Days old 2020 rdx a-spec. I like the car but I don't like how it handles on the highway. It wanders back and forth requiring constant correction whether it's me or lane assist driving. I would like to know what the alignment specs should be before I ask Acura to measure them....toe, caster, etc

Anyone else had this experience?

 

these are the after numbers. The tech didn't yet have the 2020 numbers so he used 2019.
It ended up being toe-in. The alignment guy reset it to a bit "toe out" and removed some
air from the right front tier. I knew about that part, but after he fixed both; it drives wonderfully.
It was not that far out of spec either but his changes made all the difference.

 

After owning for months, my feeling is that I wish there were a driving mode beyond Comfort mode. As I increase to the two sport modes, steering becomes stiffer, and I do like that when I'm zipping around back roads. But driving straight on the highway, Comfort mode is the easiest to steer with. But I wish there were an even more comfortable or easier power steering for long distance driving. Obviously I can turn on the auto steer and I do that. But, just correcting the steering like you have to do for any vehicle takes too much wrist effort, in my opinion. I wish there were a true power steering mode for highway driving. The auto steer helps for sure, but it tends to drive too close to the right-hand lines in the highway and therefore too close to vehicles in the right lane. It also tends to just bounce back and forth between lines. So, I end up assisting it quite a bit. That constant meandering back and forth between lines is sort of annoying to me. I drive better than it does, but it requires too much wrist muscle. My two cents on steering.

 

Hi Jeff,
I just read your post and I recently purchased a 2020 RDX Aspec and I am experiencing the same thing when on the highway with keeping the car in lane while driving. When you referenced the "tech" were you referring to Acura's tech? If so, what should I tell service when taking the car to Acura? thanks for your help

 

Hi Deb,
It was an independent alignment shop technician. I wanted to take it there first as I didn't trust the Acura dealership or their service department where I purchased the car due to the lies during the purchase transaction. It is my feeling that the mechanical controls that are attached to the steering to allow the car to autosteer actually make manual steering more difficult. It may be sort of a catch 22. In any case, my car meanders back and forth down highways and even the auto steering has to correct for that back and forth, like it hits a virtual left wall then bounces off and goes over and hits the virtual right wall....all the way down the highway, back and forth, over and over. And when I do the steering manually, it requires a little bit of wrist strain that builds up if I drive any distance. Like I said above, the fix for me would be a setting beyond comfort mode that behaved like power steering from a big american car of the 70's and less like sporty rack and pinion "in comfort mode". But Acura's idea of comfort mode is not comfortable to me. Or, we just have lemons that are within alignment spec and something else is causing this phenomena. Hope that helps.

 

Thanks for the info Jeff!

 

Thanks a lot!