2024 Acura MDX Type S Review: Sports SUV Has Surprises Behind The Price
- Potent drivetrain
- Excellent SH-AWD system
- Plush interior is well-equipped and spacious
- Significantly cheaper than German rivals
- Fiddly infotainment touchpad
It was a bold decision for a company whose tagline is "Precision Crafted Performance" to make its flagship model a three-row SUV, but in 2022, Acura did just that. The RLX sedan was shown the door in 2020, and the MDX, freshly-redesigned, took its place at the head of the Acura table. With a brief exception for the one-year-only, 350-unit Acura NSX Type S, the MDX Type S has been the pinnacle of the sporting lineup, too.
So when Acura dropped a '24 MDX Type S in my Seattle city-center parking spot, I knew a regular SUV test loop—running errands with the girls, bopping around city streets to the craft store and the co-op grocery—wasn't going to cut it. I needed to get far out, where the buses don't run and the mountains beckon. There, I could decide if Acura's decision was truly the right call, or if the MDX Type S was just another grocery-getter in red leather.
(Not) Strapped For Cash
A high-performance three-row luxury SUV is far from a novel concept, and on the face of it, the Acura MDX Type S's implementation is nothing earth-shattering either. The Type S-exclusive drivetrain consists of a single-turbo, dual-overhead-cam V6. This pumps out 355 horsepower and 354 foot-pounds of torque to all four wheels via a 10-speed automatic transmission.
These power numbers put the MDX Type S on par with Japanese competitors in the three-row luxe space—such as the Lexus TX500h F Sport—but below higher-end German competition such as M-package X5s or AMG-equipped GLEs. Mind you, however, my tester, a Type S Advance Package whose sole option was Liquid Carbon Metallic paint (an $800 surcharge) would have set me back $75,295 after destination, which significantly undercuts the German competition in price, and comes in right on par with less-exciting Japanese competitors.
Michael and Victoria At The Baggage Claim
The first task I had for my MDX Type S was a relatively mundane Seattle-bound drive. I needed to pick up my partner—flying in to visit for Christmas—from Sea-Tac arrivals. The Acura ended up being the nicest chariot I've ever picked them up in; despite its (relatively) affordable price-point for the luxury class, the interior on this thing was loaded. Both front seats have 16-way electric adjustment, heaters, coolers, and massagers; the vibrant red leather was some of the plushest upholstery I've felt this side of $100,000. The 1,000-watt, 25-speaker ELS Audio sound system was phenomenally crisp even at a low volume. Acura aimed for sumptuousness and succeeded; even my car-ignoring partner noticed that it was pretty swanky.
On the drive home, the Acura handled the grinding misery of 5 PM Seattle traffic for me while I caught up with my partner. Every MDX offers adaptive cruise control with traffic-jam capabilities, and unlike some competitors, it handles true stop-and-go seamlessly and smoothly (without leaving so much space that I'd have other drivers cutting me off every ten seconds). The crawl through the worst of Seattle's snarled interchanges was as relaxing as it's ever been for me.
Welcome Interstate Managers
As I plied the Type S through Capitol Hill and took my partner home, the rest of the AcuraWatch driver-assist system functioned flawlessly as it watched for pedestrians and cross-traffic. This is a rare feat for the chaotic streets of Seattle, which exposes flaws in monitoring systems better than virtually any other metro area in America.
The sole complaint I had with the MDX Type S on this mundane section of my drive was with the infotainment system. It uses a touchpad to control inputs to the 12.3-inch infotainment screen, rather than having a more-traditional touchscreen. The touchpad functions quite well in native Acura menu screens but it was much harder to correctly use it with Apple CarPlay (which is offered standard with wireless connectivity on all MDXs). I assumed that I would get more used to using it as the week wore on, but at no point during my testing was I able to swap from one app to another quickly with CarPlay.
Victoria Scott
The rest of the infotainment system was pleasant, however, and there were plentiful physical controls for stereo, driving mode selection, and climate controls. The steering wheel mirrored these physical controls, and offered actual buttons for cruise control. The infotainment screen was also able to show both phone mirroring display and the native software at the same time with a split-screen system, which was useful for navigation. As a result, I found the MDX's infotainment overall less frustrating than many competitors that depend on touch-capacitive functions (or touchscreen-only) controls, despite the mildly clunky center touchpad.
Traffic and Weather
I had to ensure that the other two rows of the Acura were just as pleasant as the front one, so I grabbed four friends and filled it up for an errand to the camera store. (The MDX Type S can seat seven total occupants when full, but I don't have that many friends.) In Comfort mode, even the third-row occupant said that while the aft row was as cramped as one would expect for a midsized SUV's third row (29.1 inches of legroom, officially), it at least felt like an actual seat, not an afterthought. She even got her own phone charger, albeit fairly weak ventilation.
Victoria Scott
The row fore of her was much more well-equipped; the MDX offers standard three-zone climate control and seat heaters, so those two friends could control their climate to taste, and legroom was more than adequate (38.5 inches) for the pair riding behind me. Cargo capacity behind the third row was plenty for our camera-store run at 18.1 cubic feet; with the second row folded flat, it felt cavernous, with 48.4 cubic feet total.
(Total cargo area is 95 cubic feet. This makes it one of the biggest on the market; this translates to enough room for a nightstand, a living-room chair, a very nice lamp, and an ottoman, in my extremely thorough thrift-store testing.)
A Dip In The Ocean
With the requisite mom-duty grocery-getting done, it was time to head across the Puget Sound to the Olympic Mountains, where the elevation changes and twisting corners and SH-AWD-requiring rain-slicked roads are. I planned a hike for my partner and I deep inside Green Mountain State Park, hopped on a Washington State Ferry, and as soon as the MDX's wheels touched Bremerton, I flicked the center knob to Sport+ mode. It was time to see how well-earned that Type S badge was.
In Sport+ mode, the Type S-exclusive air suspension—an Acura first on the MDX Type S—drops the SUV to its lowest setting, and the SH-AWD gets as aggressive about power delivery as it can. This isn't lipservice, mind you; SH-AWD is wildly aggressive for a mom-core three-row SUV, with up to 30/70 front/rear power split, and up to 100% of that rear power sent to one wheel depending on where power is needed.
SH-AWD (and Honda's equivalent i-VTM4 system) have always been one of the best all-wheel-drive systems on the market, and the MDX Type S takes full advantage of that. The steering on the MDX Type S is a bit lighter than most other Acura models, but the turn-in on winding Bremerton roads was stupendous nonetheless thanks to its torque-vectoring, and feedback through the wheel was plenty. The Type S with the Advance Package comes in at 4,788 pounds, but it felt spry and worthy of the same Type S badge the NSX bears nonetheless.
And unlike the NSX, I still had seat massagers.
Utopia Parkway
The throttle response (despite the unusual choice of a single turbo) was also stellar; I'd mat the pedal coming out of a corner, and the 3.0-liter V6 would respond with haste. Engineers prepared separate inlet paths via the front and rear banks of the V6 for both the low-speed and high-speed response sections of the turbine on the twin-scroll turbocharger, meaning that peak torque kicks in at virtually idle (1,400 RPM) and peak horsepower doesn't hit until 5,500 RPM, so the powerband is broad. Wherever in the rev range I floored the Type S, it responded with gusto.
The 10-speed transformed from a mostly sedate mileage-pleaser to downright sporty in Sport+. Feeding gears with the paddles was fine, but the transmission handled shifts better on its own; there was a violence to it, especially on redline-slamming upshifts, that made the whole drivetrain feel vastly more alive than it had when I was cruising to the ferry earlier in the day. Slam on the massive four-pot Brembos into the corners, and the transmission bites the next gear down with ferocity, too. It might not be as fast on paper as some of the $80K-and-up Germans, but I'd argue it's just as much fun with just as nice an interior, and it was plenty to make Green Mountain into my own personal Pikes Peak.
Stacy's Mom's SUV
The hike completed, we made the drive back from the trailhead in Comfort mode. With the air suspension inflated and the throttle response smoothed and the transmission relaxed, the MDX Type S makes a solid case to be a top pick in the ever-burgeoning luxury-performance midsize class. SH-AWD makes it feel like a fraction of its footprint and heft, the single-turbo V6 is plenty quick for everything I could realistically want, and the cabin is one of the most opulent for its price point that I've laid eyes and hands on.
It's a specific type of soccer mom that needs this much performance and plushness, but if suddenly I had a three-row-sized family tomorrow, I'd be at an Acura dealership the day after that. The MDX Type S simply's got it goin' on.