Used 2012 Acura RL Sedan Review & Ratings

Unfortunately, the 2012 Acura RL Sedan does fall a bit short as far as luxury mid-sized sedans go. Acura's flagship vehicle is classy, gorgeous, and elite. However, with a sticker price starting at $47,900, it does not compete with the price point of other vehicles in its class. The body style of the Acura RL sedan is not nearly as eye-catching as many luxury sedan competitors, such as Infiniti M37, BMW5 Series, or Mercedes E-class.

The luxury Acura RL sedan is built with a 3.7 liter VTECH V-6 engine, which comes standard. Currently, Acura does not offer a V-8 option like many other sport utility vehicles do in this class. Considering the price point of the Acura RL sedan, the features available under the hood are simply unable to keep up. There are many competitive sedans that come in thousands of dollars lower than the Acura RL. As far as gas mileage is concerned, the Acura RL sedan gets 17 city and 24 highway, which is 2 miles per gallon better than last year's model. The gas mileage of the Acura is competitive with other luxury sedans.

As usual, Acura excels in the area of handling. The Acura RL sedan sports the Super Handling All Wheel Drive system (SH-AWD). This system is designed to automatically transition power to individual wheels to increase handling, stability, and traction.

Safety is always a consideration when making a new vehicle purchase. The Acura RL sedan has an available front impact warning system that helps the driver minimize or avoid frontal accidents by giving a warning or actually applying the emergency braking system if an accident seems unavoidable. Other safety features include front head restraints, side curtain airbags, driver and passenger front and side curtain airbags, antilock disc breaks, electronic brakeforce distribution, engine immbolizer, dusk-sensing headlights, child seat anchors and stability and traction control.

Overall, in its class, the 2012 Acura RL sedan does leave a bit to be desired. Other than the all-wheel drive system and the technology system, Acura RL did not do enough to make it to the front of the pack this year. The Acura RL does have a great base package that comes with a lot of thoughtful features, but other makes and models offer the same type of car with similar options and at a much more affordable price. So, it is hard to rationalize spending the type of money requested for this vehicle, when you can have so much more.