Acura TL controls frustrate - Keep it simple, Honda

[M_Smith]

Acura TL controls frustrate - Keep it simple, Honda
[SIZE=-1]

Years ago when Honda was establishing itself in the U.S. market, they had an ad slogan appropriate for a maker of sensible cars trying to make a name for itself with a new audience: Keep it simple.
I don?t know how much the slogan contributed to Honda?s success over the years, but they might do well to revisit that advice now, and maybe heed it themselves.
A case in point is the redesigned 2009 Acura TL (Ratings and road test available to online subscribers.) Like the recently redesigned Honda Pilot, its center stack is made up of a maddening array of tiny buttons for climate and audio controls. Worse, they?re spread all over the place, rather than being sensibly grouped together. The whole mess makes it difficult to make adjustments without taking your eyes off the road, a particular challenge at night. Both the Pilot and the TL have dropped in our Ratings, their scores impacted by the control layout, among other elements. (Neither of them even has Honda?s multidirectional controller, which makes things even worse.)

A 10-year-old TL has pretty much all the same features as the new one, but somehow manages to offer them in an easy to use, uncluttered fashion. In a word, it?s simple.
I know this because I own a '99 TL. Mine actually has a couple of features the ?09 test car doesn?t:* a cassette deck and a nav system. We bought ours used and have never actually used the cassette deck, but it looks pretty simple. Alternatively, it could make a handy place to store pens, but we haven?t done that, either. The point is the dash is still cleaner to look at and use than the one in the new car.
So listen up, Honda. You may have moved on from ?Keep it simple,? both as an ad campaign and a design philosophy. But it's not too late to go back. In the mean time, I?ll take very good care of my ?99.
?Jim Travers
See how Acura and Honda rate in our automaker report cards and annual brand perception survey.
[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]Subscribe now![/SIZE]
Subscribe to [SIZE=-1]ConsumerReports.org[/SIZE] for expert Ratings, buying advice and reliability on hundreds of products. [SIZE=-1]Update your feed preferences[/SIZE]