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Acura 3.5 RL: Cushy Technology
by Jim Bray,Saturday, July 23, 2005
Acura’s top-of-the-line sedan is all new for 2005, offering a handsome new suit of clothes inside and out, more power, and enough technological goodies to please the most rabid technophile.
It also comes with a nifty new all wheel drive system that strikes a balance between Acura’s penchant for front wheel drive with the market segment’s penchant for rear wheel drive vehicles.
The new RL is sleek and classy looking, right from Acura’s typical "bird of prey" grille to its relatively svelte rear end. The new version of the car is shorter, wider and taller than the model it replaces, yet it’s roomier inside.
The sedan is powered by a ULEV-rated (Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle) 3.5 liter, 24 valve, single overhead cam V6 that cranks out 300 hp @ 6200 rpm and 260 lbs-ft @ 5000 rpm. Those are very good numbers, especially for a V6. It’s also 75 horsepower and 29 pound-feet more than the last generation RL.
The engine is mated to a five-speed automatic transmission with pretend manual setting and — get this! — steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters like you’d get on some ultra expensive sports cars.
This was my first experience with paddle shifters and they work very well when you aren’t turning corners. Paddle shifters seem like an unusual touch in a vehicle that, while high tech, isn’t really that sporty. And when you aren’t using them they get in the way a bit when you’re holding the steering wheel normally.
They are cool, though!
The tranny occasionally feels reluctant to downshift quickly and is definitely not the best auto/manual I’ve tried. On the other hand, it’s a pretty representative example of the species.
Rather than routing power to the front and rear wheels as needed (as it traditional), the RL’s Super Handling all-wheel-drive (SH-AWD) system can also send power between the left and right rear wheels. If you don’t believe it, you can watch it happen on the instrument panel-mounted display.
In normal driving, most of the torque goes to the front wheels but when you goose it in a straight line, the system sends up to 40 percent of the power to the rears. To lessen understeer, help turning and maintain balance, the car’s brain can also increase the spin of the outside rear wheel. If it weren’t for the display on the dash you’d never really know it’s working under normal conditions; the RL handles very well. The Vehicle Stability Assist (VSA) doesn’t hurt, either.
The RL features 4-wheel independent double-wishbone suspension with stabilizer bars and speed-sensitive, variable power-assist rack-and-pinion steering. The standard tires are all-season 245/50 R17 inchers. Braking is power-assisted, four wheel discs with ABS.
Driving the RL is very nice, but it feels more like a luxury car than a driver's car, not that there’s anything wrong with that. The feel is very different from the TL, which is a real blast to drive even with an automatic transmission. The RL is a more sedate ride, though that doesn’t mean it objects to being spurred: 300 horses are nothing to sneeze at.
The interior is classy and comfortable and up to date, though it’s saddled with a cursor control-type wheel/button thingy whose interface seems to have been created by Rube Goldberg. Compared with the ultra simple system in the Infiniti M, the RL’s borders on incoherent.
The handsome, wood- and leather-trimmed cabin seats five (four in superb comfort for the most part), looks terrific and is very well appointed. As is typical of Acura, switches and controls have a feel of quality and are placed just where I wanted them. The LCD screen displays the stuff operated by that cursor control thingy and there are other controls integrated conveniently into a handsome center panel that reminded me a bit of the classy Volvo S40’s.
The gauges are clear and well laid out.
Acura was the first to offer DVD-Audio and dts surround sound capability, and the Bose system in the RL continues that delightful tradition. The 6 disc in-dash changer offers excellent surround sound and playing the different types of disc is seamless: the car figures out which type of disc you’ve loaded and acts accordingly. That’s as it should be, and I also appreciated the fact that you can stuff all your discs into the one changer, unlike the Infiniti M in which DVD-A and dts discs had to be inserted into a separate player from the CD changer.
The cabin is very quiet, thanks perhaps to a noise-canceling trick whereby the stereo speakers emit "negative sound" to fight "positive sound." I would have loved to have run a test to see if the RL would turn a rap CD into a Strauss masterpiece through noise-canceling but I couldn’t bring myself to touch a rap CD.
You also get Bluetooth connectivity for hands-free action of your cell phone (a wonderful feature) and get this: Acura can download messages such as service reminders right to the car.
The leather, heated and cooled seats are very comfortable, but something inside the seat back bothered my back somewhat — and that surprised me a lot: I usually love Honda/Acura seats.
Acura has even included a switch by which the driver can lower the rear seat headrests, getting them out of the way of the inside rear view mirror’s view. It’s also a neat way to freak out rear seat passengers if you do it without warning them. Or so I would imagine….
Those rear seat passengers get lift-up sunshades that are built into the side windows; there’s also a power-operated rear window sunshade.
The sunroof is of a reasonable size and opens or closes with one touch of the button. HVAC consists of dual zone, dual mode automatic climate control.
The RL also offers true keyless entry, in that you can keep the fob in your pocket or purse. Or, usually; in my week with the RL I found the system quite frustrating, working well sometimes and refusing to work at others. And unlike competitors such as Lexus and Infiniti who have "start" buttons on the dash, the RL is started by twisting a knob thingy on the steering column where the key would normally be.
The trunk is comparatively small and the rear seats don't fold down, so if you’re hauling long stuff like skis they have to pass through a little hole behind the centre armrest.
As is becoming popular in this class of vehicle, the RL has swiveling headlights that work very well, and this is a wonderful feature. The car also boasts the usual selection of safety equipment, including driver and front passenger dual-stage, dual-threshold front airbags, driver and front passenger side airbags with front passenger Occupant Position Detection System (OPDS). You also get side curtain airbags, 3-point seat belts front and rear, front seat belt pretensioners and a tire pressure monitoring system in case your tires have trouble handling pressure situations….
The Acura RL is truly a beautiful car, lovely to look at, comfortable and refined and full of wonderful amenities. But…
I had driven the Infiniti M35x the previous week and perhaps that coloured my RL experience. While the M isn’t as attractive as the RL (beauty, of course, being in the ye of the beholder), and has less horsepower (though slightly more torque), it’s a lot more fun to drive. And the M’s electronic wizardry (especially its cursor control wheel thingy) is much easier to use.
The M is also cheaper!
The Acura RL lists for $70,700.00 Canadian/$49,470 US, which puts it about five grand dearer than a comparably equipped M in Canadian loonies and six thousand when you count American greenbacks. On the other hand, the RL is about $7000 Canadian/$4000 US cheaper than the Lexus GS 300AWD with which it also competes.
As the prices indicate, the RL splits the differences between the Lexus and the Infiniti very well, leaning toward Lexus luxury at the expense of the Infiniti’s driving fun. I’d probably choose the M, just because I’m afflicted with "lead foot disease," but I could easily live with any of this trio.
So you probably can’t go too far wrong with the new Acura RL. It’s a fine car.
