I am confused by the carwash setting, if I stay in the car myself, and I put the car in N, do i still have to press start/stop button to go on Accessory power?

what happens if you forget at put the car in N and car is on?

Are you talking about a carwash with a single wheel channel?

If you don't put the car in Neutral, the car will not move forward...I can't imagine what would happen to the rail that is supposed to move the car forward if you are in park or have your brakes applied....

If you remain in the car there is no problem. The problem arises if you undo your seatbelt and open the car door. The car will shift into park. The carwash setting is for carwashes where you exit the car. I would not trust a car attendant to properly apply the carwash setting. Frankly, the easiest work around is to do up the seatbelt behind you BEFORE you open the car door. The car will stay in neutral even after the attendant has driven the car to th beginning of the rail and exited the car. You simply need to advise the attendant not to undo the seatbelt.

I learned the hard way; my moronic attendant, almost gave me a coronary.
Most of them don't or won't speak English, & pretend to understand, or not
Anyway, I blame Acura for the confusion; it's totally unnecessary, like the Auto Idle Stop. Should've been the reverse default; turn ON Auto Idle if you want it; not vice-versa.
Anyway, LOVE my TLX SH-AWD/Tech!

So if put in N and seat belt is not on will automatically goes to P. Unless you press start/stop to go to accessory power. I think I got it. Its a nice car and I like it a lot but like you said, acura needs some fine tunning.There are a lot of loose ends.

Exactly. Just buckle the driver's belt and tell them to leave it buckled and you will be fine, I have tried this and it definitely works.

Please clarify... If I put the car into N and hit the engine start button, the car will turn off, correct?... but the attendant needs the car on to move it into place. Seems awkward to connect seatbelts behind me while I'm sitting in the car.

Recommended alternative procedures, please.

Agreed, Acura is trying to be too smart on some things. I found out that you can't shift form N to D without at least tapping the brake but you can go from R to D and vice versa without it (at least I see to recall that you can)

Luckily this is not an issue on the I4.

worse case scneario it goes to park, would it really destroy the transmission?

Depending on the car wash it probably would drag the car through and the tires would complain to high heaven, but it may not damage the transmission. It might scuff up the wheels if they rubbed against the rails.

I don't trust the attendants to follow the instructions for the Tlx. I just go to the car washes that do hand washes.

Or.....if there is enough resistance car comes off the moving track.

*ouch* I would never let my vehicles go through a mechanical car wash....If I couldn't do the hand wash/bucket approach, I'd at least do the pressurized wash which even that, is not ideal.

Then again, I also know how particular I am about my vehicles and I can't see myself do anything by a bucket/mitt wash....