After a couple days of back and forth, I finally closed on a deal for my new BMW X3! It fills in all the gaps that I found wanting in Acura.

As one of the longest owners of a 2021 TLX, I have the following closing thoughts:

What I'll miss

1) My enormous golf back went into the trunk sideways with room to spare (new X3 needs to be shimmied in). The TLX's large width was advantageous here.
2) The car itself is still a rare sight on the road so I felt like a member of an exclusive club. Way more X3s on the road.
3) The car got compliments for its looks and rightfully so!
4) The ELS sound system will still be the best audio I will have heard in a car for a while.

What I won't miss

1) The tapping of the seat belt mount against my seat. Nearly drove me mad!
2) I wanted to shoot the infotainment every time CarPlay refused to connect. The overall Android system is super clunky! Hated the TrueTouch interface.
3) Braking the car felt like rolling the dice. I nearly hit other cars on the highway when I first got the car and wasn't used to the weight.
4) Fuel economy was very poor. Since I was already used to ~25 mpg, I decided to get an SUV that would be similar fuel economy but with way more space.
5) Push button transmission. To be fair, a BMW dealer told me most car manufacturers are headed in that direction anyway.

I thank everyone here who contributed to make AZ a positive experience for me (didn't care for the passive aggressive comments from a certain non-TLX owner).
I wish everyone luck and to keep helping each other out!

 

Congrats on the new vehicle. If you don't mind me asking what trade in value did you receive for the TLX?

 

For my 2 year-old TLX, the dealer was willing to pay the buyout price which was just under $35,200. I had less thank 20k miles on it.

Note that it was involved in a single accident where someone rear-ended me (their insurance paid for it). If it wasn't for the accident, I may have had a couple thousand more equity in the TLX.
I didn't want to wait another year because the value of the car would plummet compared to future buyout price due to this accident.

 

Congrats! The X3 is a popular car in my area and I like them.

I am actually in the same boat with my TSX and modern crossovers/SUVs can get about the same as what I get in the city now (sometimes I don't even break 20 MPG and that is with being very conscientious) but of course with those vehicles vs my TSX I would get a lot more room. Acura was never a MPG winner and it's odd considering what many Hondas can churn out.

 

I guess Acura never could get the weight just right for better fuel economy (or develop more powerful engines). I think the Koreans (Kia, Hyundai, Genesis) are in a similar boat as their cars are just as thirsty as Acuras.

 

It’s not the weight affecting the TLX but rather the inefficiency of the K20C. The much lighter 2.0T Accord only nets 1 MPG more than the TLX. The K20C is not as efficient as other 2.0Ts in the market. The much lighter CTR only gets 28mpg with its 2.0T.

Congrats on the X3, it’s a great vehicle. I’m glad you were able to get out of your lease with the TLX since it didn’t look like you were too happy with it.

 

Thanks for the explanation on the inefficiency of the engine!

We're only on this planet for a brief moment in time so enjoy it while it lasts!

 

Congrats on the X3, it's a great car.

Hopefully you'll stick around AZ, there's plenty of former owners still around, and not suspiciously get your account locked like Bear...

 

Honestly, I think I'll be too busy enjoying the X3 to worry about AZ anymore!
There's a reason why far fewer owners go from the Germans to Acura vs the other way around!

I'll tell Bear everyone says hi when I run into him on the other forum.

 

No wonder the 6G TLX sub-forum has been so peaceful these days.

 

His account profile doesn’t show “locked”?

 

Apparently his login credentials no longer work, and he can't reset his password.

Given his age I feared that maybe he kicked the bucket, so I was relieved to find out that he "only" got de facto booted (though either accidentally or maliciously, I can't say).

 

I'd say it was about as accidental as the 2G TLX forum getting rebranded "6G TLX". LOL

 

I've been on Acurazine for 22 years. I notice that the mods in this 2G TLX or 6G TLX sub-forum are extremely forgiving, being going to great length to delete offending posts inside threads, to issue multiple repeatedly warnings, and to lock runaway threads, rather than to boot offending member(s) off Acurazine altogether.

Given the toxic contents and negative attitude in most Bear's posts, Bear would have been booted off Acurazine hundreds times over if posted in other less-forgiving Acurazine sub-forums.

 

For the record, Bear reached out through another AZ user that he forgot his password however mod's sent emails to his user profile email to change the password, to have them bounce back with bad email address.

And yes, we are very forgiving in the 6G forum. I'm on a FaceBook forum for my particular Honda motorcycle and there are four mod's for ~800 users worldwide, the mod's don't even give 2nd chances. One new user ridiculed another for not understanding the fundamentals of CV carb synchronization, he was banned.

To OP, congrats and enjoy your new X3.

 

I try and let us all act like adults rather than moderate this place into a place that no one feels like they can talk to each other. The one thing I won’t tolerate nor will any other moderator is personal attacks on another person.

@ELIN , enjoy the BMW! I love my Type S but I also know it has shortcomings. Also, just like you, I was rear ended only 9 days after buying my Type S so any trade in would be a hit on the value. Unfortunately, in my case she was uninsured and drunk. Luckily she was found guilty this past week so that’s something… 😇

 

Acura should be ashamed of themselves for making that info system. Idc, what anyone says… there shouldn’t be a touchpad in any 2020 > models PERIOD. Also, once you switch to CarPlay then the function is different. How does that even get approved?

 

I don’t mind the touchpad but the slow response and force closure of CarPlay is ridiculous. Definitely the worst infotainment system I’ve used from a technical standpoint. I’ve been told by the service department that people bring the cars in for what amounts to unfixable software issues a lot.

 

The sad thing is that the infotainment system available in the current gen Honda products is perfectly fine and usable, even if it isn't great. In an effort to make Acura's different to help differentiate the brand, that "difference" makes it arguably worse. They didn't need to go reinvent the wheel on this. It'd be interesting to see how many incremental sales the infotainment system drove, vs how many incremental losses the infotainment system cost them.

 

Well it was nice having your input and hopefully you do stick around you may not have an Acura anymore but you still can share your opinion and insight on the TLX.

And who knows maybe Acura will come with the RDX Type-S and it will possibly impressive enough for you to come back to Acura

 

I would likely trade my TLX Type S for an RDX Type S since my girlfriend and I are trying to start a family. 😍

 

Appreciate the kind words!

Funny you should mention RDX. I compared a ‘22 RDX A-Spec Advance and the MSRP of that car is comparable to my well-equipped X3. It literally became a wash bc the avg selling price of this RDX in my area includes nearly $1k ADM whereas my X3 has a discount off MSRP.

Since I have the luxury of knowing both cars, I’d def take the BMW over the Acura if the selling price is a wash!

 

Best of luck with family planning!

There was a slight chance I would have bought out an RDX over the TLX had my choice been different 2 years ago. Way more excusable to live with Acura’s faults if the car had more utility.

 

The "trying" was my favorite part of having a kid.

OP, congrats on the jump to BMW, I've heard and seen some great things about them.
I think that the Acura is perfectly adequate as a commuter but once you start expecting more...
you'll feel it falls short

 

If by "expecting more" you mean a reliable infotainment while I commute, then yes.

It's a shame that such a wonderful ESL audio system is hamstrung by an ancient OS. The iDrive on the BMW I'm using now is downright futuristic compared to the Acura system. Did I mention I have a digital dash too?

 

I got to see an X5 up close last night and the interior was awesome, very futuristic.

 

Haha, it’s definitely the cheaper part and most fun. 🤣

 

Thank you. We bought the house in April so we’re prepared now in regards to shelter. We didn’t want to have a family if we were renting or unstable so this was key.

 

I'm also a BMW convert, switched 4 years ago. It's not all love and rainbows over here, I have a very love/hate relationship with my BMW. Lets talk a little about the good and bad and what I miss from my Acuras.

The good
1) The drivetrain. BMW is just a better car from the perspective of a machine you ride in. From the engine to transmission to chassis to even fuel economy this thing just blows Honda products out of the water. Period.
2) The infotainment. iDrive is just better, I have a 2017 with iDrive 6 (we're on iDrive 8 now..) and it has flawless wireless carplay and is better in pretty much every way than Acura's latest and greatest (though at least they finally have wireless carplay in 2022 on like.. one car?)

Unfortunately it pretty much ends there.

The bad (and where Acura wins)
1) The stereo. I have the "upgraded" HK It's just so bad.. every BMW stereo is just so bad. They hate music, it's the only explanation. $2500 and custom rear deck sub & aftermarket amp with custom tune later and it's.. acceptable.. but even now a stock TLX with ELS would out perform in most aspects.
2) The materials & ergonomics. 1:1 BMWs interiors are just cheap feeling. Sure, can you get a BMW with a nicer interior than Acura? yeah.. for way more money. I recently drove a G20 3 series and while it looked nice actually touching things I think my 2008 TL was nicer with better cubbies and squishy areas. Also why the fuck are the cupholders directly in front of the center console so that every cup you place in them pushes buttons? Also.. little things like the turn signal stalk is weirdly stiff and just not comfortable or nice feeling. The buttons on the steering wheel are poorly thought out compared to most Honda products. The paddles are excellent though, I'll give BMW that. Really solid.
2.5) kind of following up on 2 WHY DO I HAVE TO PAY 80K FOR COOLED SEATS?! The only 3 series that has them is the M3 and sure I can get them as an option in the 5 series but that thing is heavy you want an M550 and good luck finding one of those at a price anywhere near a brand new TLX Type-S. You get a 540 and it's not much better than the TLX and it has a garbage stereo and was still more expensive after you option it up. At least the pretty LEDs are in the rear doors too.
4) This has been a surprisingly reliable car, I don't know if it speaks to modern BMWs in general or if I just got lucky but it's been more reliable than any of my Honda products.. with that said when things do break holy fuck make sure you have a good indie shop that you trust because the price of almost everything at the dealership is completely fucking insane.

So while I do love my BMW and it's insanely fun to drive the reality is that most of the time you're in traffic you're just cruising and the chassis balance and amazing straight six and super nice transmission don't do anything for you at all.. but in those moments the stereo and cooled seats and general ergonomics are always present.

That is really where I'm torn when I think about my next car purchase. The obvious answer is to just win the lottery and get an M5 and then pay someone else to install a sub next time.

Oh, and lastly, BMW is currently going through their "our designers are smoking bath salts" phase that Acura went through in 2009 so.. there is also the disappointing reality that all their newest cars look like hot garbage.

 

Appreciate your Acura vs BMW comparison! I'm not a fan of the taller kidney bean design on some of the M cars.

As I never cared for the ventillated seats in my TLX, missing the feature on my current X3 is not a big deal. I do miss the ELS but since Acura never let me hear my MCH audio through the USB stick and use CP simultaneously, I never got the full potential out of the system. I'm doing ok with BMW's stock HiFi system and will probably upgrade the amps after the warranty runs out.

The biggest gamechanger for me has been the wireless CP. I can't believe I suffered through 2 years of Acura's unreliable wired CP.

 

I bought a wireless CP adapter on Amazon and it worked great. I returned it because the wireless charging pad doesn’t charge iPhones due to the poor coil placement. It’s pointless to have Wireless CP if the wireless pad doesn’t work.

🤦‍♂️

 

My Magsafe iPhone 14 Pro works great in the wireless charging pad in the X3. Having the wireless pad also included a digital key…which doesn’t have much utility at this point.

 

The fact that infotainment is the gripe in a product who's main purpose is transportation is the main problem I have with newer cars.
If I have bluetooth connectivity to my phone to stream music, I'm happy.

 

To each their own. Some folks have commutes where they enjoy some good tunes or need to navigate to new places and prefer Waze/Google Maps w/o conking out on them.

I imagine a large part of the cost for the A-Spec and Advance trim for the TLX is the upgraded 3D ELS sound system. If low res music via Bluetooth is good enough, then the basic sound system from the Base or Tech trims is technically "good enough".

That's the oddest thing about Acura's implementation with the ELS. It has audiophile aspirations (especially with its track record of DVD-A optical disc players from the past) and yet completely negates this capability once you connect to simple CarPlay/AA!

 

Now that I have Full Screen CP, I'm wondering what all the fuss is about. As a matter of fact, I prefer the Acura's dual screen where the smaller window on the right has the audio you're currently playing (or the time, nav, etc.). I can't imagine this would be useful for any CP app unless we were suddenly allowed to watch widescreen movies.

 

Oh that's no knock on the person...
I understand tech being important...
I'm just getting old so I'm happy with more analog when possible.
I use my phone for waze etc,

 

I don't quite understand people's grips about any info center since I just dont use it that much. I play music and that's about it. They must be doing some next level stuff that I have no idea was even available. I have my presets for radio which I use my steering wheel buttons to change. I have all steams channel ear marked for easy access otherwise I have library I can easily access and thats about it. It seems like it is one of the least important features to me. It's a car not a home entertainment center. Driving experience is far more important to me at least.

 

I have been using the TLX's Nav system and has been spot on all the time. I check with Google maps and they both route the same almost every time. I was able to download about 70 or so songs in 5.1 format from another user here and can't beat it with the sound in my tech as the music is all over the car (love it).
If people in this forum don't like the car then no one is telling you to keep it, just get another car you like you did. Oh, there is nothing wrong with the touchpad either. So easy to use, I just don't understand the hate on it. (But hell, that's only me)

 

I prefer the touchpad in the Type S over the touchscreen in my CTR or Model Y as well. I find it rather distracting and dangerous whenever I have to interact with anything on the screen while driving such as AC, GPS, audio, or CarPlay. It’s nearly the same thing as texting and driving but with a giant iPad instead.

 

I agree wholeheartedly. Last month I rented a suv with a touch screen. To me operating the touch screen was a nightmare. It’s no wonder why the roads in general have become more dangerous. Using a touchscreen while driving isn’t a lot safer than texting while driving.