I have been out of the country since the RDX hit the streets. So now that I am back I decided to go to the dealer to have a look. After crawling around it for a few minutes, I took about a 30 min test drive in the blue tech model. Never pushed it or got over 55-60. I don’t have much experience with turbos but I can say that the lag is not bad. It’s definitely there but manageable. It is more noticeable in stop and go traffic though. The ride is firm but not filling jarring. It has a nice balance; you fill the bumps but are not thrown around by them. The power is great. It never felt like the engine was sluggish or overworked. I could hear the turbo working. Maybe some people don’t like that but I enjoyed it.

After taking into account all the likes/dislikes from this board, I have to give it a 8.5 out of 10. I was not blown away but I was not thrown off either. I am going to test drive another one this weekend, also a CX-7 and Rav-4. Just to have something to compare. I will most likely have a RDX in my garage soon. The fact that I got a good deal will see to that. All I have to do is convince my wife that we need a new car.

 

On thing that I will add that I don't think anybody has talked about is the way the rear seats fold down. That's one that that I did not like. The seat bottoms are held by two flimsy rods. That's cost cutting at it's best. I thought that I was going to break them off.

 

I know what you mean, but I fold the seats up and down just about every other day since october and I have had no problems at all with them.

 

Forget the construction -- what sucks is the way the seats fold. It takes two steps, and the tumbled seat bottom fills up the footwell, which is usable cargo space on other vehicles. Many other vehicles can fold the rear seats flat in one step, without eating up the rear footwells.

 

I think it has been (accurately) stated many times on this board that the RDX is not a standard SUV. The target customer is not going to fold down the seats every day or want to fill every nook and cranny with cargo. The RDX was not designed to be a delivery van just as a Dodge Caravan wasn't designed to take a freeway onramp at full throttle.

I think that the folding seat design is pretty good, as it provides a flat floor. If I'm looking to haul a lot of cargo I'll use a different vehicle.

 

I wasn't specifically citing SUVs in my example -- there are a whole slew of vehicles that give you a one-step fold flat rear seat without clogging up the footwells. Acura's arrangement is clunky by comparison. When I get an RDX, I can tell you I will miss being able to drop the seats in one step and I will miss that footwell cargo space -- it's great for ski boots, grocery bags, laptop cases, etc -- stuff that would otherwise cramp the main cargo spaces.

 

I would rather have the current two step design rather than having the rear cargo area floor raised up or the rear seats lower down in order to make the process one step and fold flat. Because of the design of the vehicle dimensions, the floor to ceiling measurement in the cargo area is already at a minimum. The current design is more efficient for overall useable space.

 

Plenty of other vehicles have the one-step flat folding seats *without* the compromises you mentioned, so I think it would be great if Acura did it too. There may be a reason Acura couldn't do it on the RDX, but I can't imagine how they fail to accomplish what other car makers can do with similar vehicles. The RDX setup is a throwback to folding seat designs of about 7-8 years ago (same goes for the CR-V too). Most of the other vehicles in this size/class have moved to the better design, and many have remote seat release levers in the cargo area now.

Another drawback of the RDX seat folding layout is that the tumbled seat bottom eats up about 6-8" of front to back cargo length, where they stick up behind the front seats. This will also prevent the passenger from reclining when the rear seats are tumbled.

These are minor nits for sure, but they add up to compromise the overall utility (even compared to hatchbacks and wagons).

 

i like the two step fold down seats.