dougcolt

It's been 3 weeks now since I picked up my 2014 Acura MDX tech. I just completed a fairly lengthy road trip from San Francisco down the California coast to Los Angeles, then down to San Diego, then to Vegas, and then back up to San Francisco.

All in all, the car was great. Excellent power on the passes, great handling on all of the tight curves, very comfortable overall, and no issues dealing with 110 degree heat in Vegas.

3 (possibly 4) bugs to report:

1) After returning home, I had the vehicle washed. All of the sudden, a creaking noise in the rear of the vehicle developed. It's a fairly loud creak/squeak anytime I come to anything other than a very gentle stop, and occasionally I hear it when braking fairly hard to slow down. I have to assume it's a defective suspension component that developed some rust/oxidation upon being exposed to water from the car wash. Possibly just the rotors, but it seems to be suspension related.

2) Misaligned body panel. There is a slight disconnect between the front of the passenger door and the front body panel. The front body panel is perhaps 2-3 mm further out than the door panel. On the driver side, the two panels are flush.

3) Sporadic freezing of the navigation screen. This has now happened twice. I'll have the navigation screen on audio mode to display the current radio station. When I change stations, the screen continues to display the old station. Turning the radio off and on fixes the problem.

4) Sloshing noise in the rear (where I posted in a separate thread). I think this is just noise from the fuel tank, but I can hear a sloshing noise inside the vehicle when driving around at low speed with the radio off.

I'm taking the vehicle in for service on Friday to get these issues addressed. Curious if any other 2014 owners have experienced anything similar.

snookssec

I have the MDX Advanced and I had a bug (reported to my dealer) dealing with the NAV. I was on my way to the airport and needed to change to the phone menu for a moment. When I went to change back to the Map view it would not show the map. I kept hitting the 'Navi' button, other buttons and then back to the 'Navi' button, turned the radio off/on, and even tried using the VR to say 'display map.' I saw the command was recognized but it would still not return to the map screen. I had to pull over, turn off the car, turn on the car, resume my trip on the Nav, and then I could see the map.

Lalin

Nice road trip!
It is simply not possible that a car component develops instant oxidation after one wash. The problem has to be something else.

fxcarden

Problems with Navi ?.

I am shocked

TLbullet

I havn't experience any sounds..but seems to have issues with the voice commands. I thought it was just me, but my wife was having same issues....what ever is said, the computer brings up something not even close. We close all windows and have fan blower on low..annoying

TiggaMan909

ahhhh the joys of first model year ownership.... Hopefully these are just minor fixes but OP, great thread topic! I'm sure we'll see a lot of contributions to this thread!

snookssec

VR blows compared to my 2012 TL!!

snookssec

I should also add for Phone calls or iPod control I use Siri over the bluetooth and she gets it correct 98% of the time. Pretty sad when Siri does better than the car's VR...wasn't an issue on my TL.

dougcolt

Well now that was kind of stupid. Got in the car this morning and the creaking was back. In fact worse than ever. So annoyed. So I called and rescheduled an appointment for next week.

Parked at work in the garage underground where it is quite cool. Came out to the car at lunch, opened the back to put in my bag, and then bounced the car around to see if I could hear the creak. VERY loud and this was the first time I had ever been able to hear it while not driving.

The culprit? The spare tire had loosened up a bit and was squeaking around under the car. Apparently the cool temps reduced the pressure, making it even squeakier. So a few cranks on the retaining cable and it was all tightened up. Problem solved. I feel kind of stupid for not thinking of this earlier.

blackman

The joys of a new car. A colleague took his new car back to the dealer for repairs cause one of the back doors was not working from the outside. He was really mad and was thinking of returning the car. The culprit, child seat engaged by his son who borrowed the car for one day. We had a good laugh.

TiggaMan909

lol nice! glad it worked out for you. But this shouldn't be an issue for FWD guys as their cars don't come with a spare!

TarJacket

Here is the good, not so good & ugly:

Good

- The MDX handles great. I switch from Normal to Sport fairly often and Sport mode was great on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

- Lane Keeping Assist works better than I thought it would. I do not keep it on, but if I need to change a DVD for the kids or take a drink of water, it is better than using your knees.

- The MDX is quiet and the sound system is really good.

- I am a big fan of listening to music via Bluetooth from the iPhone. This was not an option on my BMW and I am enjoying it.

- The steering wheel controls are very functional.

- My kids love the rear entertainment system. I have not yet had two inputs in the screen, but I am sure that day will soon come.

Not So Good

- The cruise control takes some getting used to because of the speed following system. Personally, I think that it slows you down a bit too early. I found that I am hitting cancel a fair amount so I can get closer to the car in front of me to change lanes. In moderate traffic, it can be a pain, but in heavy traffic it is really nice. I wish it was a bit smoother in braking and accelerating.

- Instructions for the navigation, entertainment system are virtually non-existent. My poor salesperson, who had yet to be trained, was nice but not very helpful. I figured a bunch out myself, but things like reading texts are not explained. Getting AcuraLink set up was totally missed by the dealership.

The Ugly

- I brought my MDX straight back to dealership after I took possession (I ordered mine so I could get the color/style I wanted) for a rattle on the passenger side. It turns out that the strut assembly needed to be readjusted. The problem reappeared after driving down a gravel road, though it was intermittent.

- I then had my MDX towed into the dealership after it completely died in my garage (this was after I had just driven it 200 miles after a weekend in the mountains). I am not sure what the issue is, though a previous thread about the alternator sounds like a likely culprit.

- I have found the voice commands are spotty and accessing your iPhone contacts is a pain.

- I sent 3 destinations using the Acura iPhone app and found that it does not save them anywhere, so really can only do it one at a time.

- I could not figure out how to read texts from my iPhone, but I will try the hints I have seen on this site.

The bottom line - I am paying for buying a first year model. I would not consider buying a BMW first year model due to issues that I know others have had, but we had no problems with our Odyssey so I went with the MDX over the Q7. I hope they get my issues resolved or I will wish I had made a different choice.

TiggaMan909

TarJacket, sorry to hear about your experience! I really hope this is an isolated incident. At this point if its feasible, i would ask the dealer to replace the car as a whole. This one sounds like a lemon to me and I wouldn't take my chances with any repairs. Always painful to hear these type of cases. Best of luck and keep us posted!

cloudengineer

I too have a 2014 Advance with problems #2 and #3.

For #2 What did your dealer do about the misaligned body panel ?

For #3, this is happening more and more for us on XM and Radio where the controls lock up completely, the screen gives haptic feedback, but won't change channels at all. Turning the radio on/off doesn't work either, we have to wait to turn the car completely off and back on for it to respond again. I'm expecting there will be some software update to address this, but very annoying for a $55k vehicle to have a barely usable audio control system.

Add one more item. We took delivery late at night ( we arrived at dealer at about 5pm, and after the test drive and some negotiation didn't leave until close to 8pm ) We did not notice a misaligned fuel panel that was rubbing paint on the inside hinge edge, it was clearly a defect from assembly. The dealer did touch it up professionally and realigned it and also checked the lot to notice there were 3-4 more of them with the same problem.

We are waiting to hear what Acura is going to do to prevent this issue / repair it permanently.

Grimlock

So far our MDX hasn't given us issues, but I've noticed that the steering column is off center. The axis is off by a few degrees which makes the signal lever higher and the wiper lever lower. It bugs me.

I brought it into the dealer and asked about it. They said it does look off center. But when I went back to collect the car later, they said they checked other vehicles and its normal. I did look at the one in the showroom and it wasn't. A little irritated.

alkus77

Did u ask them to redo the alignment ?? It should be free for the first 30 days if I'm not mistaken , I had that problem with my 2007 MDX , I asked once to fix it , they didn't , I took the car back and told I want it a new alignment saying I bought an Acura not a Kia ( no offense to anyone) and they did it under warranty.

Grimlock

It's the steering column, not the steering wheel. The alignment is a separate issue. I did think that the steering wheel is pulling a little too much to the right and I had to counter it quite a bit. I asked about that. Initially the tech test drove with me and said it was pulling. However, after bringing it into the workshop, they thought the alignment was ok, rebalanced the wheels and test drove it again. They said on the highway it's ok, but normal roads are too crappy, that's why it pulls. So maybe I'm being too sensitive about it.

The steering column is a separate issue. And that bugs me a little because it causes the left lever (signal) to be higher and the right lever to be lower.

TarJacket

The battery problem was due to a loose negative terminal on the battery, likely knocked loose by a gravel road. The rattle was a still an issue with the strut assembly, but Acura flew up some field techs to my dealer with a few different parts and had it fixed in a day. I now have my MDX back and just got back from a 400 mile trip and everything went smoothly. Hopefully the issues are well behind me.

scout27

2000 miles on my FWD Tech. No major issues. I agree that the voice commands interface doesn't always know what I'm asking for. Guess I need to relearn how to speak. The only time it really irritated me was when I was trying to ask the Bluetooth to call a number via voice command. It never did get it right and I couldn't punch in the numbers by hand while the car was moving.

I've got a LOT to learn with the infosystem. I'm kind of old fashioned and don't mind buttons and dials. Many functions now take more steps than before. Take the heated seats for example - now you have to touch the screen twice to turn them on and before you just had to hit a button once.

273frankie

On two different occassions (for no apparent reason) my settings for the rear back-up camera (predictive guidlines, etc) all turn off. I only notice when shifting into reverse and do not see any of the guidelines. I have to go into settings and turn everything back on which is very time consuming when you have someone waiting behind you.

I've also had the nav screen freeze up a few times and the radio not work - in all instances I just needed to restart the car and everything was back to normal. Easy fix if you are able to restart - but frusting when driving on the highway.