2021 Acura TLX Type S

[Smychavo]

Barring performance, it seems to be a competent luxury sedan. Quiet, stylish interior, good sound system, and a smooth powertrain. I'm fond of its styling, yet I cannot deny that much of the same can be said for the Lexus ES F-Sport with the N/A V6. Its platform may not have as much of the supposed capability on the chassis/suspension side by comparison, but I have a feeling that it won't make much of a difference, moreover with an ES equipped with AVS. The hybrid also exists, which without a doubt does a superior job of being a wonderful luxury car, while having unbeatable gas milage while also likely being as fast 😅😅😅

All that said I have not heard much here in the way of handling characteristics. Supposedly it requires a different approach to corners according to news publications, where getting on the throttle early allows the car to rotate through its AWD system. The TH video posted earlier in this thread suggests nothing but understeer, yet other reviewers that have taken it on track, or driven it on street seem to have nothing but praise for the vehicle's handling despite the lack of power.

 

[Gecko]

Barring performance, it seems to be a competent luxury sedan.

Agreed.

 

[Gor134]

https://www.motortrend.com/news/2021-acura-tlx-type-s-pvoty-review/

Past street drives had convinced us the new TLX Type S was a legitimate sport sedan that could just use a little more power. In our PVOTY testing, though, we discovered its street moves don't at all translate to near- or on-limit handling. What works at quick but reasonable speeds on a back road falls apart when you push the car hard on a track.

In some cases, getting on the gas would send too much power to the outside rear tire and send the car into wild oversteer. In others, it felt like no power at all was being shuttled rearward, leaving the car to understeer hopelessly. Then, every so often, SH-AWD would send just the right amount of power to each wheel and the car would shoot out of the corner like it should, though not without grinding the front outside tire in the process. You never knew what you were going to get, but often it was too much or too little of what you wanted.

Although the TLX Type S can handle its weight at moderately fast speeds, going all out results in far too much body roll. Stiffening the adaptive dampers does nothing to improve the handling. It just makes the ride quality worse.

On the other end, the combination of a heavy car and segment-trailing power and torque result in an engine that feels fine but not powerful enough for the job it's asked to do.

For a company that has rebranded itself as the purveyor of "precision crafted performance," the TLX Type S isn't where it needs to be. It's a quickish premium sedan but certainly not a four-door sports car.

Just some of the important tidbits from the article. Seems like the TLX Type S is more of a "backroads cruiser" typa car at which point there's still better and lighter options. I was very excited for this car but am so disappointed. And surprised to hear the complaints against the SH-AWD as it previously on older generations was highly regarded as a good system.

What's crazy to me is.. the M3 got a crazy weight gain from the previous generation.. yet is still around 200lbs lighter. M340i/S4/C43 are all much lighter too and it seems that's what is this car's main problem. Weight and not enough power. And also.. kind of setting themselves up for failure by marketing a Type S as a sports sedan ready for the track when Type R badge is meant to take that role.

 

[NXracer]

Honda you might have skipped this months charitable donations *cough* *cough*

Im surprised the SH-AWD didnt do well at the limit, for the years I had seat time in the SH lineup, mainly MDX, that system was perfect only when pushed to the limit. Otherwise it was just a regular ole FWD CUV.

 

[Smychavo]

For awhile before I settled into wanting a Lexus as my go-to future new car purchase, I was really enticed by Acura and their offerings. It saddens me a bit to see that despite their styling and talk of powertrain, it's a rather half-baked performance sedan.

 

[carguy420]

A bit about the SH-AWD's behaviour and performance, the SH-AWD in the Hondas and Acuras that are currently on sale are kinda a downgraded version of what they used to be, they removed what they called the accelerator, basically a planetary gear set and multiplate clutch pack that takes power from the driveshaft and is able to adjust how overdriven the rear wheels are relative to the front wheels by selecting between 2 different gear ratios, the accelerator kinda looks like a shrunken down automatic transmission, because of this they are able to control torque split between the front and rear wheels very precisely, they also removed the 2 planetary gear sets that are found on both the left and right side of the rear drive unit, each of these 2 planetary gear sets have their own multiplate clutch packs, when the clutch pack is engaged it basically locks the planetary gear set and power gets transferred to the rear wheel that's connected to that particular gear set, because the power is mainly flowing through the pair of planetary gear sets instead of the clutch packs unlike most on-demand AWD systems, they are able to constantly send decent amount of power to the rear wheels without overheating the system and make it perform more like a good permanent AWD system than a typical FWD based on-demand AWD system. Unfortunately, the construction of the current generation of SH-AWD is more like the AWD system found in the Ford Focus RS, that's known to have inconsistent behaviour and performance, rather than what it used to be, cost cutting yaaaayyyyy🙃...

 

[Smychavo]

Hmm

A bit about the SH-AWD's behaviour and performance, the SH-AWD in the Hondas and Acuras that are currently on sale are kinda a downgraded version of what they used to be, they removed what they called the accelerator, basically a planetary gear set and multiplate clutch pack that takes power from the driveshaft and is able to adjust how overdriven the rear wheels are relative to the front wheels by selecting between 2 different gear ratios, the accelerator kinda looks like a shrunken down automatic transmission, because of this they are able to control torque split between the front and rear wheels very precisely, they also removed the 2 planetary gear sets that are found on both the left and right side of the rear drive unit, each of these 2 planetary gear sets have their own multiplate clutch packs, when the clutch pack is engaged it basically locks the planetary gear set and power gets transferred to the rear wheel that's connected to that particular gear set, because the power is mainly flowing through the pair of planetary gear sets instead of the clutch packs unlike most on-demand AWD systems, they are able to constantly send decent amount of power to the rear wheels without overheating the system and make it perform more like a good permanent AWD system than a typical FWD based on-demand AWD system. Unfortunately, the construction of the current generation of SH-AWD is more like the AWD system found in the Ford Focus RS, that's known to have inconsistent behaviour and performance, rather than what it used to be, cost cutting yaaaayyyyy🙃...

Did someone perform a teardown on the transfer case on the new one and compared it? That's remarkably interesting! One would figure that considering their boasting on increased power and responsiveness for the current SH-AWD system on Type S, they'd continue to work with what they knew worked best and iterated from there. Suppose not, shame :/

 

[mikeavelli]

A bit about the SH-AWD's behaviour and performance, the SH-AWD in the Hondas and Acuras that are currently on sale are kinda a downgraded version of what they used to be, they removed what they called the accelerator, basically a planetary gear set and multiplate clutch pack that takes power from the driveshaft and is able to adjust how overdriven the rear wheels are relative to the front wheels by selecting between 2 different gear ratios, the accelerator kinda looks like a shrunken down automatic transmission, because of this they are able to control torque split between the front and rear wheels very precisely, they also removed the 2 planetary gear sets that are found on both the left and right side of the rear drive unit, each of these 2 planetary gear sets have their own multiplate clutch packs, when the clutch pack is engaged it basically locks the planetary gear set and power gets transferred to the rear wheel that's connected to that particular gear set, because the power is mainly flowing through the pair of planetary gear sets instead of the clutch packs unlike most on-demand AWD systems, they are able to constantly send decent amount of power to the rear wheels without overheating the system and make it perform more like a good permanent AWD system than a typical FWD based on-demand AWD system. Unfortunately, the construction of the current generation of SH-AWD is more like the AWD system found in the Ford Focus RS, that's known to have inconsistent behaviour and performance, rather than what it used to be, cost cutting yaaaayyyyy🙃...

Indeed. And now Honda has the same system, it’s in the Pilot for example.

Type Slow

 

[carguy420]

Hmm

Did someone perform a teardown on the transfer case on the new one and compared it? That's remarkably interesting! One would figure that considering their boasting on increased power and responsiveness for the current SH-AWD system on Type S, they'd continue to work with what they knew worked best and iterated from there. Suppose not, shame :/

I wished there are actually teardown videos of all the generations of SH-AWD, but I can't find any of it, the only good pictures and videos of the different generations of SH-AWD are the X-ray views shown by Honda and Acura. Acura should've at least went back to the 2nd generation of SH-AWD, even though they ditched the accelerator found in the 1st gen SH-AWD, at least the rear drive unit in the 2nd gen still has those 2 planetary gear sets to handle the majority of the power transfer to the rear wheels, so they can still tune the AWD system to send good amount of power to the rear wheels for most of the time to make it feel consistent and perform well without risking easily overheating and prematurely wearing out the AWD system.

 

[ssun30]

Toyota's GR-Four is an even simpler and cheaper system than SH-AWD (and in fact most Haldex variations) yet somehow it receives rave reviews claiming how effective it is at changing the handling behavior of GR Yaris. I wonder what Toyota has done right...

 

[carguy420]

Toyota's GR-Four is an even simpler and cheaper system than SH-AWD (and in fact most Haldex variations) yet somehow it receives rave reviews claiming how effective it is at changing the handling behavior of GR Yaris. I wonder what Toyota has done right...

GR-Four needs to have at least the front and rear Torsen differentials for the whole system to perform really well though, I've read that the clutch plates have DLC coating on them, but surely it's more than just that that allows them to tune the system to always send plenty of power to the rear wheels without prematurely wearing out the clutch plates, maybe they have some sort of tricks that they don't want to share publicly or it's really just that they are able to make all the clutch plates in the AWD coupling extremely durable.

 

[NXracer]

A bit about the SH-AWD's behaviour and performance, the SH-AWD in the Hondas and Acuras that are currently on sale are kinda a downgraded version of what they used to be, they removed what they called the accelerator, basically a planetary gear set and multiplate clutch pack that takes power from the driveshaft and is able to adjust how overdriven the rear wheels are relative to the front wheels by selecting between 2 different gear ratios, the accelerator kinda looks like a shrunken down automatic transmission, because of this they are able to control torque split between the front and rear wheels very precisely, they also removed the 2 planetary gear sets that are found on both the left and right side of the rear drive unit, each of these 2 planetary gear sets have their own multiplate clutch packs, when the clutch pack is engaged it basically locks the planetary gear set and power gets transferred to the rear wheel that's connected to that particular gear set, because the power is mainly flowing through the pair of planetary gear sets instead of the clutch packs unlike most on-demand AWD systems, they are able to constantly send decent amount of power to the rear wheels without overheating the system and make it perform more like a good permanent AWD system than a typical FWD based on-demand AWD system. Unfortunately, the construction of the current generation of SH-AWD is more like the AWD system found in the Ford Focus RS, that's known to have inconsistent behaviour and performance, rather than what it used to be, cost cutting yaaaayyyyy🙃...

It was weird that they switched, from what I understand the 3rd gen MDX launched with the sturdier SH-AWD and 6 Speed AT but that was let go during their MMR which launched the 9 speed AT and newer SH-AWD system.

 

[mikeavelli]

2021 Acura TLX A-Spec Long-Term Wrap-Up | Not-so-long-term car

Here's how our year with the 2021 Acura TLX A-Spec test car went ... and ended.

www.autoblog.com

Cliffs- car had to be taken back due to electrical issues

 

[Kelvin2020]

Acura TLX Type S PMC in Gotham Gray Will Be a Very Limited Edition

The 50 hand-assembled TLX Type S PMC Editions will share their color with the NSX Type S supercar.

www.caranddriver.com

Other nonsense edition

 

[Motor]

The paint is nice and suits the TLX well.

 

[mikeavelli]

Looks good for sure. Wild cause there are PMC cars already sitting and they decided to make it even more expensive. A 70k after tax 355hp “sports” sedan.

I don’t want a hand built car from ohio. If it was made in Japan that would better explain the price bump.

 

[carguy420]

Looks good for sure. Wild cause there are PMC cars already sitting and they decided to make it even more expensive. A 70k after tax 355hp “sports” sedan.

I don’t want a hand built car from ohio. If it was made in Japan that would better explain the price bump.

Now that you typed it out, "hand built car from Ohio" sounds kinda wack 😂.

No offence to anyone from Ohio though.

 

[CRSKTN]

The special edition Acuras should be japan built.

 

[Tragic Bronson]

Now that you typed it out, "hand built car from Ohio" sounds kinda wack 😂.

No offence to anyone from Ohio though.

 

[mikeavelli]

The special edition Acuras should be japan built.

FWIW they ship the Civic Type R parts to Japan to be assembled there. But not one Acura.

Just crazy how much they hype this car up and its by far the worst performer in this class. In retrospect enthusiasts never gave the Infiniti Q50 Red Sport the props it really deserves. The Q50 is the one actually made in Japan, 400hp, RWD or AWD sport sedan. Ditch the runflats and it moves.