2019 mdx advance has had infotainment failures since day 3. Intermittent failure of both screens even when phone not connected or in car. Acura couldn’t diagnose nor fix, told me it was a problem with my iPhone, tried their tech services and customer relations but they did nothing, forced me into arbitration with NCDS... who ordered Acura to repair. Acura again did not diagnose or fix. NCDS did nothing and told me to contact Acura or an attorney. Acura told me to take it up with NCDS. Lemon law lawyer told me good luck, regardless of the similarity to issues with other vehicles of same model year.

In the meantime I tried to trade the pos in and the infotainment system failed during their inspection and they devalued by half. I’ve also met multiple mdx owners with similar issues, they have just resolved themselves to live with it.

F U Acura!

 

I've had an issue with my info-tainment locking up, restarting every 2-4 minutes, or blanked out functions when using Carplay with my iPhone 6s+ first updated to I.O.S. 13 for months. Zero issues using bluetooth streaming when carplay was down. The system got stable once the iPhone software version was above 13.4.X (I think, still don't use it that much because of the previous issue). I had my radio screen lock-up for the first time a few days ago. I was still in the parking lot and pulled over to restart the MDX. Everything came back up as normal and hasn't happen since.

Zero issues with m 18 RLX info-tainment system that look like the 14-17 MDX system (no carplay).

 

Been there done that. The dealership took it in and ‘updated the computer system’ in June 2020... made the whole thing worse in general.

Best part was during virtual NCDS hearing I stated the issues with the majority of climate controls not being functional when it’s 110F in August and not being safe for my family. Honda rep said that manual controls are sufficient, which they are not. I’m complaining about first world problems, but I’m paying first world price.

Shoulda ‘bought the bmw or tahoe. Third row seating on this sucks, there’s no digital speed display, and there are issues with the collision mitigation technology That almost killed me, the transmission malfunctions when speeding accelerating and decelerating, and Acura and Honda lie.

 

I dont understand why Acura wouldnt just replace the entire head unit! The car is under 2 years old for god sakes. Hope things work out for you brother. Please keep us updated

 

Thanks, will do! that was the entire basis for my NCDS arbitration (Honda version of BBB), I told them I just wanted a vehicle that works as purchased... I’m paying a lot right, $60k. That might be where I went wrong and should have asked for buy back or reimbursement option. Acura made it clear that buy back would be reduced significantly too.

i’d really like to hear from as many folks as possible that have gone through this with infotainment issues.

The best part about the arbitration, since acura has a difficult time reproducing the intermittent issue, I submitted 15+ videos of the malfunction happens in. Their rep told the arbitrator they were not valid, there was no proof they were mine, I could have gotten them off YouTube. So I reply ‘then there’s a guy on YouTube with a seriously f-Ed mdx and you might want to reach out. It was my voice, my interior, my St. Louis radio station, and I told her the videos are from my iPhone and I’m pretty sure they have a date stamp and location, their technology works.’

 

You musg have a crappy dealer. My local dealer has been great even though I did not buy the car from them. Radio display would go to night mode at startup and would not switch back to daylight. They, rather Panasonic who I think is the supplier got involved, they eventually replaced the head unit, the hdd, and that for the most part has cured the issue. I acrually had more issues with the drivera memory. Steering wheel would never drop into poaition. That turned out to be the seat memory module had an incompatible software version, these new cars have so darn many computers in them it only takes one erronious line of code to make the whole car act wonky. Before giving up I would find a different dealer, or at least one that has a good relationship with their factory service rep.

 

First time I took it to the dealer maybe a month after I owned it, they said yea this is a known problem with this vehicle and we are waiting on a software update to fix. I’m like, you sold me a car without disclosing a known issue that is this prevalent. Then I took it back 5 or 6 times for them to diagnose and resolve, but nothing worked. A couple of the times I had to drive it without hooking up to a phone via cord or Bluetooth for a week after a reset, and both screens still froze.

After that I worked with their corporate tech services for 3 months and their client relations. When it got to client relations I thought for sure they would fix it or resolve this somehow to my satisfaction. They told me they had extensive resourcing engineers that they were putting on this and would come back with identified fixes. Then nothing. They had umpteen videos and detailed descriptions. My client relations manager changed three times, and after that I decided to arbitrate.

after arbitration the regional service manager and I had a sit down in the vehicle and a walkthrough, but of course it worked fine as that was a 10 minute ordeal and this issue occurs 2x a week so she had a 0.3% chance of actually observing the issue. Wrote corporate a report that my vehicle was fine, since then I’ve had it happen a lot.

I even emailed all Honda and Acura executives and let them know about my dissatisfaction. Filed a complaint with attorney general, national auto safety Board, and national auto financing board. If not willing to stand up to their customer satisfaction mission clearly defined on their website, they will at least remember the bs I piled on them.

 

I have had issues from time to time with the apple carplay. There would be times where the main screen would be black or intermittently go off and on and then my audio would not workat all.This was generally after I used a map app for a longer period of time. If I pulled over and restarted the car, all was well. It's not perfect but fortunately my issues are not as severe as yours.

 

haven't had any issues on our 2019 infotainment system. Only thing we ran into was my CD collection didn't quite fit on the HD. I had about 15 CD's left to burn when the HD said "full". We use sirrus, FM, HD, ipod, and bluetooth for the infotainment and never have had an issue with it.

 

Not all Headunits are the same. We only had an issue where the HU on my 17 froze on the call screen while I was driving to Fort Myers. Other than that the HU has been working perfectly, although its kinda slow in response. But its worlds better than the garbage HUs found in Nissan products. And I can go on a rant about how crappy and horrible those dang HUs from Nissan is.

 

Your options:
- Take it to another dealer to have them replace the head unit under warranty
- Take it to another dealer and sell it
- Sell it to Carmax/Vroom/Carvana

 

I had issues with my '17 MDX Tech with the navigation system - it'd lose track of where it was regularly, then fix itself. There was a TSB on it that didn't fix the problem. Dealer (on their own) replaced the NAV unit, Display unit, HDD and NAV antenna (separate actions) and in the end it would still mess up. Tried escalating to Acura corporate and they weren't really any help and they punted back to the dealer. In the end, the dealer essentially bought me out (absorbed the depreciation) and moved me directly to my current '19 MDX Advance (lease to lease, slightly larger payments for the higher trim level). The dealer stepped up, Acura corporate did not. I stick with Acura because of my 30 year relationship with Sunnyside Acura in Nashua NH.