2025 Acura ADX First Drive Review: We’ve Seen This Movie Before

The car business is a lot like Hollywood in that in a sea of obligatory sequels and ill-advised remakes, it’s not every day that we get a truly new IP. The 2025 Acura ADX may be a whole new name, but do not be fooled: we’ve seen quite a bit of this movie before.

Functionally, the ADX is an Integra SUV. It’s built on the same platform, uses the same powertrain, and borrows quite a lot of interior bits. Physically smaller than the RDX and MDX (but, per Acura, bigger than the Euro competition), the ADX sits alongside the Integra as Acura’s entry-level products.

The Basics

Credit where it’s due, the ADX is a decent-looking little car from the outside. The hood is long, there’s a squat wideness in its rear quarters, and the pentagon grille and angry headlights really work. The taillights somehow feel a notch too big for the body, but on the whole, it looks like a mini MDX, and this shade of Urban Gray Pearl shifts colors in the sun, becoming yellow when hit directly with UV rays.

Inside, the steering wheel, climate controls, shift lever, and screens (10.2 inches in the instruments, 9 inches in the middle) are all Integra stuff, which in turn means it’s all Civic stuff. Not necessarily a bad thing—we love the Civic around here. The dash itself does get a unique design that’s visually similar to the electric ZDX’s and elevates it above those cars quite a bit. Red, soft-touch surfaces, stitching, and brightwork make the ADX feel fancier than its roots, and glossy black plastic has this slightly knurled texture to it which surely makes dust, scratches, and fingerprints less obvious than if it were smooth.

This interior’s biggest flaw—not the only Honda product to suffer from this, by the way—are the uncomfortable seats. They feel fine for the 10-minute test drive you might go on with a salesperson and they might even be fine for the first hour of behind-the-wheel ownership, but anything beyond that and my lower back starts to get sore.

Another area where there’s room for improvement is, ironically, the sound system. Spring for the top A-Spec Advance Package like I got in this test car and the ADX comes with 15 Bang & Olufsen speakers. B&O is new for Acura (it used to use ELS), but the audio quality here is straight-up not that great. The bass just isn’t there and acoustic details come out borderline muddy.

To be fair, this is likely due to the fact that the ADX is entry-level luxury, after all, and I don’t recall being very impressed by the Integra’s ELS system either. But that justification begins to feel hollow when you remember the Mitsubishi Outlander’s new Yamaha system I sampled just a couple of weeks ago is clearly superior to this and accomplishes it with fewer speakers and a lower price, to boot.

On the brighter side, the rear quarters are reasonably spacious. Acura says its 37.7 inches of legroom is class-leading and it indeed trumps the Audi Q3’s 36.1 inches and the BMW X1’s 37 inches, but per Mercedes measurements, the GLA boasts 38 inches back there, so yeah. Rear passengers get their own vents and USB-C ports, but the tops of the doors are hard plastic if you care about that sort of thing. Cargo volume—24.4 cubic feet, 55.1 cubes with the seats folded—is also said to be among the biggest in the segment. (Fact check: True. The ADX’s cargo area is bigger than the Q3’s and GLA’s but beat by the X1’s.)

Oh, and the paddle “shifters” behind the steering wheel are metal. Nice!

Driving Experience

Quotes around shifters, though, because the ADX doesn’t actually have gears—it’s a CVT mimicking the behavior of a traditional automatic, which it actually does quite well. Power comes from a 1.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder making 190 horsepower and 179 lb-ft of torque. Flooring it from a light, the ADX is not a quick car but once it gets going, it shows momentary flashes of boostiness and pep (this is, after all, the same motor found in the Honda Civic Si). Sport mode, which holds revs higher, helps.

As a thing to guide through corners, the ADX is certifiably not bad, although it’d be hard for it to be considering its bones. The suspension may have been “sport-tuned” but remains comfortable over uneven pavement, perhaps even verging into floaty territory. I did a whole 90-minute drive in this car without once consciously thinking about its brake pedal, which is probably a good sign.

Flick one of those cold, clinky paddles behind the steering wheel and the simulated shifts are surprisingly convincing in that the “shifts” happen very quickly and with a satisfying snap. The fact that these are metal, as much as I hate to admit it, completes the illusion nicely, giving a taste of high performance without the associated costs or the risk of losing your license.

Pair that with a light-feeling, robust chassis, and precise steering, and the ADX is an easy performer both around town and on a winding road. But it’s also a lot louder than I’d like a luxury crossover to be. Road noise felt especially intrusive despite Acura’s claims of additional sound insulation in the fenders, front floor under cover, and carpets. Also, the steering could be a tad less twitchy on the highway—quick responses and a light rack, boons in Sport mode-oriented driving, become liabilities when trying to keep things straight on the interstate.

Perhaps Acura wants us to use lane-keep for that stuff, though. To its credit, AcuraWatch adaptive cruise and lane-keep work really well at automating mindless highway cruising.

A proper test of this car’s Snow mode will have to wait but, for what it’s worth, available all-wheel drive can send more than 50% of the torque to the rear, and the ADX surprisingly gets Acura’s first-ever implementation of hill descent control.

Acura ADX Features, Options, and Competition

• Base: Starting at $36,350, the 2025 ADX comes standard with a 10.2-inch digital instrument cluster, a nine-inch touchscreen in the middle, wireless Apple CarPlay, a wireless charger, four USB-C ports throughout, heated front seats, a regular-size moonroof, and AcuraWatch ADAS and active safety. AWD is a $2,000 à la carte add-on across the board.
• A-Spec: For $39,350, the ADX A-Spec expands the moonroof to panoramic size and bundles in suede sectioned seats with contrast stitching that are also ventilated up front, a flat-bottom perforated leather steering wheel, interior mood lighting, a power-adjust front passenger seat, stainless steel pedals, red stitching, red gauge needles, and dark gray metallic dash trim.

• A-Spec with Advance Package: $43,350 gets you the most expensive ADX available (for now). The Advance Package throws in leather seats, a multi-view camera system, Google built-in, power-folding mirrors, and those 15 Bang & Olufsen speakers. I would advise sticking with the regular A-Spec if only the heated steering wheel weren’t locked behind the Advance Pack as well.

The Acura ADX competes with the BMW X1, Audi Q3, Mercedes-Benz GLA, and Lexus UX. On paper, the ADX is the least powerful but it’s also the least expensive. ADX is, as mentioned, one of the bigger, more spacious entries in this segment, perhaps making it the practical choice out of all five.

Fuel Economy

Despite a fuel-sipping-yet-fun-to-drive two-motor hybrid system being one of the greatest achievements of modern Honda, luxury arm Acura continues to ignore the technology. Hence, the front-drive ADX gets a just OK 26 mpg in the city, 31 on the highway, and 28 combined while the AWD is, naturally, slightly worse, getting 25 city, 30 highway, and 27 combined. And although these figures are right in line with this car’s German, also-not-hybrid competition, those cars have bigger, more powerful 2.0-liter engines. Shoppers in this space looking for ultimate efficiency will want the 42-mpg Lexus UX, which is hybrid-only.

Over 130 mixed miles driven in this AWD model, I observed 26 mpg in the ADX.

The Early Verdict

The car business is a lot like Hollywood in that even if everybody involved tries their best, it may not be worth it unless you get a little creative with the numbers. The 2025 Acura ADX runs into the classic entry-level luxury car problem of being hard to justify without some serious lease payment or tax-time business expense chicanery.

It borrows too much (or in the case of powertrains, too little) from the “lesser” vehicles in its corporate food chain to represent good value. But it also can’t undercut the vehicles that sit above it on luxury, so it doesn’t feel that worthy as a purely emotional purchase either.

Taken in isolation, it does look nice, it’s far from bad to drive, and there are certainly worse interiors out there, but the short-drives-only seats, meh stereo, and unluxurious road noise make it one of the more flawed offerings in Honda/Acura’s entire portfolio.

Quick Take

Not a bad car in itself, but hard to justify against the rivals—or its own siblings.

Got a tip or question for the author about the ADX? You can reach him here: chris.tsui@thedrive.com

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