One of the best things about moving to Los Angeles from North Carolina was discovering the outrageous cadre of TV weathermen with vaguely meteorological-sounding names: Dallas Raines, Johnny Mountain, Fritz Coleman.
If I were a weatherman I would call myself Rod Lightning.
The Acura TL threatens to put these guys out of their shiny suits. This car offers real-time weather graphics, just like your local newscast's Accu-Mega-3D-Doppler-9200 radar, or whatever. The service, bundled with the car's XM satellite subscription (the Ford Flex has a similar service), comes as part of the car's technology package.
I checked the screen in the TL during my test drive and learned that, apparently, there was no weather in Los Angeles that day. However, scrolling across the U.S. map, I found that, for instance, the weather in Cleveland was a Dante-esque perdition of snow and freezing cats and dogs.
I love L.A.
Technology -- the sheer, dizzy, LED mass of it, piled high -- has always been Acura's raison d'etre. And the new, fourth-generation TL doesn't disappoint.
There are two versions of this car: the base model TL, with a 280-horsepower engine and front-wheel drive, starting around $34,000; and the well-favored, if hilariously named, TL Super Handling All-Wheel Drive (SH-AWD) model. The SH-AWD -- the one I tested -- pushes all the techno-chips onto the table for $43,995.
Under the hood is a 3.7-liter naturally aspirated V-6 putting out 305 hp -- a good trick right there -- while returning 17 miles per gallon in city driving and 25 on the highway with super-low emissions.
This bit of arrow-smithing is attached to a five-speed sequential automatic gearbox, with paddle shifters behind the steering wheel. Finally, the torques emerge through Acura's signature SH-AWD system.
Think of this as front-wheel drive with benefits.
In normal, shoot-me-I'm-commuting driving, up to 90% of torque is directed to the front wheels, for better fuel efficiency. When you start to thrash the TL, accelerating hard and sawing at the wheel, the system's computer says, "Aha, he's gone mental." The torque distribution slides toward the rear wheels, up to a maximum of 70%, for better dynamic performance.
