EosPhotog

I went by the dealer to drive the two "test drive" vehicles. A white/espresso 4 tech and a black/black 6 tech. They had a limit of 10 miles, which was mostly highway unfortunately, but still gave me a good chance to check out the car.

Background: I have a 07 TSX auto which has been a great car. I like the way it feels, drives, and sounds. The interior electronics layout is almost what I consider perfect. There's nothing wrong with my TSX, so the only thing pushing me to a new car is tech, performance, and size (family is growing).

Interior

Hard plastics - I immediately noticed the hard plastics, and it reminded me of the plastic-heavy Honda pilot we have. The use of glossy buttons, particularly the AcuraLink buttons seemed like a step back. I like soft touch, and that is missing in half of the controls and surfaces.

Mirror reflection - yes, it is there. It is also there on my 07 TSX. The use of metallic trim is unfortunate and I don't really like the shiny outlines. I'd much rather have the black bezel around the vents. Not a show stopper, but a little annoying.

Interior colors - Espresso seemed like an off combination of black plastics, brown leather, and the wood trim. Oh that wood trim, how I detest wood trim anything. Looks so cheesy, and the Espresso color scheme just didn't fit together well. Black interior was a lot nicer in my opinion, and the wood trim didn't look as bad, though I'd prefer a darker stain like what they did on the Honda Accord.

Interior space - I like the space, seating, etc. Nice touch on the LATCH access in the back. Bigger than the TSX for sure, but doesn't drive as "large" as a TL did.

Controls - Moving controls to a central screen would take some getting use to. I miss buttons, though there are some. Navigating controls was almost completely intuitive, but there were some things (like having to scroll to exit in the MID in order to exit the menu) and setting up the NAV that took some "figuring out".

Lane Assist - Freaky. Really freaky. It actually works fairly well, at least on the highways here. The salesman actually did a "ok, take your hands off the steering wheel" bit and the car drove itself. The resistance in the steering wheel when changing lanes was interesting as well.

Blind Spot - lights up a lot. Does it do this whenever a car is present? That would be very annoying in traffic to have the orange indicators constantly lit up.

Parking Brake - just doesn't feel right being a button, but it would quickly get into my routine I suppose.

Push button gear select (v6) - More getting use to. Though I missed having something to rest my hand on.

Car feel - We started with the 4, and it felt great. Good acceleration, felt nimble, and the engine was very quiet. No problems with power during highway driving. Then we moved to the 6 and it felt... heavier. I can't describe it well, but it certainly felt more substantial, but also less nimble. Also the 6 felt rougher than the 4: going from park to reverse to drive caused a little shudder in the car, and there seemed to be some gear hunting when accelerating in traffic. For me, the 4 felt crisper, and actually more enjoyable to drive.

Drive home and conclusions - Got back into my 07 TSX, and thought about the TLX on my drive home. Nice car - and if I needed to buy a new car right now, it would be a top contender. But it wasn't enough to get me out of my TSX. Not sure if any of the nitpick things above (and they really were just small things) would sway me over - I think its more of the economics (no car payments now, minimal maintenance, etc.) than anything else. But if the TLX was 100% WOW that might be enough. Right now, I give it a 50% WOW and 50% neutral as compared to the TSX.

Other things my salesperson mentioned:

- Acura has only minimal markups on these vehicles due to desire to drive adoption, especially towards TSX users.
- They expect pricing to increase $1k-$2k for 2016.
- Dealers are not swapping inventory
- What they have on hand or on order is it, or you can wait 3 months.

For me, I'm at least 3 months, if not year+ out.

nfnsquared

That's already been proven false by at least two forum members who received dealer swapped cars IIRC...

EosPhotog

No, that just shows that some dealers are swapping. Mine is not, or more accurately is not able to because other dealers in the area are not letting go of their inventory.

EosPhotog

I should add, that I've not tested this, and if I challenged my dealer to find that Silver/Black 4 Tech with a checkbook in my hand I'm sure they would go back out and take a look. I'd also be contacting every dealership in the region myself to check inventory and pricing.

jjsC5

Makes no sense. They don't have to let go of inventory, they can trade one desirable car for another. Dealers do it all the time

CheeseyPoofs McNut

I'm getting mine via a dealer swap.

The swap doesn't affect the other dealers inventory - they give up a TLX and get one in return. My sales guy says they all typically do it because it benefits everyone in the long run.

I can believe they may increase the price in 2016 but much of that will depend on sales figures for 2015. As it it I think it's priced very aggressively! A bulls-eye on the entry level value based luxury car segment

a77

everything that salesperson said is rubbish. Sadly there are still too many ill-informed or disingenuous sales people out there.

EosPhotog

Certainly true. Mine wasn't up to speed on incentives. But when I inquired as to a potential swap with internet sales I got the same reply.

erdoc48

A rise in price of the 2016 model by $1-2K would be substantial, and I would suspect would hurt sales, so I also doubt the salesman really knows that for fact- it might be a sales tactic to get you in a car ASAP. A rise of $100-200 for the same car in a newer model year would be expected though. The best thing to do is buy on 12/30 or 12/31 to get the best deal since they have to have end of the year sales quotas.

kurtatx

Especially when the current TLX selling point, especially in the I4, is value. Obviously the dealer wants to sell these cars now, and that's the reason for the mystical "1-2K price increase".

LaCostaRacer

This is so true. Sounds like the sales guy is trying to only sell cars in stock at his lot. I would discount any claims on price increases and such since it's way too early to project prices a year ahead of time. I wouldn't let an imaginary price increase sway me at this point because lots of stuff can change in one year.

Most sales people (there are exceptions like Colin) are the last to know anything anyway so why listen to them? Even if Acura raises prices a little, it might not be a huge deal because there is likely to be some new features added that keeps the value quotient intact.

dysonlu

Not sure what hard plastic caught your attention but dashboard and upper door panels are of soft-touch plastic, center console has real aluminum and real wood trim.

This guy confirms it: