2012 Acura MDX Pros and Cons at TrueDelta: Acura as a brand is now dead to me. by ashagall

Handling

Decidedly not bad. Probably about as good as you can get from a fundamentally FWD chassis of that vintage. Torque vectoring and similar are more common today, even for non-luxury vehicles.

Reliability & durability

The sort of quality you'd traditionally expect from a Honda Motor Company product simply wasn't there. The audio controls were flaky from the beginning; changing the track might increase the volume. Lowering the volume might lower the volume or might raise it. Oil consumption started to become a concern. Squeaks and rattles galore. The hood opening sensor failed one night, setting off the car alarm every 20 minutes.

Audio & nav systems

It was quite picky about what MP3s it would play. Non-ASCII characters in the filename were a no-no. Files downloaded from Amazon? Nope. Playlists? Nope, try again.

Dealer practices

The local Acura dealers are unmitigated villains. The car was sold as Certified Pre-Owned. what a joke. They didn't even bother clearing the prior owners' cell phones from the Bluetooth system. Baseball stuck in the track of the rear seats. Hazard light switch broken. The service department was lazy, unmotivated and arrogant to boot.

Rear seat room & comfort

The interior prioritizes appearance over actual utility; it's surprisingly cramped for such a large vehicle. For example, my Highlander is roughly the same size externally but seems downright cavernous on the inside in comparison. A rear passenger can fully stretch out in the Toyota. Not so in the Acura.

Price or payments

Absurdly overpriced for what you're getting. Every day I kicked myself for not buying a new Toyota Highlander instead, an overall vastly superior vehicle.