. Just too much wheel spin in on the damp Seattle roads. I mean, what is the point in 270BHP if you can't use it....

[Amyd]

Well, you must all live in Florida, or Southern California or maybe Arizona...where you don't get any snow or sleet. After driving Audis for 18 years (with front wheel drive by the way) and paying outrageously every time I had my car repaired I went shopping for a new one. One of the requirements was that it needed to be front wheel drive so I wouldn't find myself on the side of a snowy street somewhere! The Acura TL was one of the few front wheel drive cars that had both the power and the handling (plus the reliability so I'm told). And, oh by the way, tell me where you can drive that fast in real life? Traffic and the police seem to have prevented most of us living near cities from using all that power anyway!