Acura MDX Type S | Long Term Conclusion

The finale of the MDX Type S Acura. That's right, this car has roughly 15,000 miles on it. It was an early production model used at the press launch, then it got passed around like a wet rag and ended up with our sorry ass hands. It's been through the winter, the snow sub-zero temperatures, in the heat of the summer. It's been used as a hauler, a family vehicle, and on road trips. It's every single condition that we could possibly put it through, including trying to break it as best as possible, and it's still running. So let's get into the story part. And I have to say this, and I know a lot of the frequent viewers know my background, but I made most of my money in my past career as a male model. Top tier shoots, and I remember going to some of these events with all this talent, and they'd show up in BMWs, Mercedes, Bentleys, and I was kind of Freddy Frugal. I was the guy that would show up in Lamborghini Urus, and it's just a competitive place. And I never thought, why would somebody show up in an Acura MDX? And then now that I'm broke making car videos, I think $70,000 is a lot of money for a luxury, fun SUV. And the question has always been, at $70,000 for this brand new, is it really a good option compared to BMW and Mercedes specifically? They kind of do the best of this segment. Now, after utilizing it, you're going to look at the outside. And clearly in this Tiger Eye paint color, it's a blessing and a curse depending on who you are. Thank God they have a different color other than silver and white and black. So that's great. And in direct sunlight, it looks amazing. People constantly look at it. And if you like that, well, it's good for an SUV. They also have an amazing blue color and some other options. You're not stuck with the Tiger Eye. The outside is a perfect blend of modern SUV, something that has aged quite well and will continue to age well when you compare it to something like a disfigurement like the BMW XM. And I like the fact that it's not completely sedate and boring. It doesn't put you to sleep looking at it. And the fact that everything is paint matched as well on the outside. No problems with electronics, headlights, taillights, nothing like that since we've had it on the inside space. This is where you're going to live, right? So let's talk about the pros and the cons. I love the fact that the three row option, it's a three row vehicle by default, and it was designed to be a three row vehicle. So that third row is very usable. And if you don't want to use it like pretty much I have, I've always had the third row down. You have a big space. We fit, I believe, five 31 inch international luggages in the back when we travel. We fit all our camera gear. The other part is all the seats are not electronic. There's all manual controls for them, and there is a one touch electronic release that just kind of zips the second row forward. The configurability of the back is super simple and non-frustrating. It really is. And the second row with the vent work and the way that it's laid out is a good mix of luxury and regular economy car. Your second row passengers aren't going to be dying in the back of not being able to control the vents. The HVAC in the back works really well, and the seat adjustability in the back also works pretty good. Although that second row is not as comfortable as the BMW competition and even like the Volvo and we did these trips. The front seats are really amazing. The negative part about when you get this color, this whitish gray, is the dye transfer to these seats has been horrific. If you wear jeans, I mean, they're so discolored, namely on the driver's seat. And it was like that at like 4,000 miles, but it's just gotten progressively worse. You're gonna have to put a lot of care into these seats to keep them looking nice. And you know, that might just steer you into a darker color interior, just being honest. All the other materials have held up pretty well. There's no like huge scratches, gouges on the leather. The doors have held up well, aside from the discoloration of just having a light interior. All the plastics have maintained zero rattles and zero creaks. And I'm talking about no buzzes or rattles, even when the audio system is at full tilt in the winter, when the panels are really cold and in the heat. The expansion and contraction of that has not affected the interior quality at all. It's maintained good solidity. There's nothing vibrating apart in here. And that's a big factor of a luxury car. It might be quiet when it's new, but as it ages, it could sound like a shitbox. And this has not done that, at least for us. The ambient lighting and some of the gimmicks in here, I have not fooled with. Literally, I've set one color and just left it. And I think the big thing is, and I've talked about this in the previous video, is the infotainment is the saving grace of it. And the reason why it still continues to be functional is wireless Android Auto. Literally, just do that and I never have to interact with it. I've reduced the shortcuts even to get into it. It is slow to pair up to Android Auto sometimes via wireless and it gets flaky, but really when it works, it works with minimal crashes. I get a crash once in a while, but I get that with every car. This is definitely on the tolerable side. The lag and all that type of stuff is nominal. It's really not that bad. And you get used to certain things like this over time, but I would say it's definitely frustrating when you have to interact with the touchpad. Yes, you get used to how to go where you need to go, but really you want to stay out of it as much as possible. I would say the infotainment is pretty average. I've said this in the past, it's more than likely they're going to dump this, move the screen forward, give you a touchscreen and go to Android Automotive. I mean, that's really the way forward. It makes the most sense. You don't have any crazy development that you have to do with your own OS and your own OS management and patches and updates as much. You have support from Google on that. So I don't know, you're stuck with this as of now and it's not a deal breaker. And that's what I'm trying to say. Because Acura was really smart with this generation, they planned ahead and everything is physical. It might have cost them more to do it, but the physical controls are really good. By your knee, all your core buttons here are physical, including the dimmer switch, the HUD, of course. And there's other things in the center stack with your HVAC controls being completely physical, thank God. And it makes it a joy to operate. The moonroof, it's standard stuff. A lot of the other things are really traditional Honda Acura, with the exception of the 3D Signature audio, the 3D LS and ELS. And it is definitely one of the top tier audio systems. And the only thing that really competes that gets close to it is the Bowers and Wilkins on all the BMWs and the Volvos. And you really have to get to the iX BMW with the Bowers to just kind of separate itself. And you're talking about some serious coin there compared to this. So really, if you want essentially the best audio system at under $120,000, more or less, that's this. It's really, really close to some of the top tier stuff and it transforms the driving experience of this car. Because after a while, you're like, you know, you get over the suspension, the handling, the all-wheel drive, the engine, you don't care about that stuff. You care about, is it working? And how great is the audio system? Because you're going to be listening to music or you're going to be entertaining people in the back. And the core parts of this car have worked very well in that regard. Now, the negative parts other than that is sometimes I wish for more storage. The center armrest is taken up by this enormous wireless touchpad and this palm rest for the touchpad here. And if they cleaned all that up, they'd have a lot more working space. The center console is a lot of wasted space, just a ton. With the USB ports, the way that they are, they take up the whole center plane, the brake This definitely needs a rework, a cleanup, more like what they've done with the modern Honda cars and focus more on usable space. And they can still do all the special materials and alloys and all that. But I just feel like this needs to be cleaned up along with the piano black. They need to move away from this and some type of other high contrast material that feels more special than this overused texture. We've seen alloy looks and indefinite specialty veneer woods that have a big wow factor without being this generic. It's just played out at this point and it's part of the age of cars, you know, design changes. The backup and 360 cameras are also excellent. You know, it's in a good place. It's right on the other side of the signal stock where your wipers are. You push that middle button and the 360 camera comes up. It's not the highest resolution and the software part of it is definitely not anywhere close to the Germans or even the Koreans in terms of looking at where you're at, but it is functional. You can see where lines are at. You can see your intended path. That works. It's just not high clarity and high resolution like some of the competition. Some of these things you trade off with at a $70,000 price point, you know, they put their development money where they needed to in terms of the platform, the suspension architecture, like all these things in the engine. So you can kind of, you make excuses for certain things. Now I know you were waiting for it. You're like, man, Mark, that car looks just beautiful. I got to buy five of them. But how did the floor mats hold up? You know what? They just didn't work at all because these carpeted floor mats, like in every car, just fail you in the winter with salt. So what do you do? You buy the dealer accessory floor mats for $17,000. And then those do the same thing. You get the sides of the carpet all dirty. Then you go and spend another couple hundred dollars on WeatherTech mats that still do the same thing. So what do you do, Mark? You can't do it on the MDX. You can't do it on any car. You got to buy Tux mats. You know why you buy Tux mats? Because they cover the side footwells where the salt and everything accumulates. It covers the dead pedal. So you don't get the carpet around there messed up. And you know what? You don't want to put in the whole car. You don't have to. You put the floor mats wherever you want, where you need coverage. If you have kids in the back that are having a birthday party and throwing their cake around or just literally urinating their pants for no reason, the Tux mats will likely catch it if they're doing it on the floor. And if you have a like my friends are, it's going to trap a lot of hair without it getting sucked into fabric and all that. It's easy to vacuum up. My point is, is that if you buy Tux mats, your life is going to be indelibly much better. And I don't even know what I just said, but I'm just telling you, if you want full coverage in all seasons, you're going to put Tux mats in and you're never going to think about, oh, am I destroying my floors? They're pretty easy to clean up. Are they going to be as nice as my Ferrari floor mats that are hand woven by the finest Italian craftsmen? No, they're there as a protective measure so you don't destroy your floors. And if you only want to use it in the inclement weather and go back to carpeting mats, carpeted mats, you can do that because it's your choice. So as I put the Tux mats in here, you realize the coverage as I'm going to put them in my tie bar so I don't ruin my luscious red carpet. It's a good option for people that don't want the chemicals in the carpet as well. Like, there's so much chemical crap that you can put in terms of fabric guard. You don't want to be using that or on floor mats and stuff. It kind of eliminates that worry, especially if you care about cars and you have the conditions to do it. So there, you can go to the Tux mat website and buy whatever you want. I don't care what car you have, just buy them. And they're not going to have floor mats for every car, let's be honest, but they're going to have it for a lot of the popular cars. Check it out. And now we're going to talk to Jack about all of the things that this car has underneath and some of the costs of ownership. In the shop with our 2020 Acura MDX Type S long term test car, because Mark is not with us for this segment of the video, I decided to channel his artistry and wear some sunglasses indoors. So what do you need to know first? Well, the first thing to talk about is maintenance. This vehicle has some expensive components on it. However, compared to some of its German rivals like the Q7 and BMW, this vehicle is slightly less costly to maintain when it comes to day to day service costs. However, that may vary based upon your region. It only takes a little over five quarts of oil as a simple filter install and oil changes. And your basic maintenance is not that expensive when it comes to consumable costs. This being a Type S, it does use more expensive components than a regular MDX, starting with tires. If you go with the OE Continentals, you're looking at a tire change, a complete set at about $1,700 before install. They're a little over $400 a tire. However, there are some options for this vehicle, so you're not entirely tied down to that. Next thing to talk about are pads and rotors. The pads themselves aren't that bad. The front pads are a little bit over $150. Of course, that is before install. That is a parts cost. And the rotors themselves are about a hundred bucks. Not too bad. The biggest single cost item is going to be the air shocks, which in the front come as a complete assembly with a damper. Per corner, you're looking at about $1,700. And in the rear, due to their divorce setup, the air springs aren't too bad. They're like $500, $600. And that is, of course, before any install. These cars are so new that I've not heard of any air shock failures. But if you want to keep this thing around for a long time, it is an inevitable part that will fail. And they are traditionally quite expensive. However, hopefully in the five to 10 year range, they'll come down in cost a little bit. The three liter single turbo V6 is a little thirsty. Sadly, this does not get tremendous fuel economy. You're looking at about 20 miles per gallon on average. That's what we got, which puts it in line with something like a V8 in the next seven. That's the single biggest downer with this vehicle, along with its 10-speed automatic. Mark and I are going to talk more about it in the drive. In our last update video, we talked about how we thought the 10-speed had a physical issue with it slipping into neutral. So essentially what this car is actually doing is it's not a mechanical failure point. It is done by design. It puts itself into a protection mode if you shock the gearbox. And their definition of shock is either a left or right tight turn with full acceleration going through multiple gearshifts. So if you are, say, at a T-intersection and you have to leapfrog across traffic and turn right or left, it might put itself into a neutral state, though 99.9% of the time it'll never do it. And at least according to Acura Honda, we're the only journalists that have ever, ever experienced it or ever complained about it. The rest of this system is fairly robust. And the SH all-wheel drive system, which Acura has been working on now for several generations, is essentially bomb-proof. Past all of that, though, this is exactly the MBX we've already talked about. It's a double wishbone vehicle versus the Pilot. So it's distinguished itself from its, let's call it, econo-car roots. It's a dedicated architecture. They've tried to make it as luxurious as possible by covering this up with as many NVH panels and aero panels. But with all that said, I think it's time for us to go take this for a quick drive. Jack, are you emotional? We're about to say goodbye to this thing. No, I'm not emotional, but you will be when I launch it in comfort mode. Jack, so here it is. I thought about this a lot, put a lot of miles on this, spent excessive amounts of time behind the wheel. And there are two sides of the coin with the Type S MDX. So I'm going to get right into it. When you look at this as a whole, the driving experience, what it excels at is this is a benchmark for the price point in chassis, suspension, and quickness and nimbleness and drivability, right? Like, it's an amazing riding car. And whoever's done the calibration on the suspension, knowing that having a comfort mode with minimal body control, but perfect for the lunar landscape that we drive in the Midwest, where you can go into comfort and it glides over everything, gives you that 70s couch-like ride, and you just ignore the potholes and all that. It soaks up everything, but trading off body control, but having a suspension setting where you go in a normal or sport, when you get on the highway, you get rid of the float and it smooths everything out. It's one of the better driving cars, you know, suspension tuning-wise that I've been in for anything under $120,000. So that's really the highlight. The fact that they understood that the three-row driver doesn't need linear inputs, the steering's quick, it feels nimble, it gives you that false feeling of nimbleness and lightness because of the differential in the back. It's easy to get around, it's easy to park, you can whip it inside and out of corners that technically something that a sedan could probably do similar to this. That is the absolute highlight, along with like the massaging seats are incredible, the comfort element, but the big negative is the drivetrain. And I know we talked about this before, we've talked about it a lot with this MDX Type S and the Turbo V6 that's in this car. It has, I'm just going to put it this way, this engine feels like it should be in all the Acura and Honda products. It doesn't feel special. When we talk about the Type S, and now we've been in the Integra Type S, and we've been in the NSX Type S, when you feel those drivetrains, the engine tuning is good, the transmission, at least in the NSX Type S is incredible, best thing they've ever done. But you get in here, the TLX Type S, and you get in this car, the engine feels commodity. It feels like they went way too conservative with the engine and transmission tuning. And for a Type S badge, it throws all that away. And the fact that like these don't work, they're just horrible. They're so bad and so slow to respond. And the drivetrain responsiveness is so slow that really what you do is you leave it in drive and you leave it in comfort. And it makes me wonder why would you want to spend the extra like six to $8,000 for the Type S badge when the drivetrain part doesn't match the badge? I would rather have this car for six or $7,000 less with the regular V6, the regular transmission, all the other Type S bits, suspension calibration, steering calibration, and have a more affordable car that I feel like would be more accessible to most people. So we had a conversation with Jonathan, who is the product planner at Acura. And he explained to us why that is because all of the features that this vehicle have are really what drives up its price, not the drivetrain. The to meet the expectations of the price that came with the air ride, the big brakes, the big wheels, the massaging seats, the quieter cabin. That's the con of that is they had to pair it to this drivetrain and it sort of had to cost this much because of all the features in the vehicle made it more expensive. I will say I'm of two minds of this car, right? I was always down on it basically day one because I don't think the drivetrain is particularly good. And at the risk of sounding like a caricature of myself, I think BMW does it better, right? The V8 in your X7 or the X5 is much, much better. And it gets the same fuel economy as this. The B58, which makes the same amount of power as this is more efficient. And the ZF eight speed cowl is 500% better than the 10 speed in this car. Apologies for the abrupt cessation of this video's journey. I believe there is an exigent need to share the fruits of an extensive inquiry that has been fermenting over a lengthy period having dedicated an unwavering three-year commitment to the meticulous study of BMW's operational ethos. Observe as a myriad of these brands conveniently transition towards electric vehicles, camouflaging their strategic retreat under the guise of conforming to stringent regulatory mandates. It makes me physically ill. This maneuver is nothing more than a feeble subterfuge designed to obscure their inherent deficiencies in a lamentable capitulation in the face of the formidable challenge presented by BMW's B58 engine. But now that I've spent time on it, time in this car, on the highway, really, this was your long term or not mine. Yeah. And I've had bursts of time in this car for like eight hours or five hours at a time, like our recent Detroit trip, some of our other road trips. And that's where I'm like, man, this car is amazing. Yeah. When it's in couch mode, when you don't care that the engine isn't that fast, the gearbox isn't that great, it doesn't return, you know, over 24 miles a gallon when you're doing 80 miles an hour. You're just driving this around and piling on miles. You're like, this thing is exceptional. And compared to something like an X7, if you're going to play the product planner game that this is a three row, not a two row, and you're getting so much car for your money at $74,000. Yeah. And that's actually a good point. And this is where I've really, really struggled with this car is I get in it and I get in the X7. And to be fair, we've driven all the three rows, right? We've driven all these cars, all of them. So we have a really good idea of what they do well and what they don't do well. But I struggle and I ask everybody the same question. If you will get into a nearly loaded X7 for $115,000, is this, is that worth an extra $40,000 over this? And every time I struggle with it and I say, no, I mean, the drive train is really huge. And I know we repeated this in the last video, but I cannot fathom where all of that is going because that's how good this is. And you really don't appreciate this car in terms of what I talked about at the start, the ride quality, the steering, tuning, the suspension and all that. You don't appreciate that until you start driving all the other three rows to realize just how good this is for the price. So here's my question then, you've lived with this car, you own a, you know, it's more premium competitor. Would you buy one of these? The answer is when I had more money, no. But now that I look at how much that costs, that XC90 or I'm sorry, the X7 cost, I would 100% replace it with this. No questions asked. I can live with the fact that under the hood is not the best thing because I don't drive this. I don't drive a three row SUV flat out. I mean, it's cool to hit the throttle once in a while and be stupid, but that's 1% of the time. What I'm doing is this slow sloppy and I want the best ride quality. I want a good audio system. And if this car does all the mainstream things that I'm looking for a hauler to do, and it does it well with minimal gimmicks and minimal frustration. I would highly recommend this car to someone who needs the extra space of an MDX, wants to lower running costs other than fuel economy versus a BMW product and likes all of this. Again, I think for the value proposition of a luxury SUV, this is sort of in a league of its own. And again, while I do think there are negatives, if you were the buyer who appreciates what you just said, everything else other than going flat out all the time, which why would you do that on a three row SUV? Right? Yeah. This is kind of one of the, I honestly think it's probably one of the best products you can buy in the segment. So Mark, with that, I think it's time for you to wrap up your long-term experience. And I expect real tears from you as you say goodbye to this Tiger Eye MDX Type S. I'm going to get my nails painted Tiger Eye and actually look cool. Here we are the conclusion of the long-term Type S MDX. If you made it this far, you've seen all the ramblings. Here's the pros and the cons. This is a very, very good three row SUV for the price point, because it is a bit more unique. It looks good on the outside, depending on the paint color you get. It doesn't look like a commodity run of the mill SUV. You look back at it and you're like, not bad. The interior feels like a blend of specialness and really good usability because probably they didn't have the budget to make everything electronic and automatic folding down seats, but it's better for it. It's easy to use. It's non-frustrating. Getting a car seat in and out is good. Getting things in and out. There's just great storage in it. And the electronics are a great blend of what people want, but mostly things like I talked about with the rear view camera. Like if you're going to park and you want to flip on the rear view camera, it's muscle memory. Like you just hit the button on the stock and you don't even think about where it's at. You don't have to look. It's little things about the Honda and Acura experience that make this great. Now the Honda and Acura things are also there as well that are negative. Like the infotainment, we've talked about that beat it to death. Not a good implementation. It hasn't aged well. And you know, drivetrain tuning is far too conservative for what it is for a type S moniker. But I think what you're going to take away is if you want one of the best riding vehicles, may not be the most quiet compared to some of the ultra luxury brands. You want something that you're going to enjoy driving, look back on, have really good comfort and amazing audio system. The MDX Type S is probably one of the better three row SUVs where you think about, do I need to spend over a hundred thousand dollars for this? It fills in the gap where you don't have to, you get a majority of what that is here. And you, you don't feel like you're, you're in some type of like Kmart version of a luxury SUV. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next video.