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.
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.
