We’ve been a little disappointed with the Acura cars we’ve seen lately, so the 2008 Acura TL Type-S surprised us with its fun performance. Last year’s Acura RL in particular was a letdown, as its electronics were old and its performance wasn’t particularly fun or economical. But the 2008 Acura TL Type-S proved to be a car we wanted to drive. And although its electronics are dated, its audio system is one of the best around.

A good part of what made this TL fun was that Type-S trim, signifying the sport-tuned version of the car. The Type-S gets a slightly bigger V-6 engine than the base model, and a limited slip differential. But it’s still a front-wheel-drive car, making handling a bit weird, and the optional five-speed automatic transmission kills the car’s performance. Fortunately, our test car came with Honda’s six-speed close ratio manual, a transmission we’ve enjoyed on many other Honda cars such as the S2000 and the Civic Si.

Test the tech: GPS sport drive
As our car was equipped with navigation, we took it out on a search for good driving roads. GPS is the perfect companion for our favored activity of exploring, as we can drive into all sorts of unknown territory with no fear of getting lost. For our drive, we set our initial destination as Kentfield, just north of San Francisco.

On the first leg of our drive, we found the TL Type-S very manageable in traffic through the city, dealing with start-stop conditions and quick lane changes to avoid double-parked cars, using second and third gear work through it all. The navigation system in the TL Type-S has live traffic, supplied through XM satellite radio, so we could see by the green lines highlighting the Golden Gate Bridge that cars were moving above 40 mph. Once we crossed the Bay and got onto the freeway, we could open the car up a bit. The 286 horses from the engine were just as lively at 20 mph as they were at 70 mph, letting us roar along in the fast lane.

But the nav system guided us off the freeway, taking us through suburban streets to Kentfield. After that, we continued north, heading for an area where the navigation system showed winding roads with infrequent intersections. As we drove, the roads got more and more interesting. We sped along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, a two-lane road with some good stretches but too much traffic for any real fun, which led us to the Nicasio Valley Road. The navigation system’s maps made this road look like fun, and we weren’t disappointed. The road had little traffic and many good corners, so we were able to put the TL Type-S through its paces.

We get our performance computer hooked up for a drive down a fun country road.

On our first good corner, we downshifted and braked, then hit the gas as we attacked, following our line through it. The car had plenty of power for this maneuver, but we immediately had to compensate for some understeer. It wasn’t excessive, but more than we would expect on a performance-oriented car. We also noticed a little body roll. We continued up the road, trying out more corners and getting more familiar with the car’s handling, keeping on in a northerly direction on the equally fun Point Reyes-Petaluma Road.

At some point we reckoned a road trip to Oregon wasn’t a good fit for the day, so we checked the navigation to figure out how to get back to San Francisco. We decided to try the Hicks Valley Road, which the map showed heading over to the coast. This stretch proved to be roughly paved with many very tight corners; in other words, a real challenge. As we dove into these hard turns, the TL’s front tires felt like they were squirming around, probably because of the limited slip differential fighting with the traction control. At this point we wished Acura had equipped the TL Type-S with the all-wheel-drive system from the RL and RDX. But weird control feeling aside, the car didn’t lose traction. The rest of our drive was a scenic and much slower cruise, because of tourist traffic, down Highway 1 and back into San Francisco.
Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 2% [?]