Curious, does everyone maintain using 90+ octane on the TLX? I read in certain circles that you can get away with mid and in some cases 87 octane. Is this true and if so has anyone stopped putting higher octane in their TLX? Were there any issues short/long term?

 

Religious debate, but my rule has been loom at the wording in the manual if is says ”required" then you need higher grade fuel, if it says "recommended" then no need to unless you plan on pushing the car hard and need that little extra from the engine. My Infiniti said ”required" and stated anything over 1/4 tank of gas in an emergency could cause damage. Thus I always used premium. For my TLX and her RDX I use 87 octane and since both are leases I use my Kroger fuel points. When I own a car I stick with Top Tier fuel only, and down here it was exclusively Quik Trip.

 

Most "premium" 91+ fuel here in Canada is ethanol free, so thats what I use.

 

Thanks guys. Debating to pick up this car as that with fuel fluctuating and expected to go up this might be an expensive purchase beyond the initial cost of the car.

 

Whenever possible... the engine will always appreciate the highest octane... and free of ethanol (if you can find it)!

 

A. Thread hijack. B. Keith is right, this is the car guy's religious debate. C. I use premium. Let's move this debate to Car Talk, and concentrate on reviews.

 

Sorry, my bad neuronbob.

I did test test drive the A-spec AWD about 1.5 weeks ago and the car really hugged the.road. Quite impressed with the handling. I myself liked the black interior over the red though.

 

That is not really true at all. If an engine does not need higher octane it is actually counter productive. Higher octane actually burns slower and hurts performance. The only way it helps is if the engine is designed to need it to prevent pre-ignition (detonation).

oops, just saw the moderators comment. Please leave my post here if you leave the post I quoted. People need to know that what he said is not true. I'll leave this as my last post on the subject here.

 

This is a raging debate. Has been going on for awhile. Personally, if the car manufacturer recommends higher octane, I use higher octane. It costs around another $4 per fill-up around my parts to use 91 or higher. That's not going to make, more break me in any way. If you buy a high(er) performance car, I just don't get why you'd skimp on something as cheap as gas.

You're not alone here, though. I had the same discussions with people (who wanted to use regular) when I owned my 335i and my S4.

Higher octane is used by manufacturers to eek out a bit more performance. Lower octane (when used in cars designed to use higher octanes) used can cause pre-detonation and you may notice some pinging. Neither of these situations is good for the engine. Manufacturers, via computer can compensate lower octane fuel by retarding the timing. Again, this can affect performance, which flies against the entire reason you buy a sports sedan. In addition, fuel economy may suffer as a result of using lower octane than recommended, totally negating any marginal savings for the cots of the fuel.

In short, there's really no upside to using lower octane in the TLX. At best, you pay a little less per fill-up (but give it back with lower fuel economy). At worst, performance suffers and any pre-detonation resultant pinging will NEVER be good for your engine.

I fill up at Costco, exclusively. Their fuel is all top tier. This weekend, I think I paid less than $2.50/gal for Premium. Pretty darned cheap considering what we were paying 10 years ago.

 

A quick note on the a-spec the head rest are like pillows. It's very soft and comfortable and as you lay your head on the rest, it curves around your head. Excellent job with the headrest. Another point that I noticed is that I feel like I'm sitting higher and I get a better view outside in comparison to my 2010 shawd mt tl. A cool ergonomic feature, inside the trunk you have a handle to close the trunk without touching the paint. I like this because I'm very anal when comes down to keeping the car and paint clean. I plan on putting two coats on Klass paint sealant right after the first wash, maybe three coats on the front due to the fact were are in the summer and it's bug season.
In "sport+" mode it shifts just like a mt car. Prior to a turn it downshifts allowing you to "pull" yourself through the turn utilizing the shawd the way it's meant to be.
The Still Night in opinion is a gorgeous color (might be the best) and a clear differentiator to other tlx's just by first glance.

 

Finally test drove a SH-AWD ASpec over the weekend. While it was a short drive handling was great, transmission shifted with no issues in all modes. Kept it back in Sport after checking out the other modes. Felt planted and just solid overall. Given the TLX is a few hundred pounds lighter than the MDX power delivery was excellent. Wife couldn't believe that the engine sound was piped in through the speakers. She said it sounded natural. OMD is greatly improved over our 2014 MDX. The delay in the MDX always drove me nuts. The TLX version is just instantaneous response to any click. Glad they worked that out finally. Overall very impressed with the ASpec.

I liked it enough to put a deposit down on their first Still Night Blue/Black AWD coming in the first week of July. They even took off $1500 which no other dealer would even entertain (5 that I talked to) just by me mentioning I knew there were incentives. I wasn't going to complain (since incentives total $2750) because they mentioned their last 4 Aspecs sold at MSRP.

 

Congrats man!

 

the 3rd gen TL had this feature.

 

To all the new 2018 owners, does the front license plate mount through a bracket under the front bumper or is it drilled directly into the face of the front bumper?

 

I noticed two holes in the front bumper where the plates would go so my guess is you affix the plates to the bumper surface.

 

Drilled into the face of the bumper through the two dimples mentioned above. I chose to leave mine pristine. Luckily, the local constabulary is busy doing actual police work rather than catching front plate scofflaws like me.

Congrats! I got the entire $2750 in incentives. My lease cap was based on $429xx. Again, I got a decent deal for a car just released.

 

Which dealer was this? All Bay dealers seem to drill the front to attach the front plates during PDI. I had to go to Concord to find one not yet drilled in.

 

Hopkins Acura. I was hoping it was just attached from the bottom, but I'll try to ask them to not drill it during PDI.

 

Explicitly let them know early so they don't "accidentally" forget once the car arrives.

 

License plate mount
Although I could be wrong...I believe with the front bumper there is an tow anchor behind the bumper and if you look at the bumper you will see on the right side a small circular cover. If you remove the cover you have access to the tow anchor. Using an adapter you can mount the adapter to mount the plates without damaging the bumper with screws and what not. Too bad the bumper doesn't say "Acura" like the older TLs did.

The adapter looks similar to the picture above. Sorry, I'm having issues trying to paste the image in.

 

Correction, the port is on the left side of the bumper as you are looking at the car from the front.

 

This would be a better alternative, I was just asking how the default install was done, since they're always dead center on the bumper. Our Odyssey has a bracket that mounts with screws under the bumper so you don't see holes on the front for example.

 

neuronbob - can you please share your numbers? downpayment and monthly payments if you are ok with that..

 

thank you, I was about to ask the same.

Also, I'm curious to know what approach are people here taking in order to receive higher incentives.
If I remember correctly someone received $1750 +/- in incentives while another buy received $500.
So what's the card to play there? Just show up to the dealer and be firm on knowing about incentives and force them to give that higher amount?

thanks

 

I posted my numbers in the owners' sign in thread. I didn't share my monthly lease payment but you can figure it out pretty easily by plugging into the Leasehackr calculator, it's nearly dead on when you add in my (high) local taxes. I asked for, and received, all avilable incentives ($2750). In my case, I've now bought/leased five Acuras from the same salesman and I'm a regular in the service department with my NSX. I'm not sure how much that helped. MF was 0.0011 (2.64%) and residual was 60%, which I've shared elsewhere and are current Acura non-negotiable numbers. I only put down the first payment--I don't believe in down payments for leases, it's a waste of money unless you do MSDs, which Acura doesn't take. I did a 10k/year lease because I had 13k miles that I transferred from my RLX lease, a great perk in Acura leases....so I can drive 43k miles on this car in three years.

 

That's pretty killer.

 

I'm surprised you didn't get a better deal than that, considering your repeated patronage.

 

Car was just released, and considering many dealers are asking MSRP or a token amount off for the A-Spec, I think I did well. For various reasons, I could not wait until December, which I'd ordinarily do, for a rock bottom deal. I was originally offered an MSRP lease deal until in the second sentence of the pricing conversation, when I expressed awareness of the incentives. I was immediately offered a price with the incentives and a bit extra off. Goes to show you that a little awareness goes a long way.

 

I mean it could be worse, our local Honda dealer wants $60,000 for a Civic Type R! Hahahaha!

 

Hondacura really needs to get a handle on this over MSRP situation. They need to do what Dodge just announced with the Chally Demon--orders above MSRP are prioritized under MSRP or less deals. Could have saved the NSX and now those CTRs are gonna sit.

 

Although the Type R is 'cool', it's nowhere worth as much as its AWD turbo V6 counterparts (S4 comes to mind). What I'm curious is who would be stupid enough to buy it at that price. Those cars are for younger generations, and at 60k you have to REALLY like it lol.

 

I'd be curious to see what these are actually selling for. Dealers can ask whatever they like, but can't see these selling for that much over MSRP. Then there's that saying "A fool and his money. . ."

 

Please tell me this is exaggerated. LOL What?

 

Nope, hahaha.

 

On cars.com there are 6 A-Specs in the 5th largest urban area in the country. Having sold Mercedes and Volvo in another life, I have a feeling the A-Spec inventory may not be allocated to dealers based on prior year's TLX sales numbers. This is only an educated guess. I've done a test drive and it is exactly as other members have reviewed. Oh yeah I want it, but no way at MSRP.

 

Cmon guys. You really think someone will pay 60k for a civic? The dealer is just trying to catch anyone stupid. There's no harm in that. You can also likely travel to another Honda dealer in your city and pay 44k (a 10k markup), or less, for the same car. If you're too lazy to shop, well...

Anyway, in 6-12 months, the CTR will be selling at MSRP, or under. Just like any other desirable car upon release. The FoRS was the same. The FoST was the same. The Golf R was the same. Etc., etc.

How does dodge prioritize the dodge demon to dealers? What you pay at the dealer, dodge has no clue about. That doesn't make sense at all. Knowing the car business and how greasy dealerships can be, they'd find a quick way around letting dodge know what is being paid for the car.

also, there's nothing wrong with the NSX sales. Honda is on par to move about 600 units this year. That was their original goal.

 

While doing the the paperwork for my car the dealer shared that Acura planned on limiting supply of the A-Spec model. Don't know if that was BS, but at that point in the transaction lying would serve no purpose. Time will tell

 

Glad to see I haven't lost my edge. I have a standing offer with the nearest dealer for -$1,500 MSRP.

 

Lease or buy?