The Dallas Morning News Review of 2010 Acura TL SH-AWD
04-17-2010, 01:31 PM
#1
The Dallas Morning News Review of 2010 Acura TL SH-AWD
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...1.283d447.html
Acura TL has charm under the hood
04:24 PM CDT on Friday, April 16, 2010
Terry Box
Souped-up Hondas belong in Southern California, the land of illusion, delusion and marijuana clinics.
And I'm not referring to a 10-year-old Accord with blinding after-market wheels and a coffee-can exhaust, bouncing noisily down the Ventura Freeway.
Rather, I speak of the shimmery, ephemeral Acura, which for years has looked and felt like a Honda with a $50 haircut and a new Beachcomber shirt – the brand that has never quite been able to join Lexus, Infiniti, BMW and Audi at the country club.
Honda's luxury division assembled decent sedans and coupes packed with more refinement and performance than a Honda. But all were based on Honda vehicles, and if you scratched them deeply, you often found the soul of a Civic.
You won't sense a hint of that in the 2010 Acura TL SH-AWD, a good-size near-luxury sedan that will never be mistaken for the big-city cousin to the Accord that it is.
Suffice it to say that Acura has truly cut its visual ties to Honda. But in the new TL, it now mines the "strange sophisticate" segment – distinctively different, for better or worse.
Can a grille be fitted with a codpiece? Beats me. But the resolutely odd front end on the TL I had recently looked alternately like some piece of body armor or the evil smile of a drugged-up Joker.
In fact, I can imagine a flat-black TL cop car sitting on a silent post-apocalypse highway somewhere, waiting to nail Mad Max with a monster ticket from a city that no longer exists.
Beneath the TL's jarring grille is a flat, thick bumper of sorts that resembles a battering ram – just in case, I guess, you need to retrieve your life savings from some flim-flam bank that closed overnight.
On either side of the grille are fierce-looking headlamps that flow hard into clumsy front fenders with those ungainly Camry/Mazda6 shoulder-flares over the wheel wells.
After that, the TL flattens out into decent-looking, slabbish sides with huge back doors. Mine was equipped with aggressive 245/45 tires on five-spoke, 18-inch wheels that hint of the car's true personality.
A rich interior
As you probably know, the 3,800-pound TL competes with some serious middleweights in the near-luxury sedan segment – mainly the godlike 3-series BMW, the interesting Lexus IS 350, hot Infiniti G37 and solid Audi A4.
Through March nationally, Acura trailed BMW and Lexus substantially in sales and was slightly ahead of Infiniti and Audi – maintaining its low-profile midpack status.
It feels better than that inside. For the most part, the TL's interior looks like something you would find in a fairly expensive car – in this case, one with a $43,195 window sticker.
Mine featured fine black leather seats stitched in white and wearing perforated centers. As I mentioned earlier, the backseat area is expansive, with 36.2 inches of legroom – compared with 34.7 inches in the also-large Infiniti G37, according to Edmunds.com.
Up front, the nicely grained black plastic on the dashboard was as smooth as one of President Greenjeans' presentations on our new eco-economy – odd but intriguing.
The hood over the instrument panel has an interesting pattern in the center of it that kind of resembles a subtle cleft chin. The dash swoops dramatically down into a busy center stack filled with roughly a zillion buttons and knobs and probably capable of dialing up astronauts on the space station.
As a middle-aged hick from Denton, I'm happy just to be able to get the stereo tuned to a decent station – always a challenge in Dallas – and fresh air moving through the car. I accomplished both easily in the Acura.
The dash was trimmed in an aluminum band that curved down the sides of the console and ran along the padded, stitched door panels. Interior fit was excellent, as was the quality of the materials.
While all of that is pleasant to inhabit, the TL's real charms are out of sight – beneath the hood and below the car.
Mine was equipped with an impressive 3.7-liter V-6 with 305 horsepower that felt even stronger, despite Acura's slightly outdated five-speed automatic.
Moaning slightly under throttle, the V-6 delivers a silky punch down low and pulls hard to its 6,500 rpm red line, feeling really lively throughout the range. Although Car and Driver says the TL will run to 60 in a little less than six seconds, it seems faster than that.
Confident cornering
But what gives this Acura much of its personality is a sophisticated all-wheel-drive system that disperses torque seamlessly to the tires with the most traction. (The alphabet soup sloshing around the TL's name stands for Super Handling All-Wheel-Drive.)
Consequently, the TL drives kind of like a grown-up Subaru WRX-STI, ripping around corners with enormous confidence – its considerable mass held in check by the formidable grip.
While not light on its feet like a 3-series BMW or Infiniti G37, the TL hangs on in corners like some old stiff in Congress in need of one more year to qualify for his lavish federal pension.
I wish the TL's steering were up to the challenges that its double-wishbone front suspension and multilink rear can handle. Although quick enough to zip easily through those drunken, swerving curves on the north end of the Dallas North Crawlway, the steering is thick and doesn't really tell you much about what is going on with those meaty tires.
Nonetheless, you will be treated to a ride that is richly firm – flexible and compliant, yet able to zip comfortably around those curves and turns you don't see until you look up from the text message you are sending on your cellphone. Whoops.
With fuel consumption of 17 miles per gallon city and 25 highway, the TL is about average in economy for its segment. But with the SH-AWD system and a lusty engine, the TL provides all-wheel security with two-wheel-drive economy.
As for the styling, maybe the TL is like your flamboyant engineer-uncle from Anaheim – the one who always wears his tasseled loafers without socks, sports an overly large diamond earring and carries a purple cellphone on his belt.
Let's ride, dude.
Acura TL has charm under the hood
04:24 PM CDT on Friday, April 16, 2010
Terry Box
Souped-up Hondas belong in Southern California, the land of illusion, delusion and marijuana clinics.
And I'm not referring to a 10-year-old Accord with blinding after-market wheels and a coffee-can exhaust, bouncing noisily down the Ventura Freeway.
Rather, I speak of the shimmery, ephemeral Acura, which for years has looked and felt like a Honda with a $50 haircut and a new Beachcomber shirt – the brand that has never quite been able to join Lexus, Infiniti, BMW and Audi at the country club.
Honda's luxury division assembled decent sedans and coupes packed with more refinement and performance than a Honda. But all were based on Honda vehicles, and if you scratched them deeply, you often found the soul of a Civic.
You won't sense a hint of that in the 2010 Acura TL SH-AWD, a good-size near-luxury sedan that will never be mistaken for the big-city cousin to the Accord that it is.
Suffice it to say that Acura has truly cut its visual ties to Honda. But in the new TL, it now mines the "strange sophisticate" segment – distinctively different, for better or worse.
Can a grille be fitted with a codpiece? Beats me. But the resolutely odd front end on the TL I had recently looked alternately like some piece of body armor or the evil smile of a drugged-up Joker.
In fact, I can imagine a flat-black TL cop car sitting on a silent post-apocalypse highway somewhere, waiting to nail Mad Max with a monster ticket from a city that no longer exists.
Beneath the TL's jarring grille is a flat, thick bumper of sorts that resembles a battering ram – just in case, I guess, you need to retrieve your life savings from some flim-flam bank that closed overnight.
On either side of the grille are fierce-looking headlamps that flow hard into clumsy front fenders with those ungainly Camry/Mazda6 shoulder-flares over the wheel wells.
After that, the TL flattens out into decent-looking, slabbish sides with huge back doors. Mine was equipped with aggressive 245/45 tires on five-spoke, 18-inch wheels that hint of the car's true personality.
A rich interior
As you probably know, the 3,800-pound TL competes with some serious middleweights in the near-luxury sedan segment – mainly the godlike 3-series BMW, the interesting Lexus IS 350, hot Infiniti G37 and solid Audi A4.
Through March nationally, Acura trailed BMW and Lexus substantially in sales and was slightly ahead of Infiniti and Audi – maintaining its low-profile midpack status.
It feels better than that inside. For the most part, the TL's interior looks like something you would find in a fairly expensive car – in this case, one with a $43,195 window sticker.
Mine featured fine black leather seats stitched in white and wearing perforated centers. As I mentioned earlier, the backseat area is expansive, with 36.2 inches of legroom – compared with 34.7 inches in the also-large Infiniti G37, according to Edmunds.com.
Up front, the nicely grained black plastic on the dashboard was as smooth as one of President Greenjeans' presentations on our new eco-economy – odd but intriguing.
The hood over the instrument panel has an interesting pattern in the center of it that kind of resembles a subtle cleft chin. The dash swoops dramatically down into a busy center stack filled with roughly a zillion buttons and knobs and probably capable of dialing up astronauts on the space station.
As a middle-aged hick from Denton, I'm happy just to be able to get the stereo tuned to a decent station – always a challenge in Dallas – and fresh air moving through the car. I accomplished both easily in the Acura.
The dash was trimmed in an aluminum band that curved down the sides of the console and ran along the padded, stitched door panels. Interior fit was excellent, as was the quality of the materials.
While all of that is pleasant to inhabit, the TL's real charms are out of sight – beneath the hood and below the car.
Mine was equipped with an impressive 3.7-liter V-6 with 305 horsepower that felt even stronger, despite Acura's slightly outdated five-speed automatic.
Moaning slightly under throttle, the V-6 delivers a silky punch down low and pulls hard to its 6,500 rpm red line, feeling really lively throughout the range. Although Car and Driver says the TL will run to 60 in a little less than six seconds, it seems faster than that.
Confident cornering
But what gives this Acura much of its personality is a sophisticated all-wheel-drive system that disperses torque seamlessly to the tires with the most traction. (The alphabet soup sloshing around the TL's name stands for Super Handling All-Wheel-Drive.)
Consequently, the TL drives kind of like a grown-up Subaru WRX-STI, ripping around corners with enormous confidence – its considerable mass held in check by the formidable grip.
While not light on its feet like a 3-series BMW or Infiniti G37, the TL hangs on in corners like some old stiff in Congress in need of one more year to qualify for his lavish federal pension.
I wish the TL's steering were up to the challenges that its double-wishbone front suspension and multilink rear can handle. Although quick enough to zip easily through those drunken, swerving curves on the north end of the Dallas North Crawlway, the steering is thick and doesn't really tell you much about what is going on with those meaty tires.
Nonetheless, you will be treated to a ride that is richly firm – flexible and compliant, yet able to zip comfortably around those curves and turns you don't see until you look up from the text message you are sending on your cellphone. Whoops.
With fuel consumption of 17 miles per gallon city and 25 highway, the TL is about average in economy for its segment. But with the SH-AWD system and a lusty engine, the TL provides all-wheel security with two-wheel-drive economy.
As for the styling, maybe the TL is like your flamboyant engineer-uncle from Anaheim – the one who always wears his tasseled loafers without socks, sports an overly large diamond earring and carries a purple cellphone on his belt.
Let's ride, dude.
04-17-2010, 09:14 PM
#4
Pro
I went to test drive a G37x coupe and M37X yesterday for the fun of it and I couldn't find much more luxury in the M37X than my 09 TL for 8 000- 10 000 $ CDN more and I hated the 7 speed auto in both cars. Having a tranny constantly hunting for gears is kind of disappointing. Even with the DS or Sport mode on...Sport mode in the M37X was a big letdown...
The more I spend time in entry level/ mid level luxury cars, the more it seems what differentiates those cars are the small details...
And the more I realise than in order to get something really luxurious, we need to spend the big bucks $$$.
My big question is: can I get a luxury car without wood trims?
No really I mean it... On topic: the review was great and reflects most of what I think of the car.
It's still only one guy opinion in the end, not worth more than yours or mine...
04-18-2010, 12:32 AM
#5
OMG, how is our own Winnie (winstrolvtec) going to deal with even an actual newspaper calling the TL a "near-luxury" car? He's going to have a "near-coronary"! 
As you probably know, the 3,800-pound TL competes with some serious middleweights in the near-luxury sedan segment – mainly the godlike 3-series BMW, the interesting Lexus IS 350, hot Infiniti G37 and solid Audi A4.
The other thing I like to point out about the TL is that it is a little different and unique compared to the rest of that segment in the sense that besides also being an entry level sedan as far as luxury goes, it's also the size of a larger mid level. Acura uses that advantage to market it as a cheaper mid level competitor also; sacrificing luxury but not performance and features at it's price point that you would have to if you were to buy something as large in the luxury sedan segments, like a base FWD 3.2 A6 or BMW 528i at a similar, yet slightly more expensive, price instead.
For someone who is ok with only an entry level amount of luxury at similar entry pricing (with the same level of equipment) but who might still want a much larger mid sized sedan than you typically find in the entry segment, that can also perform well and even outperform most of the larger mid level sedans that cost $15k-$20k more comparably equipped, than your choices are slim to none and the TL SH (especially 6MT) is the ideal car for that person. There is nothing to disagree with, that's what it is. Not everyone falls into that category but it doesn't take away from the fact.
Last edited by winstrolvtec; 04-18-2010 at 12:35 AM.
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