Acura RDX

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Dec 26, 2010
Messages
220
Location
Mass.
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good morning!

my lease is up on my Infiniti Q50

I was thinking to lease an Acura RDX. In round numbers,I will put $3,000 down and about $300/month.

dumb questions:

1. do you guys like or dislike this car? I have ridden in my friend's RDX. I thought it was very comfortable and good visibility since you sit up a little higher. Please give me your honest opinions, I will not take offense. Since Honda makes Acura, i believe the quality will be good.

2. do you think the finance to be a reasonable deal? The Cadillac leases are quite expensive, and I did a lot of repairs on my 2008 Caddy DTS.

best,

bob
 
My wife has had an RDX since new in 2016 and put over 60,000 trouble free miles on it. Fluid changes and windshield wiper blades are all that has been done to it. Still on the original tires and brakes. Her's is the V6, I'm not sure what the new ones come with, turbo 4 or V6. My only complaint is my rear end gets sore on long trips but she hasn't complained about the seats and she is the one who drives it daily. The 2016 interior is upscale, maybe not to Lexus levels, but the handling is more sporty than a simillar Lexus.

The V6 is a timing belt engine and must be changed at around 100,000 miles but if you are leasing you won't have it that long.
 
thank you JHS!

I will drive about 12,000 miles a year. If I like the car at 3 years I may buy it. i am a maniac about oil and fluids, brakes, tires. I copied the engine below:
*****************
The RDX is packing a direct-injected 16-Valve, 2.0-Liter DOHC VTEC® turbocharged power plant. There is 272 horsepower and 280 lb.-ft. of torque
********************
unbelievable, 122 cubic inches, 270 horsepower!! ha!

I may say I did a LOT of work on my Caddy DTS, and really nothing on wife's 2012 Accord. Honda makes good cars.

thanks! enjoy your car
bob
 
I would be tempted to check out something less reliable but more fun/interesting if it was just a lease.
 
Leasing? Get anything you want in your budget. Providing that you don't exceed the mileage/kilometer limits, the whole vehicle will be under warranty. Toward the end, you may have to throw on some cheap tires at your cost and maybe some cheap brake pads.
 
Originally Posted by Robertslowpoke
1. do you guys like or dislike this car? I have ridden in my friend's RDX. I thought it was very comfortable and good visibility since you sit up a little higher. Please give me your honest opinions, I will not take offense. Since Honda makes Acura, i believe the quality will be good.

If you like this kind of vehicle, it's fine. If you have a physiological issue that makes a crossover easier to get into and out of, then it's a no-brainer. Otherwise, I'd strongly encourage looking at how much sedan or wagon you can get for the same money.

Modern crossovers ride and handle rather well, but the ride-handling combo is always worse than in an equivalently-engineered car with a lower center of gravity and lower seating position. Can't figure out how to summarize this without writing a text wall no one would read, so I'll just say that understanding the physics behind it makes it pretty obvious why this is. Either way, I can't stand this effect.

The "better visibility" thing is real, but it's not what you think it is. We humans vastly overestimate the benefit of a higher position because looking down from a high and sheltered position appeals to our animal instincts. Yes, you can see more ahead -- but unless you're unlike every human being every born, you're not going to use that advantage to be safer; you're going to use it to pay less attention, and end more-or-less where you started. What it will do is make you feel better about driving a car that's dynamically worse. I can't speak for you, but that combination sounds horrible to me.
 
thank you d00d!

very intelligent response. i absolutely agree that a higher center of gravity is worse in every way. I do feel a bit "pinched" in my Q50. I feel the driver door is too close to me. I did like my Cadillac DTS for roomy interior. I do not have a physical problem getting in/out of a sedan.

do you recommend a good reliable sedan in this general price range?

thank you and have a great day!

bob
 
Big(-ish), reliable, and inexpensive. Hmmm....

Have you seen the new Accord? What do you think?

In the Acura family, there's also the TLX.

Not sure what lease prices will be like on those cars but they both start cheaper than the RDX.

The Genesis G70 is less of a known quantity in terms of reliability, but a 10 year 100k mile powertrain warranty is a heck of a statement.

The Toyota Camry / Lexus ES350 is another option. The Lexus has a higher MSRP than the RDX, but I *think* (don't quote me) they tend to have high residuals so you might get a good lease deal.
 
I was very interested in the RDX, and followed it closely through the redesign. I did a lot of homework, followed by test drives of new high-end models in late 2019. I liked it. However, with my prior homework, I tested & observed that some features did not work, such as Heads-Up-Display, which could not be fixed after repeated attempts by the knowledgeable salesman. This was interesting, because this matched complaints found on-line for over a year. Since my testers were just delivered & passed dealer prep, I found this significant. In my case, I found on-line comments to be accurate - that some configurations / packages have issues that are not thoroughly sorted-out. Software is blamed, but after reading that some customers have waited over a year for software updates, with no estimate of an effective fix, then I lost interest. Acura publicly blamed S/W ver 1.0, and said that S/W ver 2.0 fixed most things, but that was doubtful to me since v2.0 had been released for over 6 months.
To be clear, I was NOT evaluating the RDX in the first year after the redesign.

I do not know the details, but I found that all reliability reviews give Acura only an average-at-best score.
Also note from various sources, including comments on this site, that Honda reliability is not what it used to be. As an owner of 5 reliable Hondas since 2000, I find this disturbing.
 
Originally Posted by Robertslowpoke
thank you JHS!

I will drive about 12,000 miles a year. If I like the car at 3 years I may buy it. i am a maniac about oil and fluids, brakes, tires. I copied the engine below:
*****************
The RDX is packing a direct-injected 16-Valve, 2.0-Liter DOHC VTEC® turbocharged power plant. There is 272 horsepower and 280 lb.-ft. of torque
********************
unbelievable, 122 cubic inches, 270 horsepower!! ha!

I may say I did a LOT of work on my Caddy DTS, and really nothing on wife's 2012 Accord. Honda makes good cars.

thanks! enjoy your car
bob

Originally Posted by Robertslowpoke
thank you JHS!

I will drive about 12,000 miles a year. If I like the car at 3 years I may buy it. i am a maniac about oil and fluids, brakes, tires. I copied the engine below:
*****************
The RDX is packing a direct-injected 16-Valve, 2.0-Liter DOHC VTEC® turbocharged power plant. There is 272 horsepower and 280 lb.-ft. of torque
********************
unbelievable, 122 cubic inches, 270 horsepower!! ha!

I may say I did a LOT of work on my Caddy DTS, and really nothing on wife's 2012 Accord. Honda makes good cars.

thanks! enjoy your car
bob

Have you driven the turbo engine? They feel good when cruising. Why spend the $$$ to maintain a leased vehicle?
 
That seems like a really good price for an RDX, I'm sure you will love it.
That's closer to a nice CR-V lease.
I have helped friends and neighbors get CR-V EXLs recently. Great SUVs.
I prefer the AWD...

I would see if the Lexus RX is in the budget... At least as a comparison.
 
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I have not owned one, or even driven one, but when I was researching what vehicle to buy last year what I read is that the Acura vehicles are a more luxury version of the equivalent Honda's and they have bigger engines that produce more horsepower and also to get the maximum horsepower from the bigger engines they are designed to ONLY USE HIGH OCTANE GASOLINE. So they use more gas because they have bigger engines and that gas must be the more expensive high-test gas. My impression is that if you are going to use that extra horsepower like driving with the vehicle loaded down with a lot of weight or towing, or driving extra fast on highways, then get the Acura.

But it you are not going to use the extra horsepower, but still want a luxury version of a CR-V then get the Honda CR-V in the "touring" version. It gets better MPGs and uses the lower cost 87 octane gasoline.
 
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Lexus comparable would moreso be the NX as opposed to the RX. Acuras in general are more sporty than Lexus, but can also fall into the "upscale" category as opposed to luxury when compared with Lexus as well.
 
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i carefully considered a cpo acura rdx until i discovered that it has a spare inflator kit and needs a timing belt change before 80k miles. the kit is a hassle but a $250 quick fix, but the belt is a grenade. not worth it to me, ymmv.

my younger son had leased two acura tlx sedans between army deployments overseas. he liked them ok enough, the leases were really cheap, the same dealer very friendly, and he was content twice to end them early (penalty free as he was on army orders).
 
Originally Posted by jstert
i carefully considered a cpo acura rdx until i discovered that it has a spare inflator kit and needs a timing belt change before 80k miles. the kit is a hassle but a $250 quick fix, but the belt is a grenade. not worth it to me, ymmv.

my younger son had leased two acura tlx sedans between army deployments overseas. he liked them ok enough, the leases were really cheap, the same dealer very friendly, and he was content twice to end them early (penalty free as he was on army orders).


Thew new RDX just switched to a different engine which has a timing chain
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When the newest RDX came out I was very interested and I did a lot of research. There were a fair number of issues at release, especially with the infotainment. I do not know if that's been corrected.
 
Originally Posted by Robertslowpoke
thank you JHS!

I will drive about 12,000 miles a year. If I like the car at 3 years I may buy it. i am a maniac about oil and fluids, brakes, tires. I copied the engine below:
*****************
The RDX is packing a direct-injected 16-Valve, 2.0-Liter DOHC VTEC® turbocharged power plant. There is 272 horsepower and 280 lb.-ft. of torque
********************
unbelievable, 122 cubic inches, 270 horsepower!! ha!

I may say I did a LOT of work on my Caddy DTS, and really nothing on wife's 2012 Accord. Honda makes good cars.

thanks! enjoy your car
bob


"Honda makes good cars." True, except for the poor paint and horrible seats. Great driving dynamics.
 
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