I'm looking around for a new daily and I figured I would come look at Acura again since I enjoyed my 08 TL-S way back when. Problem is I despise the TLX, the ILX is a joke, and I don't want an SUV. So that left me to look at the RLX. When I first pulled them up on Autotrader I laughed because the first one I saw was a 2014 with 37k for $22k, I thought for sure it had been in 4 accidents with 7 owners. But no, clean 1-owner.

So why are these so cheap? Is it just no one buys them? Do they not have that Honda reliability? Lots of problems with them? What is it?

 

Overpriced to start with (IMO)! There have also been some issues with some of the models. Nothing too extreme, but nonetheless an issue or two. You should be able to locate all of that info in the various threads throughout this forum.

 

Honda miscalculated seriously the dollar/yen exchange rate, for one thing.

The RLX costs a lot less to bring into the United States than they anticipated.

The fears about the potential exchange rate is also part of the reason why there are some features missing that some people might have liked to have seen.

 

PAWS model - right?
bad reviews and highly discounted to begin with

 

Yup. unpopular, unloved, hard to sell, especially in PAWS form. The taint spread to the far superior Sport Hybrid too.

Your gain as the RLX is a lot of car for the money, used. Just be careful as the 2014s had definite issues, particularly with suspension. You cannot buy one, sight unseen, you must test drive the car you are interested in.

 

Thanks for the replies.

Neuronbob - Do the 2015s have issues as well? Are there other major issues other than the suspension?

It definitely seems like a lot of car for the money, I think I can get in one for low 20s. Granted, I haven't driven it yet, so my opinion may change.

 

The same was true of the 4G TL, and now we understand it to have been one of the best things they've ever done. Five years ahead of its time.

 

Drove the 4G TL a few times and loved the way it drove and the interior design and was very close to buying it but...... i could not get past the design. I believe Acura introduced the new "beak" front end design language on this model. That coupled with the rear end design (IMO unattractive) and that pretty much pushed me another direction. Whenever I saw it I would think what a shame.... it coulda been a serious contenda and a huge sales success.

It seems car designers tend to push out a new design language in its extreme for the first model and then tone it down with each successive redesign (i.e. cadillac) but the beak was such a paradigm shift from prior acura/honda designs. Again, a shame because the underlying car was so good. I wish the beak could have been akin to Subaru and their aviation themed front end on their first large SUV, which died with that model.

I remember seeing a bunch of 4G TL's running around Denver/Boulder awhile back but now that I think about it, I can't recall seeing a single one in the past couple years. Weird.

Anyhoo, yes a used RLX is a darn good value and I still love mine.

 

My 2016MY Sports Hybrid is awesome too! The thing plows thru most snow storms and the interior is awesome. You definitely get a lot of car for the price. I paid something like $40K with just 13,000 miles on the darn thing!

 

 

The 2015s were solid other than occasional (less than 2014) suspension clunking. Again, test drive the car you are interested in. If no clunking of the suspension, you are good to go. If a Sport Hybrid, just get one.