10 Reasons the 2018 Acura MDX is the AutoWeb Buyer’s Choice Best Luxury SUV

When you’re competing in the luxury SUV class, you’re playing with the big boys. Every manufacturer wants its biggest, most prominent vehicle to shine, so congratulations are in order to Honda’s luxury arm: The 2018 Acura MDX is the AutoWeb Buyer’s Choice Best Luxury SUV. 

Acura has been building its reputation since joining the luxury class three decades ago. Founded as a division of Honda in 1986, Acura was the first of the Japanese luxury brands in the U.S., followed by Lexus and Infiniti in 1989. The MDX has been a staple in the Acura lineup since 2001, and is currently deep into its third generation.

The MDX is low and wide, with styling details that are designed to enhance those qualities and to reduce the visual impact of its size. This is in contrast to many other luxury suvs, which do their best to draw attention to their height, ground clearance and mass.

The MDX got a facelift in 2017, with new styling from the A-pillars forward to the aggressive new “Diamond Pentagon” grille treatment, which features a big, proud Acura logo. Acura’s jeweled LED headlights and attractive LED taillights impress coming and going.

Since it is designed to carry seven passengers in comfort, it’s good to know that the MDX has family safety in mind. It has earned an overall rating of five out of five stars from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and a 2018 Top Safety Pick from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Acura’s suite of advanced safety systems, AcuraWatch, is standard on all MDX models, bringing with it collision-mitigation automatic braking, lane-keeping assist, adaptive cruise control, road departure mitigation and more. In total, the MDX has a host of standard passive and active safety features.

The lightest MDX is powered by a 3.5-liter V6 gasoline-only engine with a nine-speed automatic transmission and front-wheel drive. For enhanced handling, you can mate that engine and transmission to Acura’s optional Super Handling All-Wheel Drive (SH-AWD) system, a system that uses torque vectoring to send power to the rear wheel that needs it during cornering maneuvers.

All-new for 2017 and carrying over to 2018, there’s also a 3.0-liter V6 gasoline/electric hybrid with two electric motors and a dual-clutch seven-speed automatic transmission and SH-AWD. Not only is the hybrid tuned for efficiency, but it also delivers sporty performance and is related to the hybrid gasoline/electric powertrain in Acura’s NSX supercar.

In its own steady, reliable way, the MDX has quietly outsold all of its competitors ever since its introduction as a 2001 model. The MDX has been a solid seller with a very loyal customer base and over 750,000 vehicles sold over the years. It’s not unusual to find owners of the current MDX who have owned first-generation (2001-2006) and second-generation (2007–2013) MDX vehicles and are now returning for the third generation to replace their well-worn favorites. 

Sales peaked at 65,603 in 2014, and have tapered mildly since then. A solid sales history usually translates into a resale value, and the MDX can command good prices in the used market.

The MDX continues the luxury vehicle trend of offering real wood trim inside the cabin of its Advance models. This means that your personal MDX promises not only to be built to the same exacting standards as every other MDX, it will also be unique.

Your one-of-a-kind MDX can include West Africa-sourced Black Limba or Spanish Olive Ash Burl wood, lovingly finished with a satin coating and open-pore look. No two pieces of trim are alike, and the finishes are more like fine furniture than automotive trim, with visible grain and pores and a warm, organic feel and touch.

Remember when you used to draw an imaginary line down the middle of the car seat to define your space from your siblings’? Don’t cross the line, or the family trip will be ruined. Acura solves this problem with the MDX’s Entertainment Package, which includes a ceiling-mounted flip-down split-screen capable of presenting video from two sources at once, side-by-side.

You can view content from smartphones, HDMI devices and even game consoles. Sun shades help control the glare, and wireless headphones and remote controls are included. Everybody gets their own content, and there’s no reason for a turf war, or boredom, or even noise. The MDX is guaranteed to reduce the incidence of “if I have to pull this SUV over, you’re all going to be sorry” on the next family road trip to Florida.

Add an integrated 47-horsepower electric motor to a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, along with a pair of 36-hp electric motors (one connected to each rear wheel), and you’ve got an SUV that can rocket off the line like a muscle car. Based on learnings from developing the Acura NSX supercar, the MDX uses an enhanced version of its Super Handling All-Wheel Drive system on the Sport Hybrid.

This system incorporates torque vectoring, a technology that directs power to the outside rear wheel during cornering maneuvers. The benefit to drivers is sharper handling, crisper turn-in and all-around sportier handling — plus much better gas mileage than the gasoline-only versions of the MDX.

A Standard front-wheel drive MDX starts at $44,200. Add SH-AWD, and the starting price is just $46,200, while the Sport Hybrid begins at $51,960.

Compare similarly equipped and equivalently powered competitors like Infiniti QX60, Lexus RX, BMW X5, Mercedes-Benz GLE and Volvo XC90, and MDX starts to look like a bargain. The value of the Sport Hybrid especially stands out.

Gasoline-only MDX models have three modes available on the Integrated Dynamics System: Comfort, Normal and Sport. Comfort delivers the least steering effort, softest suspension settings and most muted throttle response from the drive-by-wire system. Normal dials in a balanced, slightly tighter feel for all three systems, perfect for everyday driving. Sport puts a more precise edge on everything, stiffening the suspension, tightening throttle response and sharpening steering. 

The Sport Hybrid’s Integrated Dynamics System adds another driver-selectable mode, Sport+, which puts the transmission into first gear and makes maximum battery power available for the best launch performance, and avoids electric-only driving. The levels of control from the Integrated Dynamics System allow drivers to tune in the mode that best suits their driving style and road conditions.

Fill up an MDX Sport Hybrid with premium gasoline, and the EPA predicts that you won’t need to stop again for over 500 miles, thanks to a 19.4-gallon gas tank and fuel economy estimates of 26 mpg city/27 mpg highway/27 mpg combined.

You’ll have to stop a little more frequently to fill up other MDX models, but not substantially so. With its combination of range, comfort, safety and luxury features, the 2018 Acura MDX is one of the best road-trip vehicles available for 2018, and a worthy winner of the AutoWeb Buyer’s Choice Best luxury suv Award.