Gadgetory

I'll tell you up front I missed the Honda Accord wagon so when the acura tsx wagon hit our garage I was delighted which may be the problem this isn't supposed to be a Honda let's drive the 2011 Acura TSX wagon with all the toys and check the tech let's defect a TSX wagon from here at the schnozz all the way to the b-pillar is just a TSX no difference then from here to the back is where it becomes a TSX Wagon this is all the different sheet metal to the rear you taper two ways back here you can see you've got a pretty racy little fastback on the hatch and the body tapers this way and rounds off as a result the cargo space inside is it's more of an urban city wagon than a true capacity station wagon I imagine the advertising will show somebody in this on Fifth Avenue loading up there she's new at the groomer not someone going to Ikea and buying for bookcases and part of the problem is you've got big intrusion at the wheel wells here in the cargo bay now our TSX is very familiar inside if you're used to the most recent Honda's and that's good news because that is the new interface the new head unit not dramatically rethought but a whole lot more finished as you can see right away if I go to the map that's actually decent resolution I can read everything it's not hard on my eyes it's a nice looking screen the obvious choice is entering a dress and you've got the same four buckets you've had before but again everything moves faster looks better under destination menu - you've also got some interesting stuff you can do this is a god thing which only Honda Acura offers you can also look up a place by phone number to decide to drive there now I've got a CD in here now this will also play DVD audio but not DVD video good looking richly displayed you see the record icon there this has got a hard drive in it here my hard drive specs you can see I've got 15 gigabytes total space available on this dude your sound options are pretty good your usual balance treble fader and such then you get your center channel not a lot of cars give you center channel level subwoofer you've got your speed volume control Dolby PL 2 can be on or off too synthetically create surround sound and it tends to do a pretty good job live traffic and live weather in this guy through Acura link traffic shown on the map but you can also get it in a list here and again notice how readable all this stuff is there's my forecast from the current position on that screen also is where you get your backup camera fairly basic by today's standards notice there's no trajectory I've got no different views for whether I'm parking or whatever I'm doing I just have my basic distance markers even those are all in yellow not the usual yellow red green that some other cars do and if you want rear backup sensors also those are optional ala carte about the only ala carte Tech option on this guy and their dealer installed on top of that and that by the way is the extent of your driver assistance tech in this guy no blind spot warning or intervention technology no lane departure warning or intervention is available no forward-collision stuff I mean this is you know pretty lowdown on the Acura range there replaces the old Integra sort of kind of so they don't offer all the bells and whistles on this guy one thing that they still do on this car that's a carryover is lots and lots of buttons here here and then I've got this information screen deal here where I can change the monochrome LCD two different displays there you've got two connectors in here USB and analog aux and this USB can be a USB thumb drive or in my case I've got our iPod Touch in there and of course the aux is your backup no matter what you got will play through the air with a pigtail okay then we come to our part of the show called the agony and the ecstasy you see ya could get a v6 and a TSX you just can't get a v6 and a TSX Wagon that bothers me you get this 2.4 liter 4 it's a nice 4 but it's a 4 lugging around a fairly good-sized car you've got 201 horsepower and a fairly anemic hundred and seventy foot-pounds of torque it'll get this guy up to sixty and eight point eight seconds mpg is not bad it's a four after all twenty to thirty but if you get the v6 in this guy at least give us the choice and/or the six-speed manual available elsewhere in the line I'd like that a lot more accurate as a tough time shedding stale transmissions and this car is an example of that it has a 5-speed automatic which even the unloved RL recently escaped but here it's soldiers on adequately if not thrillingly it works tightly enough but compared to today's six seven and eight speeds you start to notice the big ungainly hops between gears paddles on the wheel no shifting gate on the console on the road I must admit the sum of this car does much to overcome the lackluster appearance of its four-cylinder and 5-speed on paper it is snappy and ready to run in real-world driving maneuvers with little if any of the thinking delay that plagued so many modern cars with automatics and too many computers that said the engine does run out of breath rather early and the lack of a couple of extra cogs doesn't help it catch it the engine notes a little rough not what you normally associate with Honda Motors but overall this wagon drives light tight and alright have you noticed how many times I've used the word Honda in this video about an Acura that's telling Infiniti Lexus even scion are more differentiated from their parent brands than this Acura I like Honda's I just expect an Acura to be a lot more than one this one Falls a little too close to the tree okay let's price a TSX wagon you're in at about 31 7 31 8 with destination but you've got to add a chunky package the technology package for 36 50 to go CNET style that includes a lot of stuff including the navigation system which looks really good now that's knob controlled as we saw the Acura controller you get the built-in traffic and the weather information you also get everything hard drive based 15 gig vailable for your media the 10 speaker Elliot shiner sound who didn't blow me away the Bluetooth gets upgraded to have phonebook ability you get the rear camera GPS alteration of the climate settings and a power liftgate a lot of things in there pretty good value for what you get unfortunately nothing's gonna get you a v6 that's the big omission