Lyncdead

Currently have a 2017 MDX SH-AWD lease ending in a couple months. I am considering a 2020 MDX Hybrid but can't seem to find any good long term reviews. I realize I am basically getting the same SUV again except the hybrid instead of the 3.5L. Seems like most complaints on the MDX seem to be on the old entertainment system but I am looking for more long term info on the hybrid system.

Does anyone know of any major issues/problems with the Hybrid version of the MDX?

mrgold35

I've only had my 19 MDX Adv Hybrid since March with a little over 6000 miles. The issues I've had are:

- air leak on front passenger window that sounds like a crackling sound at hwy speeds of +65 mph. I can push against the top right hand corner of the window to make it stop. Planning to have it looked at when the first service is due.

- clunking into reverse if I'm parked on an incline. Using the parking brake eliminates the clunk for me.

- Apple Carplay worked perfectly with IOS 12 with my iPhone 6S+.. Updated to IOS 13 and it is 100% broken. It disconnects/reconnects every 5-10 seconds and it makes any text, navi apps, or music impossible to use. Have to connect using bluetooth for music and Acura navi for now. IOS 13.1.3 didn't help. Might get a different results with a newer iPhone version. Just make sure your iPhone is on IOS 12 or you have an android phone to test CarPlay.

- Felt a vibration in the seat and a slight pull to one side at hwy speeds +60 mph Felt it more at higher interstate speeds of 75-85 mph. Did a road force balance at Discount Tires and one rim/tire was out of specs. Alignment at Firestone showed half of the adjustments points were in the yellow or red instead of within specs. Rides so much better at hwy speeds after the adjustment. This issue seems to be a hit or miss with any Acura.

Other than that, I've been avg around 25.5 mph combined on 91 Octane (miles div by gallons method). Very smooth powertrain with almost transparent transition between EV and gas modes (Only feel EV to gas at a stop when I need more power quicker). No false positives with AcuraWatch with my driving habits and environment (Only in ABQ and San Antonio traffic). Excellent power with instant TQ of the electric motors and 7DCT. The 3.0L has plenty of HP/TQ at +75 mph for passing power and interstate cruising ( electric motors, regen braking, or sh-awd usually don't engage at +75 mph).

moose66

Welcome to the site! Your best reviews will come from browsing this forum. There have been no meaningful changes to the hybrid since it arrived. They've changed a couple of exterior colors, but that is about it. Not sure when CarPlay was introduced. I've had mine for over 1 1/2 years now with no complaints. The wife loves it. It is her daily driver doing about 275 miles per week commuting and bouncing around town. She was in a 2016 Lexus RX hybrid prior and although she was a fan of that vehicle, her praise for her MDX goes above and beyond the praise she gave to the RX. Only gripe I have heard about the hybrid is the lack of towing capability. Not a concern of mine though. The vehicle seems to be holding up well. Probably too early to worry about the battery life most people tend to get concerned about when it comes to hybrids.

Bottom line, you won't be disappointed if you decide to go hybrid.

MBP 03

We have about 32K miles on our 2017 MDX Sport Hybrid and outside of the taillight recall common to all MDXs, a bad front parking sensor, weak battery (12V under the hood), and noisy clock spring that were replaced under warranty, the car has been flawless and there has been nothing wrong with anything specific to the Hybrid powertrain.

My wife has put on most of the miles on the car and she has enjoyed every one of them. The car also puts a smile of my face every time I get behind the wheel, so I can definitely recommend it without hesitation.

mellonc

can you explain what you mean by "weak" 12 volt battery?

bmoua15

2018 Hybrid here, I've put on 31,000 miles and no major issues. The only complaint is mild wind noise from the front windows traveling above 75mph.

It drives like a beast when you want it to and goes full electric when you want it to. Best of both worlds

ceb

The hybrid has Android Auto? That would be very good news indeed.

Do you feel any altitude issues going to higher altitudes like Santa Fe? My sister's Equinox feels like it gets sluggish right around San Felipe. We normally stop at the diner and when we get back in the car, we realize that many of the horses deserted while we had lunch.

MBP 03

The tech tested the battery while trying to hunt down some random electrical gremlins and the battery failed the official Honda/Acura test procedure, so he installed a brand new one and there have been no issues since.

mrgold35

I haven't noticed any significant drop in power with hybrid when I drove to and around Santa Fe (live in ABQ). In Sante Fe, the hybrid feels like a supercharger/turbo with zero lag off the line. It takes a little more effort off the line in my 08 RDX or 11 MDX to get going (the RDX makes up for it once the turbo kicks in yo) . The hwy speed can reach 80-85 mph sometimes in the fast lane on that stretch of road and the 3 electric motor are disabled at +75 mph. The 3.0L V-6 plus the 7DCT seem to do a better job at acceleration compared to my 11 MDX with just a 6AT at those speeds. You can pick any speed you want on the interstate and the hybrid will keep it. My 11 MDX makes more noise than power once I get above 6500 feet.

Forgot to mention at quirk with the ACC; which, I don't know if it is an hybrid thing or all MDXs. When using the ACC and it slows down because of traffic, I can sometimes exceed the set ACC speed by up to 5 mph. Meaning I have the ACC set to 80 mph on the 75 mph interstate, I slow down because of slow moving vehicle in my lane to around 65-75 mph, the slower vehicle move out the way clearing the lane, and the ACC re-accelerates up to 85 mph before settling back down to the set 80 mph speed. Not a big deal; except, it did it once up a hill with hwy patrol hiding at the crest and I was doing 85 mph (+10 mph over the speed limit is when they start to pull you over).

ceb

C'mon, there are never cops on that road....

For those unitiated - the NM cops love to run multiple speed traps one right after the other. You figure you've passed one and (maybe) expect another, but between the airport in Santa Fe and downtown, I once passed 5 speed traps a mile apart.

I=25 between SF and ABQ is usually pretty empty and you can do the ~60 miles is about 45 minutes or so most days

Lyncdead

Thanks for all the feedback. I am probably going to pull the trigger this weekend or next. The only road block is the high money factor from acura this month .0025 doing the math on that, thats a high rental fee that kills the incentives. Perhaps I will just finance it, idk... Anyways, thanks again all.

mrgold35

One factor that made me pull the trigger now instead of waiting for the all new 4th Gen MDX was there wasn't any info on a 4th Gen MDX sport hybrid. The 2020 MDX sport hybrid might be it for a while until the 4th gen has its Mid Model Change (MMC) around 2024? The powertrain of the sport hybrid for the RLX and MDX (and NSX) is so unique to the Honda/Acura family and it is a hidden gem. I would purchase the RDX or TLX if it had the same hybrid powertrain.

bobby2478

The other thing to consider is even if there is a hybrid 4th gen MDX out of the gate, you can expect that MSRP will be quite a bit more expensive then the 2020, and they'll be selling them at least for full MSRP (if not at a slight premium) for the better part of a year after launch. So you'll by far get a much better deal on a 2020 or 2019 now.

Not to even mention that from a reliability perspective the 2019 or 2020 will have much less issues then the redesigned 4th Gen as they've largely worked out most of the kinks with the 3rd gen MDX by now (again, assuming they even launch a sport hybrid right out of the gate next year, which they may not)

mmfish

My wife and I bought two 2019 MDX hybrids this summer her's white tech mine black advance. No problems so far.

RLX-Sport Hybrid

Have ours for 32,000 miles and simply love it. No issues at all.

Pens Fan

26,000 miles no issues at all and lifetime average mpg 30.2-you can't beat the ride or mileage.

Lalin

Although my experience with my 2019 sports Hybrid is limited to 3300 miles, I can tell you that I love every minute I am driving it.
The ride, power train response, and fuel consumption are exceptional. I am averaging over 31 mpg with light foot driving. My previous non hybrid MDX under similar drive conditions gave me 19 mpg. In city driving the differences are even bigger.
The only bone I have to pick with Acura are that the rear camera/screen are at least 10 years behind the times and the GPS graphics were taken from a video game from the 80s. Not a big problem because I use Waze.

TSX69

Our 2017 Sport Hybrid is doing just fine. There were a couple of little things in the beginning like the fuel cap that was not flush & the only major thing was when the hybrid system shut off twice (we were still able to move on the gas engine only) which was fixed. So far do not regret the purchase & like getting the ~27mpg in the winter & ~30mpg in the summer.

Since 2017, they have done a few changes that I like such as adding chrome trim to the seat controls, A-Spec as well as Apple CarPlay & Android Auto.

TheKing_MDX

I was excited to see the MDX Hybrid option and started to build my new 2020 MDX Hybrid. It seemed too good to be true until I got to the towing capacity spec. It is 0. Towing is not an option on this big 300+ HP SUV. I contacted Acura customer support thinking it had to be a miss print. They confirmed towing is not an option. They are the only manfuacturer that does not have a hybrid SUV with a towing capacity. Even the Tesla Mode 3 is going to have a towing hitch option. I don't really have a big towing need. Basically I have a hitch on my current 2016 MDX for a bike rack. I am concerned that resale value for an SUV without towing capacity will be reduced. My dealer told me they will install a hitch on it for a bike rack and guarantee it will not void the warranty but I fear this is sales hype.

mrgold35

Talk to dealerships in Albuquerque and San Antonio and they said the hybrid is 100% fine for hitch mounted bike racks or platform cargo carriers. I was really worried about adding a hitch and voiding the 100,000 hybrid warranty. There are quite a few hybrid owners that already added a hitch with or without the harness. Planning to add the hitch in the next few months before spring bike riding season starts up.

TheKing_MDX

Eliminating the wiring harness confirms the hitch would not be used for towing and since several owners have already installed hitches it assures me there is nothing in the hybrid design that interferes with the install.

mellonc

I wouldn't worry about adding a hitch. The major reason for not having the towing capability is the 7 speed Dual Clutch Transmission, a wonderful transmission but not as robust as say, a torque converting ZF unit. The DCT units are known to be hurky jerky with 1,2 3 gears at very low speeds but honda takes care of that by inserting electric torque and smoothing out the low speed gear changes. However, there isn't enough electric power to haul more load than the car itself. In fact, you will find that the load rating is also lower on the hybrid than the conventional car. Anyways, having a hitch won't do anything bad to the car.

mmfish

I've had my MDX Hybrid advance over a year. During the last five months I've had to isolate from family due to possible exposure to covid. I've traveled extensively with bike rack on OEM hitch no problems. Mileage is good no issues at all. I drive 6-700 miles each week and spend lots of time in MDX. I've moved lots of my stuff out and had the entire back area with rear seat down covered in canvas.This protected interior with spilled stuff.

MCRacer

our 2019 hybrid advance has 19K miles on it with zero issues. I haven't had the wind noise issues several people have mentioned. And on the reverse clunk issue. I believe this is an artifact of the way acura does the park and then parking brake. if you don't put on the parking brake by the button, the parking brake doesn't come on until you turn off the car. so, if you put it in park, you are relying on the parking pawl to keep the car from moving. Now put it in reverse and there is a compound issue. In reverse the engine is used to back up the car, no electric electric motor. assist or buffering Now remember you have a dual clutch manual transmission. It's just "automatically shifted" . So when you go out of park into reverse the pawl must release and then the clutch engage enough to get you moving. The result can be a lurch. Solution, same as any other car. ALWAYS,ALWAYS put on the parking brake BEFORE shifting to park. No park pawl issue, easier for the clutch to engage. In cars with a conventional shifter you would know what happened because it would be hard to get the lever out of park. With the electronic shifting you don't get the feedback.

In forward it's less noticeable, likely because the electric motor works with the clutch pack like a torque converter, but it can still be noticed on an incline. Acura was smart, ALL the dual clutch transmissions in Acura have either a torque converter or electric motor in conjunction with the transmission. Much smoother engagement and start than many other dual clutch transmissions. And the transmission shifting is flawless. Almost instant downshifts, crisp upshifts. Even when it goes down through 3 or 4 gears it is quick. And the transmission can't skip gears going up or down, it's sequencial but still very very quick.

Having driven cars with clutches for a LONG time I was suprised how smooth the hybrid was in drive from a start till I realized what they did. But in reverse, I can definitely feel the clutch engage, especially of I'm very slowly backing up like out of a parking lot spot watching for traffic.
The only downside is the zer towing. IMHO Acura did a great job with the hybrid. optimized it just enough to get city mgp same as highway then used the rest of the hybrid capability to boost performance and couple it with great handling. The torque vectoring at the rear is better than the regular MDX, in brisk cornering it behaves more like a RWD car with close to 50/50 weight distribution. Having had FWD cars in the past and preferring RWD for handling I was hesitant about the MDX, but a short brisk drive sold me.

And it is quite!! less road noise or wind noise than many many other cars we drove.

We've averaged just over 26mpg combined with a mix of about 70% city, 30% highway. In the winter mileage can take a big dip if you do lot's of very short trips, the gas engine runs till it's warm so on short trips mileage can tank. Winter trip to the gym 3 miles away is around 15mpg to the gym but into the 20's on the way back since the car is still mostly warmed up.

mellonc

I agree with everything except this. I think ICE MDX with traditional differential does a better job since you get more torque in the rear.

MCRacer

It may very well be better in adverse driving condition like snow, mud etc. However haven driven both agressively on dry roads for my driving the hybrid torque vectoring (and maybe augmented by the hybrid suspension) does a better job of making the car more neutral. Road test results I've seen show the hybrid in cournering and figure 8 avoidance show the hybrid has a noticeable advantage. The hybrid can apply braking to the inside rear and power to the outside rear. I haven't had the hybrid in snow, ice, or mud nor a regular mdx either, so can't offer a comparison in that respect but the non hybrid easily could have the advantage in these conditions.

alpha0

I have seen a thread where someone compared sh-awd and sport hybrid in snow and was really impressed with sport hybrid's performance in snow.

wallyo

I agree, but the part that's being left out of the conversation is that the hybrid torque vectoring is full time and instantaneous. With the non-hybrid, torque vectoring is only active if you've into the throttle. The instant you back of the throttle, you're on your own.