The 2025 Acura RDX Is More New-ish Than Actually New
Acura's compact luxury SUV gets a subtle facelift and some cabin upgrades but not much else.
We have good news and bad news about the 2025 Acura RDX. The bad news, for anyone waiting on the edges of their seat for a new RDX, is that the new model year isn’t a completely ground-up redesign with a new powertrain. The good news is we’re okay with that because we are pretty happy with what the current RDX, which is only a few years old, offers up: standard all-wheel drive, a solid 272-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, and an upscale interior.
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Even better is that while what changes there are for 2025 are subtle, they address some of the things we didn’t like about the previous model—like the infotainment system for example. Let’s take a stroll through what the new Acura RDX has to offer.
Hot SUV Summer
As previously stated, the 2025 Acura RDX is not getting a full redesign, but it is getting a welcome visual refresh. For starters, the RDX will have Acura’s new “frameless” diamond pentagon-shaped grille with a new mesh design. The base RDX gets gloss black exterior accents to set off the buyer’s chosen paint color. Buyers that choose the Advance package will get body-color-matched lower exterior trim.
All RDX trims will get a new 19-inch wheel design in Berlina Black. However, the advance package gets Berlina Black wheels with a machined finish. If you step up to the A-Spec then you get a new 20-inch 10-spoke wheel design also in Shark Grey. The A-Spec with the Advance package gets exclusive machine finished Berlina Black dubs.
The 2025 RDX gets three new colors: Solar Silver metallic which is unique to the RDX, Canyon River Blue metallic, and Urban Grey Pearl. Those last two colors come from the larger three-row MDX but are new to the RDX.
True Touch Truly Lives?
The previous RDX was plagued by the same issue we had with other vehicles in Acura’s lineup, and that’s the frustrating True Touchpad that is required to navigate the infotainment system. Acura wisely ditched the touchpad in the MDX refresh. However, it looks like Acura isn’t ready to kill it off completely, as the True Touchpad is returning in the new RDX for…reasons?
After all the guff Acura got—much of it from us—about the touchpad, which users fiddle with like a laptop's touchpad to manipulate the screen atop the dashboard—we would have thought it would be erased from all new models going forward. Yet, like Palpatine, it returned somehow.
We reached out to Acura to see where it really stands on True Touchpad. “With each model’s development, we pay close attention to the needs and demands of our customers,” said an Acura rep. “In the case of MDX, we saw significant value in adopting a new touchscreen interface including the addition of Google Built In. Application of the True Touchpad interface will continue to be a model-by-model decision.”
It looks like True Touchpad isn’t going anywhere any time soon. Considering our previous experience with it, we’re not thrilled about that, but hopefully Acura will find away to improve on the True Touchpad as it lives on.
The RDX does get an upgraded 10.2-inch display which features a new widescreen mode for Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Unfortunately, it looks like you’ll still need to navigate with that darn touchpad. If we’re lucky, Acura at least made some tweaks to make it easier to use, but we’ll have to wait until we get behind the wheel to know for sure.
The 2025 Acura RDX is set to hit dealerships later in August so if we can get our hands on one before that we’ll let you know if the updates can push the RDX up in our luxury SUV ratings.
2025 Acura RDX Pricing
Andrew Beckford’s passion for cars started as a middle schooler when his friend Richie explained how an internal combustion engine works. He was bitten by the bug and the rest, as they say, is history. He dug deep into the tuner scene and eventually wrote for Turbo Magazine, Import Tuner, Super Street. He covered car shows, feature builds, and reviewed racing games for those magazines in addition to covering motorsports including Formula Drift, Indy Car, and F1 for his personal blog. Eventually Beckford joined MotorTrend to cover the daily automotive news beat. Besides being a gearhead, Beckford has been a gamer since the ’80s and is a huge fan of the arcade racing games of the ’90s like Daytona USA, SEGA Rally, and Ridge Racer. Beckford’s a movie buff as well, especially comic book films from DC and Marvel. When car culture crosses over with gaming and entertainment, rest assured Beckford is aware of it. In addition to serving as a consultant on a “triple A” racing titles, he’s reviewed major racing games such as Forza Motorsport, Need for Speed, Gran Turismo, F1, and more. He’s also interviewed blockbuster directors including Steven Caple Jr. (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts) and Neill Blomkamp (Gran Turismo). His biggest profile to date was with Robert Downey Jr. on his love affair with cars and his show Downey’s Dream Cars on MAX. Beckford’s profile of Downey Jr. was the first print cover story written by an African American in MotorTrend’s history. Along with KJ Jones, Andrew Beckford also heads up MotorTrend’s celebration of Black History Month by spotlighting diverse voices in the automotive industry and motorsports. Beckford’s first car was a 1982 Nissan Stanza affectionately named “Stanley” by his late mother.
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