Another sedan bites the dust. The Acura TLX is ending production this month, marking the end of a midsize luxury sedan run that started with the first Acura TL back in 1996. For those of you keeping track at home, this means the Integra will soon be the only Acura that isn’t a crossover, and it probably doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to deduce what Acura is pinning its midsizer’s demise on.
The TLX and its predecessor, the TL, served an important role for Acura brand for much of the past 30 years – with nearly 1.2 million units sold. However, since the initial success of the model, sales have been in a gradual, but steady decline as consumers increasingly turn to crossover utility vehicles.
Indeed, the most successful year for Acura’s midsize sedan in America came in 2005, when 78,218 TL sedans found homes across the country. Since then, the decline has been mostly steady with some inflection points. Between 2007 and 2009, annual sales fell by 24,925 units as the one-two punch of Great Recession austerity and the controversial styling of the third-generation TL walloped sales figures. An unusual resurgence happened in 2015 when the first-generation TLX came online, but the second-generation TLX failed to repeat that success. I reckon the success of crossovers played a role, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
When the digital sheets came off the second-generation TLX in 2020, just about everything seemed great. It looked fantastic, thanks in part to a long dash-to-axle ratio for a car with a transverse layout. The silhouette was just sharper than the old car, and standard power was up big time thanks to a turbocharged two-liter inline-four as the base engine. Add double-wishbone front suspension and the return of the Type S trim for nostalgic types, and the internet’s appetite was whet. The new TLX looked hot and had serious promise on paper, but as I’ve said time and time again, cars aren’t driven on paper.
Before even driving it, one obvious flaw appeared, and that’s Acura’s much-maligned True Touchpad interface. Unlike the cursor-style system used by Lexus, which also drew flak, Acura’s implementation didn’t work like a laptop touchpad at all, but instead each point on the touchpad directly corresponded with a point on the screen.
Then, when you put tire to tarmac, it became apparent that the tuning of the standard car made it closer in spirit to a Lexus ES than a BMW 3 Series or Cadillac CT5. I remember it being cold when I first drove a second-generation TLX, a two-liter turbocharged four-cylinder model with all-wheel drive. Cold enough that the all-season tires weren’t in their happy zone, but the biggest standouts were weight and a sense of squidginess. Weighing around 600 pounds more than a loaded Accord, it didn’t take long to realize that the TLX didn’t have a particularly eager front end, with plenty of body movement, and little more than an audible warning that you were approaching the limits of grip. Sure, the all-wheel-drive system did allow for some power-on rotation once you got the car turned, but the TLX didn’t feel quite like it wanted to do sport sedan stuff. Maybe the Type S would be the answer?
Nope. Alright, so 355 horsepower from a turbocharged three-liter V6 is decent grunt, but a curb weight of more than 4,200 pounds means that the end result isn’t as quick as you’d expect. Zero-to-60 mph in about five seconds isn’t slow, but it isn’t in the same ballpark as a BMW M340i or Lexus IS 500. Add in suspension that’s still too soft and a chassis balance and stability control calibration that’s allergic to fun, and the TLX Type S is more a conceptual approximation of a sport sedan than a real contender for keen drivers. It sort-of falls to pieces when you hustle it, and at $59,245, that’s a bit of a problem. Nearly $60,000 gets you into a more playful machine like a loaded Genesis G70 3.3T or a non-Blackwing Cadillac CT5-V, which renders this enthusiast trim a difficult thing to justify.
The second-generation Acura TLX still looks great and is a comfortable cruiser, but it was just never as resolved a sports sedan as it needed to be in order to justify its existence alongside a strong lineup of crossovers. It had a lot of potential, but once you combine its dynamic foibles with some quirks like a weirdly small interior for the size and the annoying infotainment system, it was a difficult car to recommend. With only 7,478 sold last year, it’s time to close the curtain. On the plus side, if you want a really fun Acura sedan, how about an Integra Type S?
Top graphic image: Acura
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Good looking car. but too bad they never fixed that hideous interior.
I think the price is the real issue here. The TLX looks fantastic, but the Type-S sits at a really competitive price point but can’t keep up with those competitors.
I remember when car shoping late last year we were looking at the MDX and the Acura sales guy caught me glancing at the TLX Type-S. He just said “Don’t bother. I tell anyone looking at one to walk across the street to the Lexus dealer and take a look at what they have. They never come back.” He then laughed and pointed out the Lexus dealer is owned by the same group and they are salary, not commission, but the point still stood – they needed a lower price or better performance.
Random question/rant…
Why tf do auto manufacturers not allow us to spec certain interior color options depending on the exterior color?
Just to name a few…
The TLX, Integra, and MDX can’t be optioned with Red on Red. The MDX can’t be optioned with Blue on Blue either.
The IS and LS500 can’t be optioned with Red on Red.
But you sure can get a red interior as long as your exterior color isn’t red!
Like… why? What is the function restricting interior colors to specific exterior colors? Production efficiency? Ugh.
My only thought would be that the colors wouldn’t be a direct match and just slightly off…..may actually look a bit odd
Also, as it aged it would likely change hue
Good insight on both points. Color matching was my career for a while.
Yeah, I never understood this either. It’d be like not being able to get mac and cheese as a side dish because you ordered meatloaf instead of the steak. They make both, and I want them together!
As someone whose career once included the art and science of color matching plastic parts for Honda, Acura and other auto makers, I can tell you that it’s because you can never get the interior and exterior colors to match well enough to look good. It’s damned near impossible.
And if you do get them to match in direct sunlight at noon, they will look very different in the evening. Or in moonlight. Or under the streetlights. Or in the lighting of an underground parking garage.
Getting an acceptable five color temperature match in two different plastics feels like winning a championship. Getting an exact five color temperature match in two different plastics is like hitting the lottery.
And then each time you add a different material, the difficulty goes up exponentially. Matching ABS to polypropylene to polyethylene to PVC to a painted surface multiplies the problem.
And then do it all again based on texture: painted steel, painted bumper cover, painted aluminum, pebbled hard plastic, pebbled vinyl, rubberized dash surfaces, cloth, etc.
Color matching is always a compromise. Every time an OEM got a new purchasing agent, we’d usually have to invite them in for a week or so. This was to get them to understand why no one could ever provide what they asked for at the price they wanted, and to prove to them we were the best at what we did.
It’s possible to get pretty good at this, but even after years of doing it, I’d never attempt a red on red. It would look like ass and then look even worse later because red is the hardest to protect from shifting color over time.
Valuable insight, didn’t realize that dyeing materials was so complex, but I still wish the option was there though.
But, what’s the rationale behind not allowing color combinations despite them being very different colors (like a blue exterior w/ a brown interior on the MDX) besides controlling aesthetics?
The Porsche/Rolls Royce example shows that it’s entirely possible. Those examples also suggest how expensive it is to do one-offs.
If you have eight exterior colors, and offer two interior colors, you have to carry sixteen cars in regional inventory to have in stock what any single buyer wants.
Add to that three option packages, and you have to have 48 different cars.
Three trim levels? Now you have to have 144 different cars in stock if you want more or less immediate delivery.
And you have to guess how popular each of those 144 different cars are going to be, because multiple buyers will be buying at each dealership in your region. So you probably have over a thousand cars of one model in the region.
And keep in mind that you have to make sure every one of those cars sells within a reasonable time range, so you can’t take chances by holding unpopular combinations in inventory.
This is a very simplified example, but it gets complicated very quickly.
Stop giving me valid reasons, I need a reason to yell at clouds! /s
And two decades from now, the offspring of kids who slam TLs will have to make do with a different platform
Oh, the slings and arrows. I just bought a used one about three weeks ago. I acclimated to the touch pad on the drive home. Easy interface. I agree it’s a good looking, comfortable cruiser. Just what I was looking for. It still handles better than most sedans. Get off my lawn!
I test drive one of these two years ago when I needed a new car, and it was just so… whelming. It was comfortable, and it has probably the best sound system I’ve ever experienced, but it just felt like a slightly nicer Accord or Camry. A sports sedan it was not.
As an S5 owner, I am sad the TLX is going away. I think they are great looking cars that provided a compelling alternative to the M340i, S5, and C43. The execution wasn’t quite there, and I don’t love Acura interiors, but now there’s nothing to stop the Germans from just tacking another $10k onto their MSRP’s because idiots will pay it.
I toyed with the idea of a gold TLX-S before my S5. I think they’re super good looking, that color is fantastic, and a turbo V6 and AWD was what I was after. The interior design is a bit too alien spaceship for me though. I still really like them, it’s a shame they’re going away.
It’s a real shame that the execution on these missed so badly. They had all the right bits, just none of it was tuned properly, which is baffling as it ostensibly comes from the same company as the Civic Type R…a real shame, but even if I had the money I’d have gotten a 10th gen Accord and a BRZ/MX5 for the price of the TLX Type S…
These things are gorgeous in person IMO. Low, wide, lots of presence. In blue with gunmetal wheels? Sign me up.
But… not for the price they ask. I’ll take a Stinger GT1 over that all day and have something that is faster, rarer, and more practical.
EDIT: and far cheaper.
I just bought an integra type s. I sat in the TLX type S at the dealer. I laughed out loud at how stupidly small the interior is. I am 6ft2 and I literally cannot raise the seat at all in it. In comparison the Integra feels enormous and it is one of the reasons I am getting rid of my 6-6 coupe for more room.
Random, but when do you plan on selling the coupe? May be interested if you’re in the West/Southwest.
Once I receive my Type S from across the country I will be cleaning it up and selling it. It only has 72k miles on it and I am located in UT. I LOVE the car but it doesn’t fit for what I need right now unfortunately.
So, coincidentally my neighbor traded in his two year old TLX Type-S for an Integra Type-S earlier this year, partly because the Integra feels roomier inside and partly because the Integra Type-S fullfills the promises that the TLX Type-S couldn’t keep in driving dynamics.
Yeah that is how I feel. The TLX wasn’t impressive to me at all.
It was smaller on the inside than the Integra, it was doomed
The what now?
One day in the future on this site, there may be a Holy Grail article on the TSX with the manual transmission.
But not this car.
When I can buy a Honda that’s just as nice as an Acura inside, what’s the point of an Acura anymore?
Considering that in most places Acuras are Hondas, you’re absolutely correct.
“Considering that in most places Acuras are Hondas, you’re absolutely correct.”
The lack of brand/model integrity is something that always hurt the credibility of Acura as a true luxury brand. And it seems that the leadership at Honda never understood this and still don’t.
Conversely, Toyota stole Honda’s idea in creating Lexus and has had great success. Probably because they put actual effort into it, even if the styling department had delusions of spindles.
That has *always* been the big issue with Acuras. They are just Hondas with delusions of grandeur – and for decades, literally were just sold as Hondas everywhere else in the world but North America.
They’re still making these cars? I honestly forgot, so I guess I won’t miss one.
Handsome car.
After buying an Accord several years ago, I found out that I hate 4-door sedans even more than I hate SUVs, so the TLX never made my shopping list.
I like the looks of the TLX a lot, but that’s too damn expensive for something not riding on a dedicated RWD platform. Repurposing an FWD platform as AWD is the same cheaty BS that Jaguar tried with the X-Type, and it didn’t really work then either.
Sad thing is – I LIKE Acura. A college pal had a gen 1 Legend that redefined my car expectations. I owned a TSX and have on older MDX. I like the blend of performance/luxury with Honda reliability.
I thought it went out of production when the Integra came back.
That was the ILX
My dad owned two TLs (an 06 and a 14) and put a half million combined miles on them.
He never warmed to the TLX and bought a Toyota Crown instead.
Man, the 04-08 TL (gen-3) was peak Acura. Those cars were so handsome, and really fun to drive.
I loved the wheels on that generation.
My dad had and SH-AWD A-Spec 2nd gen TLX (2021 or 2022, iirc), and that infotainment system was truly an abhorrent disaster. He claimed he got to be OK with it over time, but I could NEVER make it do what I wanted, CarPlay didn’t connect well, and doing anything in the Acura system or CarPlay was nearly impossible. Not only that, but within the 3 years he had it the speaker (he had the fancy sound system) developed this intermittent popping sound, regardless of audio input, which made even having the stereo on nearly unbearable.
Also to mention driving dynamics, it was fine in my approximation, I never hustled it much, but it was adequate, the 8-speed was well calibrated, although the steering didn’t say anything to you and it had the single touchiest brake pedal I have ever felt. Truly impossible to be smooth, even after something like 50k miles, my dad could not gradually and smoothly decelerate. The dealer even confirmed after several trips that it was fully functional. It was a perfect fine car, but didn’t deliver on expectations at nearly 50k, and between the awful infotainment, brakes, and the speaker issues, it’s not like it’s quality lived up to what you’d expect from Honda/Acura.
That car looked great though, pearl white and black accents from the A-Spec trim and the red leather interior was a killer combo.
In the name of aerodynamics, or maybe aesthetics, trunk lids keep getting smaller and more oddly shaped. I once rented a mid-teens Mustang on vacation, and while the 26″ suitcase would have theoretically fit in the trunk’s volume, it couldn’t pass through the opening. I realize the Mustang isn’t a passenger sedan, but no wonder people are abandoning sedans.
Also see the lack of ground clearance and tire profiling. Sedans used to come on softer springs with more ride height and thicker tires so you could do a bit of soft roading or deal with bad road surfaces. Nowadays when everything has 19″ or 20″s and 2 inches of suspension travel it’s no wonder the CR-V is preferred over an Accord.
On that topic, there is a substantial list of cars I’d be willing to consider if they’d stop desperately trying to be sedans and just be a hatchback already.
That’s another point in the Integra’s favor over the TLX, they had the guts to make it a liftback.
I did a road trip once with my wife, brother, and his fiancee, and we were pretty much maxed out on trunk space in the TLX. It was a bit surprising how little fits in that trunk.
To be fair, these kinds of vehicles aren’t intended to be exciting or to cater to enthusiasts. They are for John/Jane everyperson, to do all the things it needs to do from a packaging perspective first, while being comfy and have predictable TCO.
Take the Lexus ES. That vehicle has a job — be comfy, not slow, reliable, quiet, and have extremely predictable operating costs, for people who want that H point and ride height. My sister actually listened to me on one over a decade ago, it’s approaching 15 years old, and she’ll probably be driving it for another decade still. And that’s fine. For her, it does everything she wants a vehicle to do, dependably and at a fair price.
the TLX was always Acura’s take on that, but Lexus’s take won with those buyers.
In theory yes, but the TLX pivoted much more toward a performance image in the current generation and came out of the gate touting the Type S. It was bigger than the contemporary Accord outside yet smaller than a Civic/Integra inside, so that hurt it on the comfort and usability front.
The TL days represented a sporting alternative to an ES and bigger/roomier, more powerful, better equipped than the entry Germans like the 3 or C. If those attributes are still true of the TLX now, it’s by a much slimmer margin, and probably a wash for someone that’s leasing.
The reality, is the TL and TLX never really went ENOUGH into Sport. It was always stuck in the middle, and ultimately that’s what doomed it.
They need to pick a side, and instead it’s always been something that felt “designed by committee” where it tries to do everything, but does nothing very well. You don’t want to be a 6 in everything, you need to choose some 4s and 5s so you can be 8s in other dimensions.
I agree. The Accord, from what I understand, is already a car with a pleasant interior and more engaging dynamics than say, a Camry. Every review I’ve read says as much, and the 1998 and 2008 Accords I’ve driven back that up. The TLX just didn’t move the needle enough past the Accord to make it a proper sports sedan, and that was its downfall.
Personally, I’d have an Accord just so I wouldn’t have to look at the Acura’s dashboard every day. It’s awful.
But this thing is meant to be a *sports sedan*. That is how Acura marketed it. Toyota was under no such delusions with the Fanciest Camry. That car is a entry-lux sled and nothing more, so the fact that it drives like a sofa doesn’t matter at all.
I think the biggest issues were the incredibly cramped interior and the epically terrible user interfaces more than how it drove though. To the average punter, any $50K+ sedan is going to seem amazeballs compared to what the average person drives.
Yeah, but it wasn’t “sports sedan” enough to matter.
That’s my point. It never went in either direction well enough, and was barely leaning to one side. That’s why it went nowhere in the market.
It’s why the Maserati MC20/Pura doesn’t move units despite being the best looking car on sale. Too boosty in its power delivery to be a GT for the buyer its attempting to appeal to, sounds like nothing and handles “fine” to not entice enthusiasts, and yet it has no cargo space for anything either. It does everything halfway.
Acura certainly marketed it as a sports sedan. That it wasn’t a good one is a problem. Though as I said, I think a bigger problem was the fact that it was huge on the outside and tiny on the inside. And that horrific user interface. And the price for what you were actually getting.
It could have done with 700 pounds less weight. That and a set of very good tires could have made a world of difference.
It really amazes me how they manage to pork out modern cars so much. How about add lightness and pay attention to your driving so you don’t need to drive a rolling bunker around?
Mmmmm, predictable Tomato, Cucumber, and Onion salad… drool
I’ll miss it. I think they’re very attractive cars and I’ve toyed with the idea of buying a used Type S. Unfortunately I think the main issue with them is that they’re just not competitive with the Germans when it comes to flashy, showroom type stuff.
Sure, one of these will easily outlast a similar A4, C300, 3 series, or whatever. Unlike those cars you can buy an Acura and keep it for 10 years or more because it’s not a disposable product that’s chasing trends. To folks like us that’s a good thing, but for the folks that actually buy, or more accurately lease, lower end luxury cars?
They don’t give a shit. They want the biggest screens possible. They want the light up badges or grilles so everyone knows you’re in a luxury car even at night. They want Tik Tok built into the infotainment so they can #riseandgrind from their cars. They want the most impressive stat sheet so they can brag to their normie friends about their 0-60 or 300 horsepower or whatever.
Pretty much all Acura products fall way short on all the flashy stuff. They’re attractive to people that are fans of traditional, buy something so nice it’ll last forever luxury, but they mean nothing to the new money or the pretending to be new money crowd. Unfortunately they’re also at least a generation behind the pack on powertrains and literally have 0 electrified models outside of the ZDX, which is a GM product.
Their appeal is inherently limited as a result, and it didn’t help the TLX that it was so poorly packaged. It looks great, but it’s one of the smallest cars in its class when it comes to interior space despite being one of the largest and heaviest. The Integra literally has more interior and cargo space….and it’s $10,000 cheaper.
I’ll pour one out for the TLX, but unfortunately it’s easy to see why it’s going away. It was a day late and a dollar short when it came out and it’s even worse now. I personally like Acuras, like the concept of buying a luxury product that lasts, and don’t really give a shit about badge cache or keeping up with trends. But the vast majority of luxury car buyers do.
I wish I had some feelings one way or another. I knew the TL pretty well, but the TLX showed up at a time when the market was getting really crowded, and the letter “X” was making a comeback faster than Sesame Street being sponsored by MDMA.
To this day, I can easily point out an RSX or a TL or a TSX. But the TLX and ILX just sort of came and went in the background for me. I don’t know if it was lack of marketing or what…probably crossovers.
I owned a ’10 TSX. The TLX felt big and bloated in comparison when I looked at one.
Because it was.