The Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V are inescapable. They’re the two bestselling SUVs in an SUV-crazed market, but we figure a portion of those buyers are ready for a more upscale replacement.
Enter Lexus and Acura. Both Toyota and Honda introduced luxury brands in the late 1980s for just that customer, and the bulk of their output stems from augmented Honda and Toyota products.
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The Lexus NX and Acura RDX represent just that. Lexus builds the NX on RAV4 underpinnings, and the RDX is a distant cousin of the CR-V. In both cases, the luxury brand adds a more powerful turbocharged engine, unique approaches to tech, and distinct cabin designs.
We spent a few days in lovely Big Bear, California, living with these two SUVs that in different scenarios felt exciting, creative, disappointing, and even potentially dangerous. Which is the better buy?
Engines, Performance, and Driving
Part of the luxury experience is power. In the Acura, engineers installed a version of the 2.0-liter turbocharged I-4 employed in the Civic Type R and the previous-generation Accord. The turbo-four is mated to a 10-speed automatic and sends a respectable 272 hp to all four wheels through Acura’s fabulous SH-AWD.
Lexus buyers get a 2.4-liter turbo four-cylinder developing 275 hp and a lot more torque than the Acura—317 lb-ft compared to 280 lb-ft in the RDX. An eight-speed auto and AWD are standard.
Neither SUV is exceptionally quick, but the overachieving Acura reaches 60 mph in 7.0 seconds —two tenths ahead of the Lexus thanks to its more advantageous gearing. In both cases, those numbers represent an improvement of at least 1.0 second over the CR-V and RAV4, though it’s worth noting the RAV4 Hybrid is nearly as quick as the Lexus and the plug-in hybrid RAV4 Prime is significantly quicker than either of our test vehicles..
The power on tap in each of these small luxury SUVs will lend their drivers more confidence in merging, passing, and pulling away from a stoplight than they would have in non-luxury relatives, but the Acura is the better vehicle to drive.
Steering is light and accurate, and the brake pedal is easy to modulate. We dig the soft leather-wrapped flat-bottom steering wheel, too, and the metal shift paddles feel outstanding. You’ll hear the Acura’s engine more than the NX’s, but this one sounds better. Despite lower output and more weight on the spec sheet, the Acura feels quicker in the real world. Most editors preferred the handling of the blue car, too, praising SH-AWD’s ability to make the RDX feel smaller than it is in the bends.
The NX mostly just feels like a RAV4. We’d be wrong not to praise its shockingly granular steering feel, but the rest of the experience is mostly forgettable or worse. The Lexus feels heavy in corners despite weighing a carry-on bag less. It exhibits more body roll than the RDX, and although both vehicles permit more tire noise than we’d hope from a luxury SUV, the Acura is a touch louder.
Refinement is an issue. We noticed a distinct powertrain coarseness in the Lexus, especially from 4,000 to 5,500 rpm. Engine stop/start is rough, too (though that’s also an issue in the RDX). This powerplant is not quiet or smooth enough for a luxury vehicle, no surprise considering it also motivates cheaper, more utilitarian vehicles like the Toyota Tacoma. At least the 2.4T is slightly more efficient than Acura’s turbo-four.
The RDX wants you to drive faster, but the NX seems to actively discourage it.
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Both Lexus and Acura are generous with their driver assist content—a handful of active safety tech is standard even with both base models—but each presented issues. Neither car responded quickly enough to a car pulling away or entering our lane while using adaptive cruise control. Each lacks competent lane centering systems, too, occasionally wandering over lane lines despite reporting everything was under control.
These misgivings are especially lackluster in the face of the competition. The Lincoln Corsair, Cadillac XT4, and Tesla Model Y all provide proper hands-freeLevel 2 autonomy on the highway, and Genesis isn’t far behind.
On the bright side, these two are also similar in their terrific safety ratings. Acura and Lexus are two of only three manufacturers in the compact luxury segment to earn a 2023 IIHS Top Safety Pick+, which is extra tricky this year with more stringent criteria. Both vehicles also earn a five-star overall safety rating from the NHTSA.
Comfort Creatures
Of course, what separates luxury vehicles from normcore people-movers goes beyond the driving experience. We want premium materials, elegant interior design, ample space, and bleeding-edge tech.
We’ll start with the Lexus. The automaker’s current infotainment suite runs on a rather pretty 14.0-inch touchscreen with wireless smartphone mirroring and excellent Google-aided voice recognition. With a “Hey Lexus,” the NX mostly heard and processed our requests with ease, never a given in this space. Lexus intuitively laid out the infotainment experience with large icons and readable text that kept time with eyes off the road to a minimum. Our test vehicle also featured superb 17-speaker audio.
Lexus implements a near-perfect blend of physical and touch controls, with easy access to must-haves in a permanent row of touch buttons at the bottom edge of the touchscreen (seat heating/cooling and finer climate controls) but actual knobs and buttons for the hazard lights, 360-degree camera display, volume, drive modes, and temperature settings. Nicely done.
One qualm with the setup is the lack of a home screen to display more than one category of information at once, like navigation and music. Drivers can see that info in the instrument cluster or head-up display, but we’d still prefer to have all the good stuff in one place.
Speaking of the head-up display, Lexus does something funny with its steering wheel controls. The driver can make inputs through directional pads at 9 and 3, but the buttons are unlabeled on the wheel itself. Instead, they have multiple functions that change, so the head-up display shows which function you’re about to input. This is easier to get used to than it sounds, but it’s still overcomplicated.
Sitting in the back seat, we were able to fit a 6-footer behind their own seating position with a couple inches to spare but tight headroom. One taller editor found the cabin claustrophobic even up front. Synthetic leather front seat backs class up the rear bench, as does the perforated, contrast-stitched upholstery. We took special note of the creative speaker grilles, which eschew the typical laser-cut metal look for something more organic resembling leopard print.
The cargo area has a higher load floor than you’ll find in most of the NX’s competitors, but the trunk space is sizable. A 12-volt outlet allows for out-of-the-way charging, and remote folding rear-seat controls like those in the Lexus are tricky to find in the segment.
The Acura cabin doesn’t hold up as well under scrutiny, even if it offers a strong first impression.
Up front, the driver’s chair feels more comfortable than that of the NX, and the Acura’s flashy leather and faux suede seating designate it as something more special than an everyday crossover. (Lexus offers something similar in the NX F Sport.) Passengers in the rear will appreciate the extra couple inches of legroom afforded by the Acura’s longer wheelbase, and the aforementioned taller editor fit just fine.
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The RDX also employs a stadium seating layout in which the hip point of the well-padded rear bench is higher than that of the front seats, allowing rear passengers a better view. Somehow, headroom for taller folks isn’t more cramped than we found in the NX.
Although both vehicles offer a usable amount of storage hidden beneath the cargo floor—no spare tires—the Acura does something clever. There’s a little rubber plug at the bottom to drain any liquid in the hard plastic-lined storage cubby.
The RDX’s cabin’s worst design traits are inflicted upon its driver. Acura uses an only partially intuitive unconventional shifter in the center console that crowds a middle stack already oversaturated with buttons and knobs. The use of fingerprint-hungry piano black plastic is more bothersome here than in the Lexus, too. We also took issue with the RDX’s tiny instrument cluster display and dated physical gauges. (The gauge font is inconsistent with the other text inside the vehicle, a small detail that makes the interior design a little less premium and cohesive.)
We haven’t even touched on the Acura RDX’s greatest sin. Acura’s infotainment here is very clumsy and frustrating.
The software itself is organized simply enough, with a clever split-screen sidebar for displaying different info, but the RDX insists on controlling the system through a touchpad similar to the one on your mom’s old Dell laptop. This would be fine if it consistently worked. It doesn’t. Navigating to an on-screen icon can take two or three tries, and that problem is amplified if you’re searching for an option two or three pages deep. Try voice controls? Nah, they’re ineffective in recognizing commands based on our experience. Reach out and just touch the screen yourself? No touch controls.
A fumbling, antiquated experience like this does not feel luxurious, effortless, or elegant; it’s more like trying to use HD DVDs in 2023. Not only that, the poor controls resulted in at least one driver on staff being distracted for what felt like dangerously long stretches trying to get the system to cooperate. Owners may begin to acclimate over time, but any time a spouse or friend gets behind the wheel, it’ll be a problem.
The Verdict
There are better compact luxury SUVs on the market. The Acura does so much right, all to be let down by one of the industry’s few truly awful infotainment experiences and dated driver assists. The latter is especially disappointing having used Honda’s newer tech, which is up there with the industry’s best.
Acura needs to do so little to make the RDX competitive. Swap the infotainment controls for a touchscreen or rotary controller, install a digital instrument cluster, and fit Honda’s latest driver assists. More sound insulation and a fresh redesign wouldn’t hurt.
The RDX could be a contender. As it sits, this is an outdated, outclassed, barely adequate entry point to luxury car ownership.
The NX’s problems will be harder to solve. The thorn in the NX’s side is the Toyota RAV4 Prime. That vehicle is more affordable but also offers much of the same feature content along with a superior refined powertrain and a better driving experience. Lexus fails to sufficiently elevate the NX350 to justify our recommendation over its overachieving Toyota cousin. They have more luck with the NX350h and NX450h+ plug-in.
The tragedy here is that Acura’s infotainment is so detrimental to its appeal, it slips behind its closest competitor. Today, the NX is the car we’d rather own.
2nd Place: Acura RDX A-Spec
Verdict:Acura’s sweet fundamentals are overshadowed by some of the worst infotainment tech in the industry.
1st Place: Lexus NX350
Verdict:This imperfect SUV is difficult to justify over its non-luxury counterpart, but sometimes ease of use reigns supreme.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHICH
