Gadgetory

they call this a sport wagon is it more sport or more wagon it's a key distinction what if it's only a vague smattering of both let's drive the 2012 Acura TSX SportWagen and check the tap you may have heard there are folks who actually miss the old Honda Accord wagon and thought the hell would miss that well I miss that and this is a very close example of what it would be today in fact this TSX SportWagen is called the Accord wagon when it's sold in Europe it's very much the TSX with a tidy little wagon compartment moulded on the back very faithful to the lines otherwise it's worth noting that the Audi a4 Mercedes c-class BMW 3-series and everything Lexus are no longer found as wagons here Acura's either way out in front or a little bit behind well not much changes inside these Acura cabins you've seen this big old bosom thing here with the not going to say it right there on the front lots of buttons that's an acura thing they seem to have brought the number down a little bit but not enough so that you don't go wow that's a lot of buttons when you first get in this car what hasn't evolved quite so much as that navigation interface it looks the same as it has for ages with minor improvements but it's still a little bit on the fisher-price side to my eye it doesn't fit this high-tech sort of urban elegance that you find on the rest of the cabin the key is how does the voice command work let's take it for a tour after the beep please say a command navigation how would you like this address would you like to city after the bead sanfrancisco 7-1 you get the idea it's fairly good at recognizing what I say but notice every single piece of data is another beep response sequence the better nav systems now particularly in some of the German cars you just blurt it all out AM and FM but no HD radio on this guy your satellite radio buttons there here is your optical disk and hard drive toggle 15 gigabyte hard drive built into this thing already becoming passe to be honest and under aux you got the good stuff bluetooth streaming your iPod or USB connection in here you also have an aux jack you can hook up to now the Bluetooth audio is pretty rudimentary that's what you get when you're playing Bluetooth sound no metatags some dopey logo and a go to Acura comm message that looks like dreck one choice only on the gearbox also taking us back to the old days a five-speed automatic you do have paddles up here in Drive those will temporarily influence the gearshift to the gear you want that it will drop back in the drive mode full automatic in Sport you've got a much better response holds rpms higher locks out of top gear and this is also a transmission that should in a corner downshift or at least hold that gear instead of up shifting like a dumb box right in the middle of a turn at speed of course the Acura TSX SportWagen is a wagon not really much of one though of course I'm biased because I Drive a wagon rollback - tonneau cover and you see you've got a very much howdy a4 s cargo bay I'd love to get them side-by-side not to compare the volume that you can get from specs but to compare the usable shape of getting in and out of it you see these stylish compact wagons have all this rounded occlusion around here you really want that to be a clean sweep because this couple of inches of flange and trim can make the difference between getting your stuff home from Ikea or having to pay 60 bucks to get it delivered now you've got tons of little smugglers boxes all over the floor here little one here one like it on the left here's this big one in the middle big deep well there and within that you've got another compartment of compartments so lots of places to put small things they are flying around that's a good thing but I'm concerned about big things now here in the hood before we even get to the engine let's get to the outrage you can't get Honda's rather excellent corporate v6 in this car because it's a wagon the Surreal bad body ISM going on here the sedan will let you opt into the bigger motor but this one is stuck with the 2.4 liter sidesaddle inline 4 perfectly good motor just a hell of a lot less of it 201 horsepower 170 foot-pounds of torque moves this 3600 pound car to 60 and perfectly fine 7.5 seconds but perfectly fine the MPG on this car is a myth for a four-cylinder 2230 now as you've noticed there's not much more conventional a car on the road than this guy five-speed Automatic 2.4 liter 4 front wheel drive blahdy blahdy blah but on the road it actually turns into a little better package than it looks on paper they've got this car tuned in a way that I like very responsive at part throttle in other words when you're tooling around town or driving normally on the freeway you've got lots of responsiveness in the first I don't know third of the pedal travel that's real world driving now when you get further into it more pedal more speed want to sustain the acceleration that's where the power plant pretty much starts to flatten out it runs out of gas when you get above you now mid throttle 4,000 rpm you're really starting to push it it becomes less impressive than it was in the first few moments of getting off the line but that works well for an everyday driver the ride is I wouldn't say harsh but I would say utilitarian it's uh it's it's sport but without great sport handling it's not a bad car to drive it handles well but it doesn't give you that feeling of handling that a small BMW or Audi would give you of course it doesn't give you that sticker shock either to get the most out of this car you really do have to shift it drop it into sport mode get on the paddles otherwise you're not going to be in the exact right rev range for an engine that like I mention runs out of breath a little bit your overall impression of driving it is a fun light possible car not one that is a tremendous performance powerhouse a cure would have to give you the v6 the super handling all-wheel drive and I don't know another 8 or 10 grand on the sticker to get there they're going after a different market ok this car faces at 32 - for your TSX SportWagen but that's without the tech package since you're watching a video about this car from CNET I assume you want that 3650 additional without it you kind of miss out on all the cool stuff I've shown you and you need that because this car doesn't even have that much cool stuff but the tech package does bring you 15 gig hard drive DVD surround sound rear cam run power liftgate all of that for thirty six fifties of pre good deal