Matt W

Ill try to make this short: I think the suspension in the RL is awesome and very sport and makes you feel one with the car...but that is the problem. I live in a hot summer/cold winter climate with concrete roads and that generates alot of road noise. Some of our roads are also bumpy because concrete tiles may have shifted a little so one may be a half inch higher than another. I CAN FEEL EVERY BUMP IN THIS CAR. Even the smallest of bump I can feel. I drive my grandparents Avalon (I know old person car) and there ride is so smooth and it absorbs every bump.

What would I have to replace to get this "soft" suspension feeling, ie can't feel bumps in roads. Would I have to replace shocks, coilovers, etc what. I love the current suspension but I don't have nice asphalt roads to drive on.

oo7spy

Take your Contenentals down to 30 psi and call it a day.

You have know complained of two things that the RL gets hailed for and both are due to your excessive tire pressure. The RL has one of the softest suspensions of any sport sedan and has one of the quietest cabins of all cars.

Is it possible you are on A Specs?

Matt W

I doubt I have aspec suspension but I wouldn't know how to check. I will try lowering the pressure but I know my grandparents have the same tire at 40 psi lol so I will see. Like I didn't know what I was missing out on until I drove there car, maybe you have to drive one to know what I mean IDK, it kind feels like being in a boat. I will go lower my tires real quick and report back. I guess Idk I feel bad when I hit a bump and can feel it because I feel like its harmful on the car since it shocks the whole car

253RL

I'm on a 45 series tire @38 psi around lowered on h&r stock struts and 19mm rear sway bar and my car is as smooth if not smoother than the day I bought it, bumps are just a hair bit harsher than oem wheels.. Cabin noise is non existant, then again I do drive a slammed s2000 with loud single exhaust and soft top with lots of wind noise..

Matt W

Lowered it 30 psi and definitely see like a 30% improvement. Bad news is the lazy fuck city workers were doing road construction with water involved and I just spent $10 on a carwash about 5 hours ago, back to square one. Didnt have any signs posted or anything I swear these workers are the laziest fucks ever just stand in a circle of 7 people doing nothing letting dirty water run all over the road. Didnt have my splash guard under the vehicle either so just fucking great. /endrant

Megatron

You can always trade it in for a Lexus... then you won't hear or feel a thing! Hondas and Acuras have always been known to have more road noise and more road feel, whereas Toyotas and Lexuses give you no feel of the road, but the ride is quiet and super smooth.

Have you ever ridden in the Lexus LS460L?? It's like someone put you in a soundproof booth and all the roads are like they are newly paved! Amazing...

HEAVY_RL

iTrader: (1)

Gotta agree with megtron.

M T L T L

Come here, drive a week in Montreal, you will never complain about ur roads n city workers ever again.

Matt W

Haha I drove to work today and the tire pressure actually helped alot. Im fine with the RL as an IS at the time I bought this would have cost me 10k more for the same features so, for that price difference I could do alot of awesome upgrades!

alaxgoaly8

As someone who just went through the car search/buying process, I'll share my thoughts. I drove a 2006 lexus gs300, 2007 es350, 2006 infiniti m35x, 2007 infiniti g35x, 2008 acura TL and 2006 acura RL. My goal was to look for a car with between 75K-85K miles and a target price of $18K.

My opinions of each:
Lexus gs300... just sluggish. very underpowered, which gets fixed with the gs350 later in the series. nice and quiet.

Lexus es350... powered well, but felt like each turn was a roller coaster with how much it threw you around. nice cabin and quiet. Didn't feel supported in the seat.

Infinit g35x... best driver of the bunch. great throttle response and steearing. Pedestrian interior for a luxury car. throttle noise in the cabin was ok. smooth ride. virtually no road noise.

infiniti m35x... great combo of luxury ride and power. smooth over the harsh roads, but felt planted to the road. extremely large back seat, but small trunk. cooled seats were the best of the bunch (the lexus' didn't seem to be useful compared to the lexus).

Acura TL... i was truly disappointed with this car. rough rider and noisy. interior is not up to par for a luxury brand.

Acura RL... this is what I finally went with. I was deciding between the M35x and the RL (rear wheel drive only isn't an option in snow). The infiniti and the acura had the same amount of noise in the cabin, but it was different noise. The acura had road noise from the tires and the infiniti had throttle noise from the muffler set up. Infiniti loves that engine note and puts that in all their cars. For me, the Acura the best interior design, hands down. Extremely comfortable seats and the wood grain is very tasteful. The infiniti also has nice wood grain but it's a matte finish and not my style. I wish the acura had a similar shifter look to the infiniti with the leather wrapped shift lever rather than the plastic maze shifter. The canadian version of the car has this and it looks quite nice. Also, acura should have put wood grain in the center console near the shifter. Would have just added that extra touch of class.

Overall, the acura drove better than the infiniti, which is what acura does. The gas pedal feel was a lot better than the m35x (it was like the infiniti fought you when trying to accelerate or keep highway speed).

With these cars (and without looking at Mercedes, Audi or BMW, which can cost an arm and a leg to maintain or fix once they are out of warranty), its really personal choice, because each has a style all their own.

TampaRLX-SH

Both of these appear on the 2009+ Acura RL. A few members have retrofitted the wood center console and I believe one actually retrofitted the shifter as well.

DiabloSVRacer

i thought m35x was awd? maybe you were looking at just m35?

IanVS

Exactly. That's not what a sport sedan like the RL is about. There's always a trade off between stiffer suspension with better handling in turns and soft suspension that floats around and lets the whole car roll in the turns. The boaty feeling you're describing is why old people buy things like Buicks and Oldsmobiles. Not really the same class as an RL or 5 Series BMW.

As for harming the car, that's possible no matter how smooth the suspension is. If you hit a huge pot hole at 60 mph there's always the chance that you're going to knock something out of alignment. Helps to have higher-profile tires, but still a risk nonetheless. That said, engineers have to consider those cases and plan for them and generally the risk is small.

When you go over a speedbump at a reasonable speed, does the car settle down quickly (think up-down-up) or does it bob around a few times (up-down-up-down-up)? If it bobs around it could mean that your shocks are shot, and changing them out might improve your ride.

oo7spy

30% eh? Maybe if you lower it to 10 psi, it will improve by 90%.



That's what he meant.

M T L T L

M T L T L

Run with no air, you will feel like you're ridding on air.

RL Chi-town

not a bad idea. do it...

HEAVY_RL

iTrader: (1)

Nitrogen

alaxgoaly8

That is correct. I didn't test drive the M35 because it was rear drive. I was comparing the M35x and Acura RL because they are both AWD.

IanVS

You could always put in one of those "Air Ride" seats like busses and semi-trucks have. Then you'd really be floating on air!

M T L T L

Wear this suit when driving, you will feel nothing anymore.

Matt W

Okay time to restart this topic. I really want to get a smoother ride I have the tire pressure all the way down to 26psi on continentals and I can still feel almost every bump in the road. Are there any coilovers available that are for comfort only, I am not looking for sport and don't really want to spend more than 1k.

Carbon Legend

H&R springs with Aspec shocks and I'm very happy with it. you do have to remember it is a car and depending where you live you will feel bumps, grooves, transitions in the road no matter how luxurious the ride is suppose to be

ichi d

how many miles do u have on your car? maybe its time to redo the suspension with a brand new set of oems not aspecs.

Maintenanceman

Also European models have these shifters, for example my 2007.

TampaRLX-SH

Yes. But the European spec is a Honda LEGEND. There are several content differences from a US spec Acura RL of the same model year.

Matt W

I have 120k miles. How would I know if the suspension needs redone? The ride isn't bad its just not what I would like it to be, like the suspension in a toyota avalon or lexus. I would be fine with the suspension if I didn't live in Nebraska where almost all of our roads are concrete and no nice asphalt.

TonyCD

As the posters above said, the RL is not a Toyota Avalon or Lexus. It has a shorter wheelbase and it handles better.

The great strength of the RL is that its all-wheel-drive system -- more advanced than in any other Japanese car -- improves control, handling, safety and driver confidence both in dry-road high-speed driving, and over bad roads or inclement weather conditions.

One price of this system is that it has driveshafts and axles at all four corners of the car. Although Honda went to great lengths to reduce the ride comfort penalty of this hardware, cutting unsprung weight with exotic materials such as aluminum, magnesium and even carbon fiber in the driveshaft, it cannot match the pillow-like ride of a very softly sprung front-drive car like an Avalon or a pillow-like rear-driver stuffed with sound insulation such as a Lexus LS.

You can replace the struts on your RL with OEM units, and it might help, especially if your current units are worn out (quite possible) or A-Spec (I have them, and in my opinion, they degrade ride comfort noticeably). But if your expectation is that you're going to get all the unique virtues of the RL and the ride isolation of a mushmobile too, you're simply throwing good money after bad and should save a lot of money by getting a loaded Camry that will quite probably make you happier. No sarcasm intended, honest.

Car magazines including C/D have said it outright: The pity of the RL is that in order to really appreciate it, you have to flog it, and most buyers in this class never do. If you're one of these people, and if ride comfort irrespective of handling is your #1 dynamic criterion, you're simply not in the right car for you.

Matt W

Hmm I guess you are right. The car is nearly 8 years old (kinda hard to believe). I am only 19 so I guess the best thing I could probably do is just save my money because I will never get back out the money I put into it and I am probably only going to have this vehicle until I graduate from college (2.5 years). So I will have a chance then to pick out a vehicle that is suited to exactly what I want.

TonyCD

Speaking as an older guy, Matt, that's a very smart approach.

I have to confess with some embarrassment that when I was in my 20s, I spent over $5,000 of workplace retirement savings to treat myself to a new GTI. I thought I was being smart because I was buying a new car without having to take out a loan, but the really smart move would have been keeping my old car AND the retirement money, which would now be worth several times as much because of accumulated interest (word to the wise: the retirement money you set aside when you're young is actually much MORE valuable than what you save later, because it has more years to grow). So, good for you -- learn from my financial mistake, not yours.

Returning to the car part of the discussion, whether a new set of OEM struts would improve your ride depends on whether your current ones are worn. One way to tell is to lean hard on each of the four corners of the car.

I've tried this test with my RL, and this car is not an easy one to do this test on with your hands -- the front fenders seem fragile enough that I'm afraid to ding them, and the struts seem stiff enough to resist much movement. So I'd suggest using a sneaker-clad foot on the bumper instead; maybe some other owners can help with advice here.

Anyway, there are three things that can tell you a strut is worn out:

•It has visible oil that's leaked out onto the strut body, which means the seal has failed. This can be best viewed when the car is on a lift, of course.

•It's frozen in pace, with the result that when you jump up and down on it, it won't move at all. This only happens occasionally, but it would absolutely destroy ride quality even if it only happened at one corner of the car.

•It's simply worn out, so that when you jump on it and then let go, the car bobs up and down 2 or 3 times instead of returning to the original position and stopping promptly. This often happens together with the oil leakage.

If any one of these is bad, so is your strut, and new struts would help your ride. If not, this is probably just the ride your car has.

Let us know what your "jump on it" test tells you.

oo7spy

Jump on a plastic bumper instead of leaning on an aluminum quarter panel?!?

Matt, does your car ever bottom out? Do you ever hear a clunk or loud noise from bumps or pot holes? If so, change the struts with OEM parts. I picked up Legend #1 at 114k miles and 8 years old. It bottomed out everywhere, but the ride wasn't noticably bad. That was until 140-150k miles when I started to get a loud noise from any bump in the road. I changed all 4 struts with Monroes, closest to OEM as possible, and the difference was night and day. I didn't bottom out once after that. Turns out, bottoming out wasn't a symptom of a car with 4" of clearance up front, but rather a symptom of 8 year old struts with 100k miles carrying a heavy FWD car. They should have been changed with the timing belt to go back to factory ride quality.

I agree with Tony that if you want a Lexus/Cadillac ride quality, you bought the wrong car. This car is smooth, but it is not a complete boat. New struts will likely serve you well in any case because it sounds like something us wrong with yours. You should not feel everything on the road in an RL.

phishfood

And not waiting to long to change struts saves your springs and other suspension parts ... but do make sure it's really needed. In the past I've found Honda struts to last a really long time, though if cars been driven in areas with heavy bumpage maybe they will not go quite as long.

TampaRLX-SH

Honda's double wishbone suspension has always been hailed for stability and performance especially at high speed. It is a hallmark of Honda racing as much as Honda engines. But is also a Honda characteristic to have more road feel transmitted into the cabin. Some like it for the performance attributes, some find it intrusive to cabin serenity and excessive impact harshness. The best apples to apples comparo is to drive and Accord. Then drive a Camry. The difference is clear.

Honda has been migrating away from DWB suspension on newer models. The Civic and the new Accord now have more tradition MacPherson strut configurations. Initial reports are they are smoother and more road compliant. Yet performance die hards will likely complain. But does an average Civic or Accord driver need track racing suspension?

It remains to be seen if Acura maintains DWB, but already the ILX follows suit with it's Civic cousin and MacPherson struts. Further, DWB allowed lower engine placement which permitted lower center of gravity and rakish noses w/ better aerodynamics. But pedestrian crash impact standards have brought upon is pig nosed designs and the engine bay need not be so tapered.

The RL has proven to be the best balance of sport confidence and luxury refinement to my taste. On coarse roads, there is some intrusion, yet smooth asphalt is eerily quiet. The float is controlled but there is enough impact sensation that I know what the suspension is doing.

It is amazing to me how 'accustomed' we become to our rides. Each time I travel I am impressed with the RL all over again when I return home. I even did some car shopping this weekend, and although technology has trickled down to mainstream cars, driving home in my 6+ year old RL was substantially smoother, refined and vault tight.

NVH, safety and fuel efficiency are trumping performance for most mass market vehicles.

oo7spy

The answer is quite obvious. Absolutely.


What if VTEC kicks in, yo?








My immediate family has always prefered Hondas over other Japanese brands because of the feel of their cars.