New TLX makes me wish I had my old TL back
02-06-2015, 03:53 PM
#81
Senior Moderator
What cars nowadays actually come with a warning triangle?? I've nver received one in any car I have ever owned, even the german ones. On the BMW forums I am on, a few even said that they were removed once they hit the part after doing Euro-delivery. Something about them not meeting some US spec.
My seats are left in Auto all the time, so I guess my shortcuts were never really changing them. I too don't understand why the touch screen, and software controlled heated seats cant have an auto function regardless of the trim level.
Last edited by Mr Hyde; 02-06-2015 at 03:55 PM.
02-06-2015, 04:37 PM
#82
Three Wheelin'
It is all part of marketing to distinguish the Advance from the rest and to give it additional value. I would not be surprised to see these no cost functions added to at least the Tech model for 2016.
02-06-2015, 04:58 PM
#83
Seriously?
What cars nowadays actually come with a warning triangle?? I've nver received one in any car I have ever owned, even the german ones. On the BMW forums I am on, a few even said that they were removed once they hit the part after doing Euro-delivery. Something about them not meeting some US spec.
My seats are left in Auto all the time, so I guess my shortcuts were never really changing them. I too don't understand why the touch screen, and software controlled heated seats cant have an auto function regardless of the trim level.
What cars nowadays actually come with a warning triangle?? I've nver received one in any car I have ever owned, even the german ones. On the BMW forums I am on, a few even said that they were removed once they hit the part after doing Euro-delivery. Something about them not meeting some US spec.
My seats are left in Auto all the time, so I guess my shortcuts were never really changing them. I too don't understand why the touch screen, and software controlled heated seats cant have an auto function regardless of the trim level.
I have to laugh, Mercedes doesn't give you a spare, jack, inflator, fix a flat or warning triangle but they do give you two bright color ponchos to wear while waiting for the tow truck.
02-06-2015, 08:27 PM
#84
I find the touch screen very easy to use. I don't get why there is so much complaining about it. There is not enough space on the dash for a button to replace the functions of the touch screen.
The heat/cool buttons? They are so easy to get to on the touch screen.. I mean right there on the bottom of the screen..
I guess change is hard for many... It takes very little time in the car to get used to the way things work. The EX-L Accord I had came with the dual screens and was no problem for me, at all. *shrug*
The heat/cool buttons? They are so easy to get to on the touch screen.. I mean right there on the bottom of the screen..
I guess change is hard for many... It takes very little time in the car to get used to the way things work. The EX-L Accord I had came with the dual screens and was no problem for me, at all. *shrug*
I will agree though, putting the seat heater buttons two layers in was a bad idea. Of all the buttons to virtualize, these were not the ones. I suspect that is why they are physical buttons on the 16 ILX. There are just certain buttons that should stay buttons, ie. volume - good job on keeping that knob Acura.
02-07-2015, 06:28 AM
#85
^^ With the 16 ILX, they left the seat and ventilation buttons as with the 2013-2015 model which is similar to the one we have. It will be interesting to see what they will do with the FMC. Either these buttons will be gone on the ILX or Acura will do a partial reversal and introduce some buttons back.
02-07-2015, 07:25 AM
#86
Instructor
Hard buttons
Says the guy from Texas 
There's nothing "hard" about turning on the heated seats - but it's a poor user experience. While Christmas shopping (in below freezing temps) my wife and I probably made 10 stops in one day - each time we got back in the car we had to wait for the intro screen to clear then make the 4 touchscreen presses to turn on both heated seats. Every. Time. We. Got. Back. In. The. Car.
It's a poor design.
There's nothing "hard" about turning on the heated seats - but it's a poor user experience. While Christmas shopping (in below freezing temps) my wife and I probably made 10 stops in one day - each time we got back in the car we had to wait for the intro screen to clear then make the 4 touchscreen presses to turn on both heated seats. Every. Time. We. Got. Back. In. The. Car.
It's a poor design.
I own several cars. Some designs reflect these important design criteria. Others don't. Can be very annoying and distracting. Acura doesn't seem to get this logic and customer needs. Do they ever run focus groups or listen to customer feedback?
Last edited by mgalbr22; 02-07-2015 at 07:26 AM. Reason: Sp
02-07-2015, 07:33 AM
#87
Instructor
Buyer remorse
I wonder how many of you are experiencing what I'm going through.
My 2012 Acura TL lease has recently ended so I was excited to get a new Acura, and opted for the TLX. My old TL was a FWD 6V with Tech, it was the best car I've ever had. I particularly enjoyed the navigation and sound system, in spite of the somewhat cluttered dashboard.
The TLX looks awesome, but I find driving 6V is very slow to respond (except when in Sport mode) and the transmission changes is jerky. I should have probably gone with the regular version.
The new Tech package comes with some nifty features that were previously only available on the Advanced package, but somehow Acura managed to destroy everything that used to be nice about the old TL.
Let me start with the Navigation -
The UI is slow and unresponsive; Extra screens were added to the process of selecting a destination, making the thing painful to use. Pressing the "Menu" has a default option "Sound" (which says the instructions again, even though you can see the instructions on both screens); in the old TL it was "Cancel Route" which made much more sense. Selecting "Go Home" doesn't set the navigation to Home - instead it takes you through an additional prolonged process of setting your destination.
The voice recognition has the most stupid flow ever; requiring 3 button presses and long response time before taking in a single (!) letter. Did the engineers of the NAVI system ever bother to spell a city name that was longer than "Ada, MI"?
And worse yet is that the people at Acura decided to disable most navigation menu while the car is moving. You can try to battle with the voice recognition (no way!) but why not let the guy in the passenger seat feed in the address? Nope, say the geniuses at Acura, our system is already slow and irritating, just use your damn phone for navigation.
Bummer.
Moving on to the audio system. We now have some 11 sources of music to chose from, but whereas in the old TL we had 6 buttons to switch between them, now there's only one scroll button. I only have two sources - either FM or music on a USB stick. Why do I need to scan through 9 irrelevant sources, including "Pandora", "aha (tm)" and "XM radio" in order to switch between them? This is 2015, Why can't I remove some of these from the loop?
Back in the day I found a great article on Acurazine instructing me on how to set up my music on a USB memory stick. I enjoyed this solution for 3 years on the TL. The TLX acknowledges the USB stick and attempts to read it, but in most cases - just gives up half-way through my 32GB of music. So now I need to get an iPod for my car.
While removing buttons Acura removed some buttons that completely made sense. Such as seat heaters; you now need to go into two button presses on a somewhat clunky interface every time you restart your car. It doesn't matter if you live in Montana in mid-winter - these buttons are mandatory. And if you miscalculated the heat, and now your ass is frying while you're doing 65mph on the highway - well, you're out of luck trying to fumble through those on-screen buttons.
A staple of on-screen buttons stupidity is the ventilation button. Ventilation can either be - circulation or not-circulation; there's no other option. Instead of a single on-screen button to toggle the thing on/off, the Acura geniuses stayed true to their idiom, and slowly display a screen with the two options, prompting for a second click.
So basically, everything that was previously at the touch of your hand, is now two blind clicks away, because you're not supposed to look at the bloody screen anyway.
All in all, in one week of driving the TLX, I miss everything I had in the old TL, and wish I had just bought it. I know Acura was aiming to upgrade and bring in more happy customers for their new TLX, but so far it feels like a step back.
My 2012 Acura TL lease has recently ended so I was excited to get a new Acura, and opted for the TLX. My old TL was a FWD 6V with Tech, it was the best car I've ever had. I particularly enjoyed the navigation and sound system, in spite of the somewhat cluttered dashboard.
The TLX looks awesome, but I find driving 6V is very slow to respond (except when in Sport mode) and the transmission changes is jerky. I should have probably gone with the regular version.
The new Tech package comes with some nifty features that were previously only available on the Advanced package, but somehow Acura managed to destroy everything that used to be nice about the old TL.
Let me start with the Navigation -
The UI is slow and unresponsive; Extra screens were added to the process of selecting a destination, making the thing painful to use. Pressing the "Menu" has a default option "Sound" (which says the instructions again, even though you can see the instructions on both screens); in the old TL it was "Cancel Route" which made much more sense. Selecting "Go Home" doesn't set the navigation to Home - instead it takes you through an additional prolonged process of setting your destination.
The voice recognition has the most stupid flow ever; requiring 3 button presses and long response time before taking in a single (!) letter. Did the engineers of the NAVI system ever bother to spell a city name that was longer than "Ada, MI"?
And worse yet is that the people at Acura decided to disable most navigation menu while the car is moving. You can try to battle with the voice recognition (no way!) but why not let the guy in the passenger seat feed in the address? Nope, say the geniuses at Acura, our system is already slow and irritating, just use your damn phone for navigation.
Bummer.
Moving on to the audio system. We now have some 11 sources of music to chose from, but whereas in the old TL we had 6 buttons to switch between them, now there's only one scroll button. I only have two sources - either FM or music on a USB stick. Why do I need to scan through 9 irrelevant sources, including "Pandora", "aha (tm)" and "XM radio" in order to switch between them? This is 2015, Why can't I remove some of these from the loop?
Back in the day I found a great article on Acurazine instructing me on how to set up my music on a USB memory stick. I enjoyed this solution for 3 years on the TL. The TLX acknowledges the USB stick and attempts to read it, but in most cases - just gives up half-way through my 32GB of music. So now I need to get an iPod for my car.
While removing buttons Acura removed some buttons that completely made sense. Such as seat heaters; you now need to go into two button presses on a somewhat clunky interface every time you restart your car. It doesn't matter if you live in Montana in mid-winter - these buttons are mandatory. And if you miscalculated the heat, and now your ass is frying while you're doing 65mph on the highway - well, you're out of luck trying to fumble through those on-screen buttons.
A staple of on-screen buttons stupidity is the ventilation button. Ventilation can either be - circulation or not-circulation; there's no other option. Instead of a single on-screen button to toggle the thing on/off, the Acura geniuses stayed true to their idiom, and slowly display a screen with the two options, prompting for a second click.
So basically, everything that was previously at the touch of your hand, is now two blind clicks away, because you're not supposed to look at the bloody screen anyway.
All in all, in one week of driving the TLX, I miss everything I had in the old TL, and wish I had just bought it. I know Acura was aiming to upgrade and bring in more happy customers for their new TLX, but so far it feels like a step back.
Would take back my TL in a heartbeat.
The following 2 users liked this post by mgalbr22:
camelhive (02-08-2015),
internalaudit (02-16-2015)
02-07-2015, 08:05 AM
#88
Three Wheelin'
Anyone who designs consme electronics for a living knows that the user interface has to incorporate "hard" buttons for the functions most frequently used by users. These functions should not be buried in multiple command sequences. On/off for heated and cooled seats is an example of a function that should have hard buttons. Changing radio stations and audio sources should be hard buttons, not multi-command, distracting tasks on a touch screen.
I own several cars. Some designs reflect these important design criteria. Others don't. Can be very annoying and distracting. Acura doesn't seem to get this logic and customer needs. Do they ever run focus groups or listen to customer feedback?
I own several cars. Some designs reflect these important design criteria. Others don't. Can be very annoying and distracting. Acura doesn't seem to get this logic and customer needs. Do they ever run focus groups or listen to customer feedback?
But the complain might be why is the Auto function not offered with the Base and Tech. Maybe they should have developed an optimal design with the non-Auto function for Base and Tech, and then added enhancements for the Advance rather than the other way around.
If I have been part of a focus group and was presented with the design implemented in the Advance trim I would have said that it was fine.
02-08-2015, 02:57 PM
#89
RLTW!!
I will keep it short. I had 2010 TL SHAWD. Excellent car that I leased at a good price. Traded early for a new RLX PAWS? $50 more per month. The RLX is the only Honda or acura product I have ever owned, and they have been too numeous to list, that has had numerous defects, recalls and problems that are uncorrected after 14 months of ownership.
Would take back my TL in a heartbeat.
Would take back my TL in a heartbeat.
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internalaudit (02-16-2015)
02-08-2015, 06:22 PM
#90
Senior Moderator
Haven't read through the whole thread, but am thanking my lucky frozen ass that the seat heater buttons in my RLX are present in the car as hard buttons, even in the rear seats.
Other than that, the TLX's UI seems better than the RLX's; we are hoping Acura takes care of us on the RLX side. You guy get to shift your audio sources around on your touch screen, we don't.
The UI is a rare Acura mishap, one that can hopefully be cured by a software upgrade.
1st year issues.....
Good luck, OP!
Other than that, the TLX's UI seems better than the RLX's; we are hoping Acura takes care of us on the RLX side. You guy get to shift your audio sources around on your touch screen, we don't.
The UI is a rare Acura mishap, one that can hopefully be cured by a software upgrade.
1st year issues.....
Good luck, OP!
02-12-2015, 10:11 PM
#91
Racer
It still baffles me when 4G TL driver's claim the TLX is not as comfortable or quick...
I LOVED the TL. But back to back, and especially now driving a TLX daily (even with the 2.4L) it is worlds and away so much more refined, the only way it may seem slower is just the fact it rides so much more comfortably and absorbent and is silent. It doesn't sound as fast as the TL with engine and road noise, but is refined. Odd sensation to get used to, but easy.
I had a 2012 TL Tech back to back with my 2015 TLX 2.4L Tech today...and the 2012 V6 had good power, but didn't compare in any way shape or form to the ride, handling, quiet, steering, handling, visibility out, seat vs. floor comfort, dash layout and easy controls, etc. as my 2015. I loved pushing the V6 and making it roar, but that was it, and it's not in the same caliber as the new model, and the old 6-speed was bulky feeling vs. smooth and crisp.
Different strokes for different folks, always a good thing
As long as the bizarre TLX vs. Accord debates don't start up in here...yikes.
I LOVED the TL. But back to back, and especially now driving a TLX daily (even with the 2.4L) it is worlds and away so much more refined, the only way it may seem slower is just the fact it rides so much more comfortably and absorbent and is silent. It doesn't sound as fast as the TL with engine and road noise, but is refined. Odd sensation to get used to, but easy.
I had a 2012 TL Tech back to back with my 2015 TLX 2.4L Tech today...and the 2012 V6 had good power, but didn't compare in any way shape or form to the ride, handling, quiet, steering, handling, visibility out, seat vs. floor comfort, dash layout and easy controls, etc. as my 2015. I loved pushing the V6 and making it roar, but that was it, and it's not in the same caliber as the new model, and the old 6-speed was bulky feeling vs. smooth and crisp.
Different strokes for different folks, always a good thing
As long as the bizarre TLX vs. Accord debates don't start up in here...yikes.
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02-12-2015, 10:43 PM
#92
Three Wheelin'
^^ Some people just don't like change, it's part of out built-in nature. Changing cars can be something like a new pair of shoes which may look new and shiny but does not feel as comfortable as the old ones. This will usually change given enough time.
02-13-2015, 04:39 PM
#93
Three Wheelin'
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
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I loved my TSX and preferred it to the TL I drove on several occasions, not that the TL wasn't a good car. My TLX is better than either of those cars in so many ways. It takes me about 2 seconds more for the seat heater on my tech than the old button, but then it's never accidentally turned on either. Yes I wish voice address input for Canadian TLX was one step, but I usually send remotely remotely or use Acura Link live to download. So much hardship!!!!! Yes, I am hoping Acura Canada will give the dealer the authorization to re-program the shift logic for the first two shifts, but it's a minor issue and more apparent because the other 6 shifts are so buttery smooth. Car's not perfect, like my spouse, but I love both of them (in different ways, of course)!!
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internalaudit (02-16-2015)
02-13-2015, 04:56 PM
#94
02-13-2015, 07:14 PM
#95
^^ *blushing* I really am developing a reputation aren't I!?! At least the people that know me on this site that my jokes are always said in a general way and to get people smilin, not directed at a particular member.
At least the people that know me on this site that my jokes are always said in a general way and to get people smilin, not directed at a particular member.
02-15-2015, 10:11 AM
#97
Advanced
What I miss from my previous TL is the thicker steering wheel. The TLX has a thinner steering wheel and it just feels cheaper to me. But I will say I love getting into the TLX and putting my hands on the heated steering wheel. Just feels cozy.
02-15-2015, 08:46 PM
#98
I think in time the TLX will grow on most older TL owners(like the 4G has on some former 3G owners), once the first year bugs are out and Acura does a MMC to address the UI and perhaps tweak a few other things.
They certainly have the exterior part of it down. Great looking car. Even if it does look like some other cars, so what ? There's room for more than one pretty girl in the world.
They certainly have the exterior part of it down. Great looking car. Even if it does look like some other cars, so what ? There's room for more than one pretty girl in the world.
02-16-2015, 01:41 PM
#99
I feel the need...
^^ With the 16 ILX, they left the seat and ventilation buttons as with the 2013-2015 model which is similar to the one we have. It will be interesting to see what they will do with the FMC. Either these buttons will be gone on the ILX or Acura will do a partial reversal and introduce some buttons back.
HVAC buttons FTMFW!
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