Review: The $59,000 Acura MDX A-Spec is a practical 3-row SUV that'll make you feel undeniably cool

The 2022 Acura MDX is a three-row SUV that starts at $46,900. With options, this loaner was $58,625.
Acura offers an optional A-Spec package for most of its cars, which lets buyers add a red interior.
That bright-red interior transformed the MDX from an everyday SUV into one that stands out — loudly.
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From the outside, Acura's 2022 MDX A-Spec SUV blends in. Its sharp angles, big grille, and headlights like daggers are sleek but reserved, piquing your interest but not screaming for your attention.

Open the doors, though, and it's like a sunburn to the eyes.

Hidden inside this otherwise ordinary luxury SUV is Acura's signature A-Spec interior: bright red leather accented by slices of black suede. It's a stunning combination — one that not only sets your retinas on fire, but sets the MDX apart.

Without its obnoxiously sporty styling, the MDX A-Spec would be just another gargantuan SUV. But with it, the MDX A-Spec is funky. It's cool. It's a place to enjoy and a prize to be shown off, all because Acura paid a little extra attention to its interior.

The MDX A-Spec: sporty looks, tame performance

The MDX is a three-row midsize SUV that slots in as the bigger of Acura's two SUV offerings. While the smaller, two-row RDX crossover starts at $38,400, move up to the MDX and you'll have another row available for a $46,900 base price.

The $46,900 MDX comes standard with front-wheel drive and you can upgrade to all-wheel drive, which buyers typically prefer for dicier road conditions and tougher terrain, for an extra $2,000. With options, this all-wheel-drive loaner came to $58,625.

All versions of the MDX feature a 3.5-liter V6 engine that makes 290 horsepower and 267 pound feet of torque, paired with a 10-speed automatic transmission. Towing capacity is 3,500 pounds on front-wheel-drive models and 5,000 pounds for all-wheel-drive ones.

Details and safety: Top crash ratings and adequate features

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety gave the 2022 MDX its highest safety award, the Top Safety Pick Plus. The IIHS gave it top crash ratings in every category, and its headlights got top marks at every price point — something many vehicles struggle with, since more expensive trims of the same car model often have better headlights.

Acura has packages and options in the place of trim levels for the MDX — meaning, for example, instead of choosing between various trim names that each come with a list of progressively fancy features, you simply check off your desired options as you scroll down the configurator for the car.

Acura offers three option bundles. The $4,700 Technology Package adds LED ambient cabin lighting, leather sport seats, manual sun shades in the second row, rain-sensing windshield wipers, and upgraded 12-speaker audio and navigation, among other things. The $7,050 Advance Package requires the Technology Package and all-wheel drive, and will upgrade you to 16-speaker audio, fancier seats, a heated steering wheel, a surround-view camera system, charging ports in the third row, and other features.

Then there's the $3,500 A-Spec Package, which is what really makes Acura's otherwise normal car offerings stand out — mainly from the shock of that optional red interior. The A-Spec is available on every Acura model except its actual sports car, the $160,000 NSX, and the whole idea behind it is looks, not performance. As Acura dealers describe it: The A-Spec offers "a variety of sportier interior and exterior details," and that's it.

But damn, the A-Spec does it well. If you're not a sucker for a red interior — any red interior — you're lying.

What stands out: An interior you can enjoy, beyond just looks

The MDX A-Spec's interior is busy but pleasant. Piano black accents slice through the dashboard while red contrast stitching appears on black surfaces and black stitching on red.

Not only is the styling nice inside, but so is the layout. Honda and Acura share a "P-R-N-D" button system that replaces the traditional shift lever, and its placement in the MDX allows for a wireless phone charger right where the lever would have been.

Compare that to wireless chargers in other cars, which are often tucked in an awkwardly angled cubby under the infotainment screen or inside the center console, and you'll soon realize just how handy it is to have your phone in a spot you don't have to trip over to reach.

But the layout thoughtfulness doesn't stop there. In addition to a charging port for the passenger that cleanly pops in and out of view, the MDX has a padded hand rest for the driver's palm near the touchpad that controls its infotainment screen.

Holding your own wrist up while changing the radio channel? That's for cheaper cars, honey.

Road noise in the MDX is negligible on rough surfaces and peacefully quiet on good ones, while wind noise isn't much of a factor at high speeds. Its suspension is numb but comfortable and there's a bit of a delay when you hit the gas, but the MDX's 290-horsepower V6 has adequate power when it does get going.

While the MDX is roughly the size of a small house, its full-length glass roof makes the SUV feel less hefty than it is. Overall, it feels like a really nice family car — one you would impress people with, even if they didn't know what in particular impressed them (the red interior).

What falls short: the little things

It seems fitting to grill a car on its grille, so we'll start there.

The modern Acura grille is beautiful — spikes lead outward from the central Acura badge to guide the eye around the car, blending aggressiveness with elegance.

Sure, the MDX's grille might be unnecessarily huge and mostly fake, but most modern ones are! A grille exists to let air into the engine compartment, and the grille openings cars actually need are often hilariously small compared to the ones they have.

But with the MDX A-Spec, Acura didn't even try to hide that the grille is fake. Get within 10 feet of the thing and all you see is giant hunks of material closing off the parts that aren't functional. Look to either side of you under the headlights and you'll notice large black "vents."

They're not actually vents. They do a poor job of pretending to be.

Steering the MDX is like steering a tube of air. There's no weight to it, and it takes inches of wheel travel before the SUV even registers that it's been turned.

While that looseness might be a preference for some drivers, there's always something a little worrisome about putting such light steering in such large cars. Cushy modern cars already isolate drivers from the road, making it easy to forget we have a 4,500-pound vehicle in our hands. Adding weight to a car's steering reminds a driver of the magnitude (and dangers) of driving, which is better for all of us.

The MDX's interior has one major flaw: high-gloss, piano-black accents. They might sound nice and fancy, and they are — for about five seconds. Then they're a test of how long you can go without touching anything.

I don't think of myself as a particularly gross person. People who associate with me might disagree, but those people are not writing this review; I am. And despite not being a particularly gross person, I managed to get all kinds of fingerprints and marks all over the MDX's interior in a week with it. Gross!

But modern automakers love glossy surfaces, which are a magnet for tiny scratches, specs of grime, and fingerprints. That means if you decide to buy a car in the midst of this design era, get ready to either glue a microfiber towel to your hand or get really acquainted with your own flakes and oils.

Another trouble spot in the interior came on the driver's seat. Despite the MDX having less than 1,500 miles on it, the suede part of the seat rippled like someone had been skipping rocks on it.

While most modern cars have touchscreens, Acuras have touchpads. It's a perfectly fine system, but you'll have to get over your aversion of learning curves to use it.

What will always perplex me about the touchpad, though, is that it doesn't add to my experience. It's not a revolutionary new technology that'll change the game; it simply feels like Acura wants to be different for the sake of being different, even if it's not providing an improvement over the industry-standard touchscreen with basic button controls.

Ah, well. We all have to stand out somehow.

Our impressions: good vibes and even better styling

There's nothing inherently sporty about the Acura MDX A-Spec, unless you count being able to outrun nearby cyclists. Behind its bright-red interior and large grille, it's just another SUV.

But what Acura's A-Spec package does so well is give people who wouldn't otherwise buy sporty cars a chance to feel like they bought a sporty car. Few people looking at luxury commuter cars care about 0-to-60 times or whether their engine noise is real or piped in; it's about whether their red interior and loud — albeit fake — vroooom sounds can bring joy to both themselves and their guests. It's about feelings, not specs.

If this MDX A-Spec loaner had anything other than a bright-red interior, I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the car as much. Perhaps that's superficial of me. But even though we like to pretend new cars are about getting from A to B, they're superficial purchases.

Driving the Acura MDX A-Spec is like wearing a cute tracksuit with no intention of going to the gym. Sure, you might not be sporty, but you look the part. And so long as you have that Adidas logo across your butt (or wherever else it might go), no one's really going to question you.

The MDX A-Spec is more of a vibe than an indicator of behavior. Just like your tracksuit that's never seen the inside of a weight room, it's a convincing facade.

And on Acura's part, it's genius.

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