Another Review from LeftLaneNews
08-29-2008, 12:52 PM
#1
Instructor
Thread Starter
08-29-2008, 01:00 PM
#2
Safety Car
Review Sticky
All:
Thanks for all the reviews but I think that the moderator wanted us to PM him & he would post them all together in the sticky thread.
Thanks for all the reviews but I think that the moderator wanted us to PM him & he would post them all together in the sticky thread.
08-29-2008, 01:07 PM
#3
Instructor
Thread Starter
08-29-2008, 02:25 PM
#4
Safety Car
No Worries
But since this thread exists:: I am glad that the TL is getting good reviews. The complaints, other than exterior styling, revolve mostly around too many buttons & no manual transmission. Pretty minor complaints in the grand scope of things especially w/ the manual coming next year.
09-02-2008, 01:13 PM
#6
Safety Car
Non SHAWD Review
LeftLaneNews
09/02/2008, 12:24 PM
Acura
Review: 2009 Acura TL
After Leftlane took a substantial look at the all-new 2009 Acura TL SH-AWD last week, we’ve moved on to its smaller brother, the very similar but softer, less expensive, less-powerful, front-wheel-drive TL sedan aimed more at the entry-level luxury market.
Take the successful 2008 Acura TL, make all the performance upgrades that a tuner could desire, add a techno-geek’s dream package of technology, then sharpen the feature lines and substitute an edgy grille to make sure everyone will recognize this car on the road and you’ve got the 2009 TL. Leftlane’s drive on California’s coastal backroads north of San Francisco showed that the new TL could make a lot of previous TL owners very happy while attracting more entry-luxury buyers into the fold..
Acura product planners said that extensive study of the entry-luxury market segment, coupled with focus group research with current TL owners, determined that the buyer targeted for the TL balances rational judgment with emotional reaction when evaluating an automobile – a logical but not particularly surprising deduction. In their effort to keep the TL as the “class-defining performance luxury sedan,” this owner definition meant simply that Acura had to improve every single attribute on the new model. From the numbers and a quick 150 miles in the new cars, we’d say they’ve succeeded.
What is it?
The TL is designed for the mainstream owner looking for a comfortable car with some luxury touches and an affordable price tag. Acura equips the new TL with a 3.5 liter front-wheel-drive VTEC engine producing 280 horsepower and 254 pound-feet of torque, an increase of over nine percent from the previous TL, linked to a paddle-controlled five-speed automatic transmission. Mileage is a reasonable 18 mpg city and 26 mpg highway.
Performance enthusiasts might be disappointed to learn that Acura has no current plans to introduce a Type-S version of the TL; instead, they’ve added a “super handling, all-wheel-drive” (SH-AWD) version to the TL line-up, with more power and a high-tech handling system. Because of its complex technology and its appeal to a different type of customer, we’ve reviewed the SH-AWD model separately.
What’s it up against?
Acura set the bar high for the TL by seeking to hold on to their existing near-luxury customers while hoping to attract some sport sedan customers. The designers and engineers were compelled to benchmark the new TL against the whole range of entry-luxury sport sedans, including the BMW 3-Series, http://www.leftlanenews.com/mercedes...ass-sedan.html, Audi A4, Lexus ES 350, and Infiniti G35. That’s a tough crowd to match when you want to stay near the $35,000 average purchase price of the previous TL.
For comparison, the TL SH-AWD looks and feels essentially the same in a showroom (obviously not on the test drive) yet Acura sees its competitor set a class above.
Any breakthroughs?
When you set out to improve your previous offering and beat all your competitors on every luxury and performance attribute, you’d better come up with some major breakthroughs, and there is a lot to talk about, even in the standard TL. Briefly, the next big things in the TL can be found in the engine room, in the suspension, in the crash zones and in the center console.
Honda/Acura was a pioneer in variable valve timing technology with its VTEC engines, but now the engineers have gone one step further. To provide greater performance while meeting more stringent California and Federal EPA standards for ultra low-emission vehicles, the new engine varies not only the intake timing, but also the exhaust timing. With electronically-modulated lifters, the engine can change both the intake and the exhaust cycle to provide optimum flow into and out of the engine at all rpm.
To maintain handling confidence without sacrificing ride comfort, the TLs incorporate a sophisticated multi-valve system in the shock absorbers that opens both valves to absorb bumps on straight sections but then shuts one valve while cornering to provide taut, level handling. This damper system has been improved with the addition of a blow-off valve, so that the shock absorbers can compensate quickly for unexpected bumps, even while the car is in a tight turn.
Underneath the skin, Acura has improved the skeleton of the chassis to increase torsional rigidity while increasing crash zone responsiveness. With this new system, they’ve earned them the maximum five-star ratings in front, side, and rear collision testing, an achievement equalled by few other brands.
On the interior, the console controls have been redesigned to improve what Acura calls “intuitive technology” which we guess means you should be able to operate all the devices without spending a day at a training seminar. The optional “Technology Package” adds a variety of audio, device interface, communication, and navigation capabilities that compares favorably with any other car on the road today.
How does it look?
Acura says it was their intention to design the TL to get attention, and they definitely succeeded, since the first views of the new car we showed you have inspired heated discussion. This is clearly not the bland previous-generation Japanese styling that tried to appeal to everyone without offending anyone. Acura says their intention is to make sure that, with all the product advances they’re so proud of, the new TL will stand out on the road. To that end, it certainly does.
Their design goals, they say, were to create an impression of linear fluidity by designing smooth lines that flow without interruption from front to rear, and establish a strong design presence by using a high, well-defined shoulder line. But the most controversial aspects of the design are the hard, origami-like folded edges along the feature lines, which emanate from the flat, v-shaped surfaces of the signature Acura grille and culminate in a similar v-shaped form at the center rear of the car.
We’d only note that the folded-edge style is not new, having been introduced several years ago by Cadillac, so it isn’t likely to create any serious issues for Acura, except perhaps for some previous TL owners who might resist the idea of change.
And inside?
On the inside, with high-quality materials of soft-touch vinyl and leather trim, accented with an attractive, pleasant-feeling metal composite material, the TL feels upscale and modern. We liked the choice of materials and the workmanship and definitely felt that the composite metal trim was superior to both the brushed aluminum and retro polished wood that are the typical clichés of most luxury car lines.
The front cabin has been sculpted to create two visually separate passenger spaces, divided by an imposing center console. That console includes both a huge iDrive-style center knob and a huge array of separate buttons, apparently for every single controllable function in the car. About the only thing not on the console was a tape cassette slot, which Acura was still building into its 2008 models.
The center-stack design is perhaps the one feature in the car where Acura gets barely a passing grade in a class where Audi is the curve-breaker, Mercedes gets high marks for trim quality, BMW compromises between high style and convenience, and even Volvo comes through with elegant understatement. We’d like to say that the Acura design was superior to at least one of these competitors, but unfortunately, the best we can say is that the car has more electronic features than the competitors. To their credit, we were able to find many of the features without cracking the owners’ manual in our short few hours in the car.
The TL also excels in the category of number, size, and placement of stowage spaces This is a small, but nevertheless important detail to us, and becomes more significant on the longer journeys for which this car is suited. Neat little iPod and cell phone compartments are situated in the console near the plug-ins, and in the sides of the foot wells, and cup or bottle holders are placed not only in the center console – where they’re usually in the way – but in the door panels as well.
Acura offered excellent interior space and comfort with the previous TL, and with this model they’ve raised the bar by adding another inch to rear leg room and a fraction of an inch to rear shoulder room. The rear seating is as comfortable as any current car of comparable size.
Given the comfort and space of the rear seat, we were amazed to find that the trunk is huge as well. We’re perfectly willing to believe that there would be no problem in fitting the four suitcases, or the four golf bags, or the full-sized cooler that the Acura’s press literature promises.
But does it go?
We love any excuse to get out on the two-lane coastal roads north of San Francisco when we’re in a car that promises good handling, so we were pleased to learn that our route would take us from Sausalito along Route 1 to Bodega Bay, where the intricacies of the curves are exceeded only by the breath-taking coastal scenery. After lunch at the north end of the route, we returned to home base through the redwood groves and cattle country just inland of the coastal hills. The route allowed us to sample both the handling competence and ride comfort that the TL offers in equal amounts.
Though not breath-taking, acceleration in the TL is competent to handle passing situations on two-lane backroads, and the paddle controls allowed us to drop the car down a gear in those circumstances without having to first shift out of drive.
The TL transmission offers only five speeds. That sounds as if it wouldn’t match the flexibility of the six-speed auto boxes standard in most competing brands, but the wider, and more balanced gear ratios probably explain why we found the transmission to be so smooth we could only tell it had shifted by watching the tach.
Handling on back road curves was also quite competent, taking us through tight corners without any sense of body roll and only the vaguest notions of front-wheel-drve. What was really gratifying was the smoothness of the ride. Current TL owners will be more than pleased when they trade in the old TL on this car, and if they comparison shop, they’ll be even happier.
Why you would buy it:
Manufactured in Marysville, Ohio, the TL benefits from exchange rate fluctuations that have hit its competitors from Europe, so Acura promises a price starting at around $35,000, pretty close to the 2008 level for a car that offers space, comfort, handling, and performance of cars selling for considerably more.
No one is going to confuse the luxury touches in the cabin with the elegance offered by some competitors, and that excessively busy center stack with its plethora of push buttons just doesn’t say upscale like the rest of the interior does. And some near-luxury buyers have no desire to drive a car that has “look at me” written all over it, no matter how bold a presence it creates.
The TL will be on sale in September of this year. Look for official pricing to be released here in the coming weeks.
Words and Photos by Gary and Genie Anderson
09/02/2008, 12:24 PM
Acura
Review: 2009 Acura TL
After Leftlane took a substantial look at the all-new 2009 Acura TL SH-AWD last week, we’ve moved on to its smaller brother, the very similar but softer, less expensive, less-powerful, front-wheel-drive TL sedan aimed more at the entry-level luxury market.
Take the successful 2008 Acura TL, make all the performance upgrades that a tuner could desire, add a techno-geek’s dream package of technology, then sharpen the feature lines and substitute an edgy grille to make sure everyone will recognize this car on the road and you’ve got the 2009 TL. Leftlane’s drive on California’s coastal backroads north of San Francisco showed that the new TL could make a lot of previous TL owners very happy while attracting more entry-luxury buyers into the fold..
Acura product planners said that extensive study of the entry-luxury market segment, coupled with focus group research with current TL owners, determined that the buyer targeted for the TL balances rational judgment with emotional reaction when evaluating an automobile – a logical but not particularly surprising deduction. In their effort to keep the TL as the “class-defining performance luxury sedan,” this owner definition meant simply that Acura had to improve every single attribute on the new model. From the numbers and a quick 150 miles in the new cars, we’d say they’ve succeeded.
What is it?
The TL is designed for the mainstream owner looking for a comfortable car with some luxury touches and an affordable price tag. Acura equips the new TL with a 3.5 liter front-wheel-drive VTEC engine producing 280 horsepower and 254 pound-feet of torque, an increase of over nine percent from the previous TL, linked to a paddle-controlled five-speed automatic transmission. Mileage is a reasonable 18 mpg city and 26 mpg highway.
Performance enthusiasts might be disappointed to learn that Acura has no current plans to introduce a Type-S version of the TL; instead, they’ve added a “super handling, all-wheel-drive” (SH-AWD) version to the TL line-up, with more power and a high-tech handling system. Because of its complex technology and its appeal to a different type of customer, we’ve reviewed the SH-AWD model separately.
What’s it up against?
Acura set the bar high for the TL by seeking to hold on to their existing near-luxury customers while hoping to attract some sport sedan customers. The designers and engineers were compelled to benchmark the new TL against the whole range of entry-luxury sport sedans, including the BMW 3-Series, http://www.leftlanenews.com/mercedes...ass-sedan.html, Audi A4, Lexus ES 350, and Infiniti G35. That’s a tough crowd to match when you want to stay near the $35,000 average purchase price of the previous TL.
For comparison, the TL SH-AWD looks and feels essentially the same in a showroom (obviously not on the test drive) yet Acura sees its competitor set a class above.
Any breakthroughs?
When you set out to improve your previous offering and beat all your competitors on every luxury and performance attribute, you’d better come up with some major breakthroughs, and there is a lot to talk about, even in the standard TL. Briefly, the next big things in the TL can be found in the engine room, in the suspension, in the crash zones and in the center console.
Honda/Acura was a pioneer in variable valve timing technology with its VTEC engines, but now the engineers have gone one step further. To provide greater performance while meeting more stringent California and Federal EPA standards for ultra low-emission vehicles, the new engine varies not only the intake timing, but also the exhaust timing. With electronically-modulated lifters, the engine can change both the intake and the exhaust cycle to provide optimum flow into and out of the engine at all rpm.
To maintain handling confidence without sacrificing ride comfort, the TLs incorporate a sophisticated multi-valve system in the shock absorbers that opens both valves to absorb bumps on straight sections but then shuts one valve while cornering to provide taut, level handling. This damper system has been improved with the addition of a blow-off valve, so that the shock absorbers can compensate quickly for unexpected bumps, even while the car is in a tight turn.
Underneath the skin, Acura has improved the skeleton of the chassis to increase torsional rigidity while increasing crash zone responsiveness. With this new system, they’ve earned them the maximum five-star ratings in front, side, and rear collision testing, an achievement equalled by few other brands.
On the interior, the console controls have been redesigned to improve what Acura calls “intuitive technology” which we guess means you should be able to operate all the devices without spending a day at a training seminar. The optional “Technology Package” adds a variety of audio, device interface, communication, and navigation capabilities that compares favorably with any other car on the road today.
How does it look?
Acura says it was their intention to design the TL to get attention, and they definitely succeeded, since the first views of the new car we showed you have inspired heated discussion. This is clearly not the bland previous-generation Japanese styling that tried to appeal to everyone without offending anyone. Acura says their intention is to make sure that, with all the product advances they’re so proud of, the new TL will stand out on the road. To that end, it certainly does.
Their design goals, they say, were to create an impression of linear fluidity by designing smooth lines that flow without interruption from front to rear, and establish a strong design presence by using a high, well-defined shoulder line. But the most controversial aspects of the design are the hard, origami-like folded edges along the feature lines, which emanate from the flat, v-shaped surfaces of the signature Acura grille and culminate in a similar v-shaped form at the center rear of the car.
We’d only note that the folded-edge style is not new, having been introduced several years ago by Cadillac, so it isn’t likely to create any serious issues for Acura, except perhaps for some previous TL owners who might resist the idea of change.
And inside?
On the inside, with high-quality materials of soft-touch vinyl and leather trim, accented with an attractive, pleasant-feeling metal composite material, the TL feels upscale and modern. We liked the choice of materials and the workmanship and definitely felt that the composite metal trim was superior to both the brushed aluminum and retro polished wood that are the typical clichés of most luxury car lines.
The front cabin has been sculpted to create two visually separate passenger spaces, divided by an imposing center console. That console includes both a huge iDrive-style center knob and a huge array of separate buttons, apparently for every single controllable function in the car. About the only thing not on the console was a tape cassette slot, which Acura was still building into its 2008 models.
The center-stack design is perhaps the one feature in the car where Acura gets barely a passing grade in a class where Audi is the curve-breaker, Mercedes gets high marks for trim quality, BMW compromises between high style and convenience, and even Volvo comes through with elegant understatement. We’d like to say that the Acura design was superior to at least one of these competitors, but unfortunately, the best we can say is that the car has more electronic features than the competitors. To their credit, we were able to find many of the features without cracking the owners’ manual in our short few hours in the car.
The TL also excels in the category of number, size, and placement of stowage spaces This is a small, but nevertheless important detail to us, and becomes more significant on the longer journeys for which this car is suited. Neat little iPod and cell phone compartments are situated in the console near the plug-ins, and in the sides of the foot wells, and cup or bottle holders are placed not only in the center console – where they’re usually in the way – but in the door panels as well.
Acura offered excellent interior space and comfort with the previous TL, and with this model they’ve raised the bar by adding another inch to rear leg room and a fraction of an inch to rear shoulder room. The rear seating is as comfortable as any current car of comparable size.
Given the comfort and space of the rear seat, we were amazed to find that the trunk is huge as well. We’re perfectly willing to believe that there would be no problem in fitting the four suitcases, or the four golf bags, or the full-sized cooler that the Acura’s press literature promises.
But does it go?
We love any excuse to get out on the two-lane coastal roads north of San Francisco when we’re in a car that promises good handling, so we were pleased to learn that our route would take us from Sausalito along Route 1 to Bodega Bay, where the intricacies of the curves are exceeded only by the breath-taking coastal scenery. After lunch at the north end of the route, we returned to home base through the redwood groves and cattle country just inland of the coastal hills. The route allowed us to sample both the handling competence and ride comfort that the TL offers in equal amounts.
Though not breath-taking, acceleration in the TL is competent to handle passing situations on two-lane backroads, and the paddle controls allowed us to drop the car down a gear in those circumstances without having to first shift out of drive.
The TL transmission offers only five speeds. That sounds as if it wouldn’t match the flexibility of the six-speed auto boxes standard in most competing brands, but the wider, and more balanced gear ratios probably explain why we found the transmission to be so smooth we could only tell it had shifted by watching the tach.
Handling on back road curves was also quite competent, taking us through tight corners without any sense of body roll and only the vaguest notions of front-wheel-drve. What was really gratifying was the smoothness of the ride. Current TL owners will be more than pleased when they trade in the old TL on this car, and if they comparison shop, they’ll be even happier.
Why you would buy it:
Manufactured in Marysville, Ohio, the TL benefits from exchange rate fluctuations that have hit its competitors from Europe, so Acura promises a price starting at around $35,000, pretty close to the 2008 level for a car that offers space, comfort, handling, and performance of cars selling for considerably more.
No one is going to confuse the luxury touches in the cabin with the elegance offered by some competitors, and that excessively busy center stack with its plethora of push buttons just doesn’t say upscale like the rest of the interior does. And some near-luxury buyers have no desire to drive a car that has “look at me” written all over it, no matter how bold a presence it creates.
The TL will be on sale in September of this year. Look for official pricing to be released here in the coming weeks.
Words and Photos by Gary and Genie Anderson
09-04-2008, 08:56 PM
#7
Acuras Only in
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: San Jose, CA
Posts: 1,788
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Thanks bro ... very good find .... so far I've heard tons of complaints about the 4G styling (esp. the exterior) here on AZ, yet it's nice to note the tech/perf. imp. the 4G offers comparing to the previous TLs ... I will keep my type-s for a few more years but might have a change of heart if they have a S model with SH-AWD coming out down the pipe ... (keeping my fingers crossed LOL)
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
joflewbyu2
5G TLX (2015-2020)
105
08-18-2019 10:38 PM
ITSJESTER
4G TL Audio, Bluetooth, Electronics & Navigation
17
12-06-2018 02:29 AM
flyromeo3
3G TL (2004-2008)
3
09-24-2015 11:24 PM
