Interior
reviewed by
The Acura RDX dashboard cascades with colors, textures and levels. The top is wide and flat black vinyl, there's a three-inch-tall strip of dark titanium plastic in the center, broken by the display screen and, at the bottom, it turns to smooth vinyl in light gray. The top and the plastic strip are grained with minutely raised crossed diagonal lines, a sort of diamond-like golf-ball effect. So there are three textures and three colors.
On the top center of the dashboard, tucked under the windshield, is a narrow digital display that indicates time of day, radio station, the interior temperature setting on each side of the car, and where the vents are pointed. It's hard to see in sunlight.
The navigation system is controlled by a big ugly knob in the center of the center stack. It pushes in, up, down, left and right. Acura has an excellent reputation for its navigation systems. We've found them among the best and easiest to operate.
We found the rearview monitor fuzzy, and dim at night (which might be from dim backup lights), often too dark to be useful at dusk or on overcast days.
The perforated leather seats are comfortable, and the driver can perch up high to see over the short nose of the car. The driver's seat has eight-way power with power lumbar support, and the passenger's seat has four-way power adjustment. Both front seats have high and low heat settings.
The gauges are nicely lit at night, in blue and white. The tachometer is at left, with the redline at 6800 rpm, and an insert that shows turbocharger boost. A big speedometer is in the center with an information display inside it, and on the right is a spot of similar size which contains a gear-selection indicator and a fuel-level gauge. It would be nice if there was a temperature gauge because, as it is, you can find the engine's temperature only by using the information display inside the speedometer, and scrolling through other information to find it.
The information display can also show which wheels are getting the power with the SH-AWD, or Super Handling All-Wheel Drive. This system sends more power to the outside rear wheel when the car is cornering aggressively, which keeps it on line, but that's exactly the time you'd not want to look down to check the display. There's also an instantaneous fuel mileage display, consisting of a bar ranging from 0 to 50 mpg, but we did not find it to be easily readable.
The EPA-rated mileage is 17/22 mpg City/Highway. We got 17.6 miles per gallon (on premium fuel) at an average of 34 mph running stop-and-go on the freeway and 80 mph when the traffic was less crowded. The fuel mileage didn't change much after that, with mostly around-town driving.
The leather-wrapped steering wheel feels nice in your hands, if busy, with controls for a half-dozen or more things, including paddles for upshifting and downshifting the sequential transmission. It has three spokes, at 3, 9 and 6 o'clock, and they're trimmed in aluminum-look plastic, with a design that makes the wheel look like a scale model of a space station.
There are terrific grab handles for closing the front and rear doors, something we wish all cars had.
There are nice little storage compartments, and a very deep center console compartment, with trays at the bottom that lift out to reveal a hidden spot that's another couple inches deep. It's 16.9 inches from front to back, 12.2 inches deep and 5.5 inches wide, big enough for a laptop or briefcase, and it's lockable.
The parking brake pedal seems too low, as it can interfere with moving your left foot from the rest position to the brake pedal, for those who choose to brake with the left foot. We would sometimes catch the toe of our left shoe on the parking brake when moving our foot into position to use the brake.
There seems to be decent knee room in the rear seat; we had a tall passenger back there who said she had enough room, even though the specification of 37.7 inches seems pretty tight. The rear passengers have cupholders in the folding armrest, door pockets and map pockets in the front seatbacks, and the 60/40 rear seatbacks will fold flat, after the seat cushions are flipped up against the front seatbacks.
Cargo space behind the rear seat is in short supply, with just 27.8 cubic feet, but then this isn't a big SUV. With the rear seats lowered, there's 60.6 cubic feet.
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