Video: 2014 Acura RLX

Why is it an enigma? Well, usually when you drive a lot of cars and someone asks you what you think of it, you can sum it up in a sentence or two, maybe even a word. It might be exciting or sporty. It might be bland or dull. This car is none of those things. I've been driving it for days. And when people ask me what I think all I can come up with is it's, (signs) Now, it seems like the RLX gives me pause it's because it gives everyone pause. Precision all wheel steer. Why is there a hyphen in there? Probably because otherwise the cars would just say pause on them and that's just silly. And Jaguar would probably file suit or something. The RL had super handling all wheel drive. Only later in the model year, when a hybrid version of the RLX comes out, powering the rear wheels, will that be available? Now it's front wheel drive, precision all wheel steer in the back. What that does is it allows the wheels to turn up to two degrees in either direction, which has some claimed advantages. I'll explain in a minute, but for now, one of the advantages they claim is that it makes the turning circle tighter. Acura considers this a mid-sized car. So I compared the specs to some other mid-sized cars. In here, the cars that have tighter turning circles than the RLX, the Volvo S80, Audi A6, Mercedes-Benz E-Class. I could keep going. Those cars don't have precision all wheel steer. I looked at the full-size luxury sedans, also tighter turning circles on the Buick LaCrosse, Jaguar XJ, Mercedes S-Class. I actually did find a couple with the same turning circle as this car, the full-size Audi A8 and the extended Jaguar XJL. Even though the RLX is slightly bigger than the RL, it still is kind of in between mid-size and full-size, I'd say probably closer to midsize. The leg room was actually a little bit less than in the TL, which is another Acura midsize sedan, but it's definitely competitive. Same thing for the headroom, et cetera. The interior is well-executed. Acura would do well to discover color as many other manufacturers have. Quality is good. Show you a couple of the most interesting things. One is they don't have any of those touch sensitive capacitive buttons, which I hate. So thumbs up there. Also, they have two screens instead of one touch screen or a high screen and a knob controller. They have a high screen, a touch screen, and a knob controller. The idea is the screen up high is close to your line of sight, but then that's too far for you to reach, has a touchscreen. I like having a touchscreen to input street names and stuff like that. So I like the idea. The execution isn't quite right. When you go to enter a destination, for example, you choose a city, all that happens on the top screen, then it gives you your keyboard down here on the touchscreen. I'm typing in the city name. What happens is instead of coming up on the same screen, it pops up on the higher one. So then I have to go down here to the knob to choose my city. What I don't understand is why it doesn't put more of that on the touchscreen itself. So I think it needs some work. Another notable feature is one of the active steering options. It's lane keep assist. Now it's not the same as lane departure warning, which is also on this car. That's where a camera watches the stripes in the road. And it warns you if you are straying. The optional lane keep assist, which you apply by pushing this button right here. It actually will watch those lines and move the steering wheel by itself on, say a highway where the curves are gradual. It does a really nice job of keeping you in the lanes. Is that a safe thing? Who knows? They must think not because if you don't touch the wheel yourself for about 10 seconds, maybe 20, it alerts you and tells you steering required. So I'm really not sure what the point is ultimately. In this era of smartphones, I don't know if we want to be steering for people. And if we are, shouldn't we be doing it all the time, instead of warning them that they need to touch the wheel. I'm not sure I get it. Now, the driving experience in the RLX is pretty nice. It gives 310 horsepower, which is an increase. Really good throttle response off the line. And for passing, I'd say the acceleration aspect of the car is pretty impressive. Ride quality is right in the middle. It's not super comfortable, but it's also not super firm. There is not an adaptive shock absorber feature that allows you to choose soft versus firm. And that's a little bit of a disappointment. I would describe the car's handling as quite competent, actually pretty impressive overall. But what the car doesn't do is inspire you to drive it in a spirited fashion. One of the RLX is big upsides is the back seat room, mainly in terms of leg room. The driver's seat is all the way back. You can see, I have plenty of clearance for my legs. Overall, it's pretty wide, pretty comfortable, and it has two inches more leg room than the Acura TL, three inches more than the Mercedes E-Class and almost four inches more than the Volvo S80. I was actually hoping that the replacement for the RL would be larger, maybe have more personality, you know. No one says that a manufacturer's top sedan has to be a full-sized sedan like all of European imports. What's perplexing to me is that this is essentially a mid-sized car, but so is the Acura TL. Now Lexus has two mid-sized cars, the ES and the GS, but one is front wheel drive, one is rear wheel drive. They have very different personalities. So like the RL, the RLX is really very much in between in a lot of ways. Still, it would be a good choice if you're looking for a car that's, (signs) (engine roars)