
Civic, after all), the visual changes to the car are quite significant. Look at the front of the car, and it is practically unrecognizable from the previous one. Acura's Jewel Eye (R) headlamps adorn the car, along with a revised version of the "power plenum" grill. Larger air dams on the lower portion of the front bumper give the ILX a much more aggressive look than before. From the side, there really is not much of a noticeable change, however, the 18-inch A-Spec wheels look way better than the 17-inch wheels that came as standard on the previous car. They also make Acura's wheel gap issue much less apparent. From the rear, the new ILX looks much more aggressive, just like the front. The new rear bumper adds two large vents that were previously missing from the outgoing ILX. What are the vents for? Nothing really. What should have gone there were some nice looking exhaust tips, but complaining about that seems like beating a dead horse at this point.
From a material standpoint, the interior of the ILX has not exactly changed much. Dash and consoles are still adorned in that shiny, kind of cheap looking plastic that the previous car had, and the "aluminum" looking trim is still just silver colored plastic. There are two big, noticeable changes though. In the A-Spec equipped cars, you get suede inserts on the seats like with the now gone TSX Special Edition (sans the red stitching). Personally, I like the suede inserts. They grip you much better than traditional leather seating surfaces, and give the car a much more sporty feel. The other big change is the addition of Acura's dual screen infotainment setup. If you include the recently refreshed RDX, every single vehicle in Acura's lineup now has this setup (along with the Jewel Eye (R) headlamps). As the included software is a newer version in the ILX, it includes such nifty features like being able to speak out an entire address when doing an address search. Besides the nicer seats and the new infotainment setup, the overall feel of the interior has not changed a whole lot.

Handling has not changed all too much from the previous 2.4 liter equipped "performance" version of the ILX. It does seem to feel more like the Civic Si. In fact, I feel like the entire car from a handling, steering, and braking standpoint feels almost exactly like the Civic Si. There seems to be less body roll than the previous ILX when cornering hard, the brakes actually feel decent, and the steering feels just a bit more communicative. Personally, I like the setup of the car now. With the pre-refreshed ILX, it felt like Acura was trying too hard to differentiate the ILX from the Civic by changing its suspension tuning. What resulted was a softer setup that made me feel a bit nervous under hard cornering conditions. With the refreshed ILX, there was some mild understeer (as this car still lacks a limited slip differential like the Civic Si), but it inspires more confidence behind the wheel.

luxury car. There were simply far too many compromises with it, and unless you knew how to drive a manual, you were stuck with the anemic feeling 2.0 liter, 150 horsepower engine. With this refresh though, Acura addressed many of the ILX's shortcomings. Granted, there are still some compromises that had to be made to hit a price point, but considering its performance and equipment, I believe that the ILX is now truly competitive in the entry-level compact luxury sedan class.
*Special thanks to Cerritos Acura for allowing us to spend some time with the ILX.
No comments :
Post a Comment