2012 Acura Tsx 2.4 on 2040-cars

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2019 Acura RDX First Drive Review | Boringness banished

WHISTLER, B.C. — Things have come full circle for the Acura RDX. The compact crossover launched in 2007 with an all-new turbocharged four-cylinder engine and an all-wheel-drive system that was sophisticated enough for the brand to affix the Super Handling designation to it. It was a fun, sporty vehicle in a sea of boring competitors, and we liked it enough to write a eulogy of sorts when the second-generation RDX ditched the fun turbo engine in favor of a V6, and dumbed down its optional all-wheel system so much that they dropped the Super Handling name. Acura's mainstreaming of the RDX for its second generation turned out to be a smart play. Sales jumped 94 percent in 2012, the first year that the redesigned RDX went on sale, leapt another 50 percent the following year, and have stayed over the 50,000 mark for the past three years. It may sound surprising, then, that Acura is flipping the playbook back a few pages by swapping its V6 engine back to a turbo four and reinstalling Super Handling All-Wheel Drive. We think it's a smart move. The 2019 RDX is both sportier and more upscale than the model it replaces. It does more than just check boxes. It's interesting, boasts some cool technology, and offers a strong value proposition. The 2019 RDX's all-new 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine delivers 272 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque. That's down a negligible seven ponies from the old 3.5-liter V6, but up 28 lb-ft, and it's tuned to provide the bulk of that torque in the heart of its powerband — peak torque plateaus between 1,600 and 4,500 rpm. An equally all-new 10-speed automatic transmission sends that power to either the front wheels, or, as was the case with the vehicles we tested, all four wheels. Jumping into a 2019 RDX for the first time, our main powertrain concern was that the 10-speed automatic would generate a ton of unnecessary, and distracting, shifts. This proved to be an unfounded fear. The gearbox does shift quite often under hard acceleration, but does so quickly and without any undue jerkiness. The sheer number of gearing options — the old six-speed auto had a 68 percent narrower spread of ratios — and the torque-rich engine combined to provide excellent straight-line acceleration in any real-world driving scenario we could conjure. The rest of the time we didn't really think about the transmission at all. We did, however, lament the push-button transmission interface.

2014 Acura RLX Sport Hybrid [w/video]

Having already driven and reviewed the 2014 Acura RLX this year, colleagues Steven Ewing and Jeffrey Ross poured several thousand words into apprising it, then someone took the safety off the Comments and flipped them to "Fully Automatic" because those two reviews and four brief posts were hit by more than 1,200 of your deeply felt sentiments.
People care about Acura.
Roughly half of those comments were in reply to news of this car, the 2014 RLX Sport Hybrid SH-AWD, a sedan that intends to show that Acura cares, too. Underneath a skin almost imperceptibly different from the standard RLX, the one that has given us P-AWS (Precision All-Wheel Steer), is a Super Handling All-Wheel Drive (SH-AWD) system that replaces the mechanical components it relies on in the TL and MDX with computerized sophistication and three electric motors. Top that off with more power, and the aim is to provide a machine that does a better job of getting Acura a starting spot in the premium luxury game than the erstwhile and now all-but-forgotten RL that the RLX replaces.

BMW reclaims US luxury sales crown from Mercedes

The numbers, they are in: BMW has reclaimed the luxury-sales crown from Mercedes by a margin of 9,347 cars. Mercedes donned the king's headgear in 2013 after a strong final quarter of 2013 when the new CLA and S-Class poured out of dealerships. This year, led by the 3 Series/4 Series and X5, BMW sold 339,738 units – a 9.8-percent increase year-on-year. Mercedes, led by the C-Class and M-Class, saw its sales go up by 5.7 percent to 330,391 units. We'll have to wait a bit to see if there's another registrations-vs-sales challenge as in 2012, when BMW was anointed US luxury ruler. Behind them, a dark horse named Lexus nudged closer to the leading Teutons, selling 311,389 cars. The Japanese luxury automaker also had the biggest gain among the top three, its sales rising by 13.7 percent compared to 2013. Audi had the biggest sales of anyone among the top five, though, with a 15.2-percent gain to 182,011, which moved it a spot ahead of Cadillac; the Wreath-and-Crest brand dropped 6.5 percent to 170,750. Acura (167,843), Infiniti (117,300), and Lincoln (94,474) took the final positions. Speaking of Lincoln, sales at the once-mighty luxury marque stand as the mightiest jump of any on this list, up 15.6 percent. That's the power of Matthew McConaughey... and better cars and a new crossover, sure. So now that we're back to Round One of 2015, in case no one else has said it yet: "Ok, fight!"