alkurtz

My wife and I purchased a 2018 Advance in November 2017. We have put just over 3500 miles on it. We live in the northern suburbs of NYC, about 50 miles north of the city. We have made one long trip of about 1800 miles (north to Plattsburgh on the NY/Canadian border, from there south to Charlotte, NC, and then a return trip home) and one 250 mile round trip to the Albany area.

We are both thrilled with the RDX. It replaced a 2005 Jeep Liberty (one of the few with a 6-speed manual transmission and that is something I miss) that likely could have lasted for another 10 years. Our other car is a 2010 Prius, with 103,000 miles and is a car that I am just as fascinated by today as the day we purchased it.

We wanted a comfortable, long-distance traveling car (I am 70, my wife 65) for our trips to Charlotte to see our grandkids (a drive we make 5-6X times a year) as well as at least the many trips to Albany (for the same reason). We wanted a car with a reputation for comfortable seats and with all the safety features currently available. AWD was a must: our suburb is hilly, with windy roads, and snow is not uncommon in the winter.

We have never owned a Honda product before and have always thought of ourselves as Toyota people (I've owned 3 Toyotas) and the choice came down to a Lexus NX and the RDX. The deciding factors were the larger cargo area and the overall feeling of more space that the RDX has.

The RDX has been a pleasure: a joy to drive in every respect. Anecdotally, I have always felt that a vehicle that has problems within the first few thousand miles will be a car that, in the long run, will not be dependable. At least that has always been the case with cars I have owned. The RDX has not had a single issue...not one.

Mileage has been pretty crappy, but I expected it to be so and it is within what others have posted. But then again, I drive a Prius, and any mileage under 45 mpg does not impress me. Mileage is not helped by the fact that I currently have snow tires on the car: needed on my long, steep driveway even with AWD. Although we have had a normal amount of snow this winter, we have not been in the car when the AWD system would be tested (I've owned 2 Jeeps Cherokees, 1 Jeep Liberty, 2 Suburus, an Isuzu Rodeo, a 2nd generation AWD Toyota Rav4, and even a Grand Caravan minivan with AWD...so I know about AWD and that many are not happy with the RDX AWD system: but as I said, it has not really been tested yet.)

The only complaint I have is the totally inadequate nav system. My 8 year old Prius has a better nav system. Really, a nav system that doesn't show rest areas on interstates? come on).

But, overall, we are exceedingly happy with the RDX. It has been a pleasure to drive and I look forward to many years of ownership.

206er

Great info! Curious - what is your mpg? We are thinking of getting an '18 RDX, but I'm spooked by some of the mpg info I've seen. We live and work in Seattle, so 99% of our driving will be city driving. Wife likes the RDX and we've been fans of the Honda/Acura brand. It will be replacing our '14 ILX.

alkurtz

Well, like I said, it's been about what I expected and is certainly quite normal. Overall mileage about 23 mph. Highway (interstates at about 70 mph, about 26 mpg. We don't do a lot of stop and go (city) driving so I really can't give you an estimate on that. But, then, mileage doesn't impress me (as a Prius owner). Most of our driving is suburban driving: side roads, 2 lane main roads that may have many lights (or very few), occasional highway (but not interstate, state parkways with speed limits of 55 mph). I'm looking forward, in the spring, to get the snows off and put the car on the highway. I would expect, from what I've experienced, the EPA estimates to be about right.

206er

Thanks! We were going to go with a Tesla Model 3 and ditch gas altogether, but our delivery date was just pushed back to early 2019, which doesn't work for our growing family (new baby due in the summer). Wife really wants to go the SUV route now, but we're concerned about mpg. Test drove a Rav4 and hated, and the RDX seems like a slightly bigger and overall better version of our ILX.

jcross1231

Great report. You bought your RDX for the same reasons I bought the '16 Advance. You're experience is about the same as mine was at 3500 miles, also. The mileage does get better up to around 7,500 - 10,000 miles. I get a fair number of 400 mile drives from Wichita to Des Moines and a couple of 600 mile drives to Colorado a year. We don't have winter weather like you have, so it's good test of mostly level roads at 80 mph. It's doing between 26.5 and 28.5 mpg. I can see over 30 mpg at Colorado altitudes. I'm finding that mileage is impacted mostly by wind and, surprisingly, fuel quality. I usually see about 2 mpg better mileage on Kansas gas vs. Missouri or Iowa - and Iowa has gotten relatively expensive with their increased fuel tax. That's averaged over about 26,000 miles of driving so far.

The wife and I are both 70. I think the RDX is just about ideal. She hates it - thinks it's big and ugly - mainly because buying it wasn't her idea. She has an '09 Civic which, by comparison, feels like following an anvil down the road. Great quality interior and assembly, great drivetrain, and since I've never has SH-AWD, I don't miss it. The most I've had to drive in the snow so far has been 1". I'd like to see more.

The navigation system is just about the dumbest thing I've seen done in a vehicle. The interface is lousy, database is out of date, and it won't pull addresses from your phone contacts. Rest areas ARE in the database, although not shown on the map until you make them a destination. At least that's the case after the NAV update last year. As with all the searches it does, you have to be careful that some of the "hits" are behind you. The way they display things, that's often hard to determine. Good thing it's a large display or it might be indecipherable.

bmllr8

Agree with the navigation system comments. This just seems like a huge miss for premium car brand such as Acura. My wife's 2012 Nissan Maxima had a much nicer navigation system than my 2017 RDX.

jrasero

Awesome enjoy your RDX. I just switched back to a 2018 RDX Advance from an Acura ILX Premium and boy did I miss the extra space and the smooth and quiet ride. I live in Pelham Bay (Bronx) and I am getting -/+ 2 worse/bets case scenario. While I do agree that Acura's own navigation is severely outdated graphics wise, its utility is pretty good. The turn by turn and traffic updates is spot on compared to Apple Maps but fails in comparison to Google Maps. While I wasn't expecting Audi Google Earth, the graphics on Acura's navigation is straight out of the 90's but this will be fixed in the 9th gen. I do agree inputting the destination is slow and having the ability to input the address via your phone would have been spot on. Sounds old school but I just use address history and my address book for quicker input.

I also looked at the Lexus NX and while Lexus is just more luxurious, refined, and offers a more upscale dealership experience the RDX is quieter, faster, and costs thousands of dollars less. Also for a V6 w/ a six speed the RDX is very comparable to current gen turbo charged NX's MPG wise. However Lexus does offer a Hybrid version, albeit it's more money over the base 200T.

My parents are your age and loved my 2016 RDX AWD Base when I had that car but they were hung up on the gas millage as well so they got a CR-V. They recently got a 2018 CR-V Turbo which has kind of fixed their qualms about power and noise, even though I find it still too loud for my taste. They live in Maine which is mostly highway and are getting around 26 MPG. For a car that is supposed to be vastly better MPG better with a CVT and Turbo engine the 3-4 MPG difference in real world combined driving. However if you are only doing highway the CR-V's 33 MPG compared to the RDX's 27 is some what substantial