Our family is expanding and we are continuing our search and test of vehicles that will keep up with a growing family. We want to know what works and what doesn’t in vehicles. Most recently we put the 2020 Acura MDX TECH to the test. Taking it on a family road trip and seeing how it did for daily life. There’s a huge divide in our family when it comes to minivans vs 7 seat SUVs. How did this vehicle do?
GREAT LOOKS
Instantly we liked the looks of the Acura MDX both inside and out. There is no denying that it’s a very sharp looking SUV. The base model starts around $56,590 CAD and the TECH starting around $60,090. There are other MDX package options with things that can be added on that will drive the prices up from there. You are looking at luxury SUV pricing when considering an Acura MDX that has a 3.5-litre, V6 engine that is a 9-speed automatic which requests premium fuel
Our Acura MDX had the Modern Steel Metalic paint. Our favourite colour options though, fall under the A-SPEC. Check out how the vehicle looks in Performance Red Pearl or our favourite Apex Blue Pearl. These make the vehicle look even better and we’d love to see them as options for more MDX packages. Acura does a bold colour well on its vehicles, plus we like a bold colour for spotting the vehicle in a parking lot.
Inside the MDX you have tri-zone climate control. This is wonderful to have when people in each section might want a slightly different temperature.
CAN GROW WITH YOUR FAMILY
The three rows is a feature we like. You can use all 3 rows to separate your children if needed, or you have room to drive their friends too. It was very easy for our oldest to get to the 3rd row with just the touch of a button. She was into her highback booster in no time! Our biggest test was seeing if we could fit 3 car seats across the second row. Yes, we could! Now we do have narrow car seats, so this really depends on the brand. We did notice immediately that this vehicle felt wide when compared to others we have driven. We could see the room between our girls and knew we could fit a rear-facing seat.
THERE ARE SOME THINGS WE’D LIKE TO SEE IMPROVED ON
When it comes to a vehicle with “Tech” describing it, we want just that… technology. Yes, this vehicle had some, but we feel like there could have been much more. Does Tech only describe that this model had an entertainment system for our kids to watch in the back seats and headphones so that we didn’t have to listen to the movies too? Come on Acura, we want more! Where’s the heads-up display that we loved in the Acura RDX A-SPEC? What about the touch-pad? Honestly, this is where if we were able to fit our soon-to-be family of 5 in the Acura RDX, we would go with the RDX A-SPEC over the Acura MDX TECH. If Acura were to make these changes alone, we’d be much more tempted by this 7 seater.
We were also left wondering if there is a way to redesign the MDX so that there is more room overall? We’d love to see more room for the back two rows, especially the 3rd row. Both legroom but also headroom. While the design of the back of the vehicle angling down looks great, you instantly loose room. When my husband sat in the very back he had minimal legroom when comparing to other 3-row SUVs and was hitting his head on the roof. My husband is just under 6 feet tall. Packing for our trip, this shape of the back of the vehicle also meant we lost the packing room. We had to put the third row of seats down and fill any and all empty spaces to pack everything we needed. There’s not as much packing room when compared to some rivals. We would definitely need to invest in a roof rax and box to go on top.
Please Acura, we’d love to see an overhaul of how space is used within the Acura MDX. We suspect you could surprise us all by finding a way to make things more spacious. PS: can you make the front two seats be cooled and heated? Our bottoms in the summer would be much happier if there was a cooling option.
OUR OVERALL THOUGHTS
We always appreciate when vehicles have the option to save the seat settings for two drivers. No more fighting over where the seat is, just set what you like to driver 1 or 2 and press it when you get in. The driver seat and front passenger seat were also very comfortable with how much you can adjust it. Being pregnant, I really appreciated this. I was so comfortable whenever we went out for a drive.
The Acura MDX TECH combines two of our kid’s favourite features that they always look for when we are test driving a vehicle. If you’ve been following along in our vehicle reviews you know exactly what that is. They love when a vehicle has an entertainment system where they can watch movies as well as a sunroof. Now if Acura could somehow put a panoramic roof in and the entertainment system, they would be over the moon!
Getting groceries into the back of the car was made easy with the button on the remote. We tried to see if it had the foot-activated tailgate, but it didn’t work for us. Looking into this, it appears to be something that can be added ono the vehicle. Again, when it came to groceries, I really liked the space in the back where we could lift up the floor and there is a sunken in space that is great to hold things in place.
There is one thing that surprised us the most when it comes to the Acura MDX Tech. We were not expecting it. The fuel economy! We managed to get 10.4 L/100Km. Where did that come from? We were expecting that number to be much higher. Shockingly it wasn’t. What made a huge difference is that this vehicle has paddle shifters. This helped us to decide what gear we wanted and it brought the fuel economy down. Well done Acura.
Overall if you are looking for luxury, the potential to have 7 seats if needed, go give the Acura MDX a look. It may be just what you are looking for.
That is one great looking vehicle, but I think I’d agree that I’d like the RDX better. I hesitate to upsize, especially since I still miss my old Acura Integra! (Showing my age…)
Yes! Agreed.
My daughter (and wife) would love that built-in screen! The dashboard display looked pretty good. Although I miss having a car that parallel parked itself like the Ford Explorer.