The 2005 Acura RSX Premium

First things first : this car has style. The car's lines are sleek and very sporty. The interior is nice, clean and well laid out. The engine is refined, and something that you can really have fun with, no matter which RSX engine you choose. Needless to say, being married to Honda, Acura is renowned for its quality and workmanship on their cars.

The car I test drove was the 2005 RSX Premium Leather with 5-speed manual transmission. Retail for this car is $28,500 Canadian, before freight,PDI and all of those other things that they surprise you with at the last minute!!

Interior
The interior felt spacious, although with a 2-door, there certainly is not space for 2 average-sized adults to be comfortable in the back. There just would not be enough legroom. Having said that,they might have as much legroom in the back as you would get in an average economy seat on an airline. The RSX claims to seat 4 - I'd suggest no more than 2 adults :) 2 toddlers in the back will be fine. The dash has a nice orange/red illumination. The leather driver's seat was quite comfortable and provided good support for my back.
Two feature I really liked were the automatic climate control and heated seats. Although there isn't a digital readout feature for the climate control(as you'd find in a BMW or an Accord V6),a small dial controlled the temperature. Unfortunately the climate control and other buttons on the steering wheel were not illuminated in the model I test drove,which I found weird considering the pricetag. All the features you'd expect are in this car : power windows, mirrors and locks, along with an immobilizer and a fairly basic alarm. Air conditioning is also standard with all RSX models, as is a telescopic steering wheel. It's not an alarm that will page you when something goes wrong, but if someone opens the door when it's locked or breaks the window, it'll go off. I can't vouch for the sound system one way or another - I enjoy the engine more than anything in my test drives, so I tend to keep the music systems off whenever possible.

Safety
Safety wise, all RSX models come with front,side and side-curtain airbags. The doors are heavier than most in the compact class, but nothing too extreme. Also standard on all models is ABS, but traction control is not available. One thing I wasn't impressed with were the car's headlights. I was driving at night, so my expectations were that the headlights would be similar to what I've seen on other Acuras(the older model TL is very popular in my neighbourhood,and it always look like there's white light coming from the headlights in that car). This is not the case. Xenon headlights aren't available, and the headlights that were on the car I test drove didn't illuminate the road as well as I expected them to. The headlights have a nice design, but that doesn't count for much to me. Also, I didn't think much of the full-beam headlights either. In my opinion, when compared to the headlights in my Mazda 3, the RSX's headlights paled in comparison. 3-point seatbelts are standard. I should also mention that the spare tire in the back is not full-size. The trunk is of a nice size, and you shouldn't have any problem getting 1 or 2 medium-size suitcases in there. This model had 16 inch wheels - the base RSX has 15 inch wheels. Something else that surprised me was the lack of rain-sensing wipers or automatic headlights. The Mazda 3 has both of these features,although not on base models. Still, even a fully-featured Mazda 3 Sport S/GT(without any options)is less expensive(CAD$22,485) than a base RSX (CAD$24,900).

Driving Impressions
The RSX Premium Leather model has 160 horsepower at 6500rpm and about 140 pounds-feet of torque at 4000rpm. The engine felt very responsive and lively in all gears. I didn't notice much difference in terms of power with this car and the Mazda 3 sedan(i/GS trim). However, one significant difference was the size of the manual transmission shifter. The RSX's shifter was tiny in comparison, but changing gears was very easy. There are very short shifts as you don't need to move the shifter much to get from one gear to the next. The clutch was easy to depress, and I didn't have any difficulty changing gears at all. As you'd expect from the sporty RSX, the RPMs climb quickly as you accelerate. This is something you can expect from a 2 liter, and it wasn't anywhere near as smooth as my Mazda 3 - although it's difficult to compare,since my 3 is an automatic. I found the brakes to be very efficient. While I was on the test drive I came up to a traffic light but didn't see that it was red until I was very close. The RSX came to a stop in record time - fast enough to make my heart beat in record time ;) Accelerating up to 100 Kilometres was quick and painless. You're not likely going to beat a Porsche or a Mercedes, but there's more than enough power to get up to speed quickly and safely with highway traffic. It goes without saying that this car has plenty of power for city driving as well.

GAS and efficiency
I was quite surprised by the fuel economy of the car I test drove. It gets 8.6 Litres in the city and 6.4 on the highway per hundred Kilometres. Even better, it likes regular gas, whereas the type-S needs 91 octane or higher. The fuel tank is 50 litres, which is slightly better than the Mazda 3's 45 litres(which I think is WAY TOO SMALL). According to the above numbers, in ideal conditions, the RSX should get you just under 600 Kilometres to a full tank for city driving. On the highway, you'll get about 780 clicks. Very impressive. My automatic 3 gets 9.3/6.4, which isn't bad either.

Summary
The Acura badge comes with a hefty pricetag - there's no doubt about that. But, as a result, the car can be expected to be more reliable and free of mechanical or electrical problems and have a better resale value. This isn't a family car, or one that you should buy for safety, although it has good safety features. This is a car that was born to go fast, even with a 2 Litre engine. If you're looking to buy a car in this price range, I suggest you compare this with the Mazda 3 and 6, the Honda Accord and the Mitsubishi Gallant.