It’s the great Acura vs Lexus reliability battle where I let you know whether or not there is any luxury car brand that can stand up against Lexus. We’re talking reliability, which means ownership costs or maintenance costs, depreciation, and just how much fun one of these Acura or Lexus cars are to own.
Life’s too short to drive boring cars lexus and acura are often compared in many many ways they’re both premium brands acura is upscale of honda and lexus upscale toyota they’re both very reliable but the bottom line is which one is more dependable if reliability is your only concern it’s a little more complicated than that reliability as well as annual operating
Costs are also somewhat mutually exclusive so let’s get into the whole conversation so maybe you can go out armed with the info to go buy the right vehicle for you if reliability is your concern let’s get into it now so using repairpal which is ultimately a collection of repairs across the nation they talk about cost and overall reliability of each particular model
And brand and that makes it a great objective comparison to see which car is in fact more dependable and while both brands emphasize the premium luxury side of the industry they both have somewhat different approaches lexus caters to more of a premium fit and finish and of course the prices commensurate where acura focuses a little bit more on value you don’t get
Quite the level of finishing usually but there’s more of a sporting attitude with the most accurate vehicles and so before we give you a few examples of specific vehicles and the problems that you’re fine with them i want to point out that you can assume based on repair pal that the average lexus will visit the repair shop unexpectedly about 0.5 times each year in
Other words probably only one in every two lexuses has to see a dealer for unexpected issues and for an acura believe it or not it’s actually 0.4 so it’s even slightly less visits to the dealer to get your acura serviced or repaired accordingly and because the relatively low cost of maintenance and operations and upkeep and repairs coupled with the low frequency
That you have to visit the dealer both vehicles according to repair pal get an overall reliability rating of 4 out of 5 stars making the decision even that much more difficult now lexus typically has a slightly higher running cost of about 551 dollars per year versus the 501 dollars for the acura per year but they’re both less than the industry average well over 600
Dollars per year so clearly both of these brands are very affordable and economical once you actually own them so let’s look at a few examples and once we’re done with that i’ll give you my summary because i really do believe i have my own personal opinion which brand is slightly more reliable but let’s take a first look at an acura how about the acura mdx right
Here right there we have the acura mdx beautifully styled let’s take a quick look first before we talk about the troubles look at the great headlights on these beauties and the wonderful wheels humble those wonderful mirrors with the little strip quite slick and i really love these handles very very sharp looking almost majestic how about the bottom rocker panels
You’ve got the nice accents there and all that chrome around there definitely gives it a shot of bling quality looking overhang here nicely finished the rear finishing looks great we have led tail lights here on this wonderful acura mdx and of course quiet it’s all wheel drive what about the exhaust tips one and two and nice little chrome trim along the bottom and
How about the sides love the contours on the sides love this little dip in there just gives it some muscularity right there and this strong looking hood for sure definitely gives this vehicle a sense of prominence what about the inside beautifully finished high quality interior almost nicer than some of the modern day bmws but what kind of problems are you having
With these beautiful mdxs well there’s not a lot of issues although there are cases where they’re talking about bad transmissions sometimes cel check engine lights p0700 series of codes indicates that you might have a bad torque converter that’s one of the key issues as well as there’s run rough running conditions in some cases and sometimes occasional stalling
Generally a very reliable vehicle but there are a few of those problem areas to be aware of and you better follow up on that with the service department before buying one but with all of that said you’re still ranked at a four out of five versus the three and a half star for the average mid-size luxury suv what about the lexus rival for that acura mdx right here we
Have the lexus rx350 very much a staple in the brand for sure very popular suv high quality finishing and some would argue even nicer finishing than the mdx beautiful lexus although some aren’t in love with that grille that’s definitely a take or leave it kind of factor here you’ve got these wonderful headlights absolutely mesmerizing how about these little vents
Beautiful and little chrome as well as extra little lights on the bottom very crisp looking front finishing on this other than that front grille which some love some don’t then on top you have that wonderful massive glass roof to allow light in for the passengers cruising in this lap of luxury f sport in this particular model and look at the great finishing on
That mirror that’s one of the prettiest mirrors i’ve seen on a modern day vehicle how about those wonderful gunmetal gray rims and i love the contour of the side of these vehicles absolutely dressed up really really nice and the back end look at the aggression on the back of that vehicle certainly looks very sporty arguably sportier looking than the acuras which
Coincidentally generally are a sportier design then cycling around to the back love this new design of tail lights and one and two exhaust tips and more chrome just like you saw on the acura but this is the rx 350 and with this shelf you can obviously see its take away from the toyota brand so what about the interior of this very very clean finishing certainly lexus
Has stepped their game up to the next level so what kind of problems have they seen in some lexus rx 350 models in the last several years well due to the variable valve timing system there’s the occasional burst oil line which results in a massive oil underneath of course lower oil pressure and potentially engine failure but that’s rare more likely you’ll just have
A slight leaking or a slight oil loss either way got to be fixed but there was an update for that also there were a problem with the radio system on here and did you know the rx350s are very very easy to steal and the worst part is there’s some thieves that seem to figure that out there’s also sometimes problems with the ac amplifier and other random check engine
Lights overall rare relatively affordable to sort out if it happens and the failure rate is not all that significant making this lexus rx 350 very popular very reliable and very easy to afford so what about the cars how about the is350 let’s do a comparison there they have a few problems overall very very reliable as well beautiful cars very popular look at that
Great grille again a little oversized not everybody loves it but these front marker lights are amazing and those headlights are beautiful too how about this gorgeous color the car certainly does have a presence gunmetal gray rims on this wonderful f sport how about those great little mirrors and the interior is high quality as well as you would expect in alexis
But you’ll notice a small standard style sunroof and wonderful keyed handles up with a great little ducktail rear trunk lid here absolutely beautiful there this one’s an all-wheel drive so it’s great for the snow and ice conditions and it’s the is-350 as we already spoke on the f-sport notice one tail pipe two tailpipes great cars all together there’s a few
Problems one being the radio navigation updates that’s been a problem there’s been random check engine light related issues also rear suspension squeaking and noises air conditioning problems and there’s been even reported cases of the sunroof blowing out but overall affordable car to run and very reliable and then we could talk about the acura tl in comparison
Now while this one’s a little bit older it still generally applies some of the same issues occur from time to time and i personally had a friend who owned an acura tl he loved it he put a lot of miles on it so they’re reliable in terms of an engine and drivetrain perspective for the most part and they do look quite sporty if you look here you’ve got some great
Rims interesting headlights slightly more conservative front grille on the older cars you’ve got a sunroof and some great lines up and down the sides of these vehicles very sporty they look sharp but a few problems check engine lights one big one being rough idling sometimes difficulty starting but the big one being automatic transmission failures that was a common
Problem with these put enough miles on them almost guaranteed you’re going to see an automatic transmission failure with these vehicles other than that they do still get a rating of about four out of five stars for reliability versus the three and a half industry standard now generally as a whole they both have their ups and downs acura’s had some problems with
Some oil burning engines obviously some automatic transmissions lexus had a few misses here as well the is-250 with the carbon fouling they were sort of gutless and there was problems there as well from time to time but generally as a rule because of the toyota reliability i my money goes to lexus if you’re looking for outright luxury and reliability but if you’re
Looking more bang for your buck the acura has you covered and with all of that said if you want to compare another great premium brand how about bmw and lexus which one’s more reliable right there you’re gonna love the video it’s gonna share all of the details for you today hope to catch you on the flip side see you next time bye
Transcribed from video
Is Acura More Reliable Than Lexus? By ExoticCar PlayPlace
