Acura Reliability Overview

Acura has 16,681 NHTSA consumer complaints across 15 distinct models in the VinItel database (1995–present). 5.9% of those complaints involved a crash, and 23 involved a fatality. Source: NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation via VinItel.

By total complaint volume, the top Acura models are: Acura MDX (4,312 complaints), Acura Tl (4,046 complaints), Acura RDX (2,554 complaints). Note that higher-volume models naturally accumulate more complaints, so per-model severity depends on sales volume and crash rate. See the full sortable ranking at vinitel.com/stats/nhtsa-complaints/acura.

Across all Acura models in the NHTSA database, the most-reported issue categories are: Airbags (1,637 complaints, 10.8% crash rate); Transmission / Drivetrain (1,440 complaints, 3.6% crash rate); Automatic Transmission (1,249 complaints, 2.0% crash rate). Crash percentages indicate how often that component failure resulted in an accident — higher percentages are safety-critical.

Acura models with the highest severity scores include Acura Legend and Acura Cl. Specific model years to avoid depend on the model — click any Acura model to see its year-by-year breakdown with complaint counts, crash rates, and recalls. Our AVOID label is applied when a year's normalized complaint rate exceeds 1.5× the model's median.

Among Acura models with at least 200 NHTSA complaints (enough data for a confident comparison), the lowest severity scores are: Acura RDX (2,554 complaints), Acura MDX (4,312 complaints), Acura Integra (758 complaints). Lower complaint volume plus lower crash/fire/injury rates indicates fewer reported safety issues per vehicle on the road.

NHTSA complaint data shows reliability varies significantly by model and year within every major brand — including Acura. A brand-level reliability verdict is misleading because it averages a bad year of one model with a great year of another. VinItel's approach: pick your target Acura model + year and view that specific page for actionable reliability data. See vinitel.com/stats/nhtsa-complaints/acura to browse all 15 Acura models.

Buying used requires two checks: (1) research the specific model + year for known problems using the NHTSA data on this page, and (2) run a VIN report on the exact car to check for hidden accidents, title issues, and odometer rollbacks. VinItel offers both — reliability research is free, individual VIN reports are $4.99 (vs. Carfax $44.99). Common Acura issues to ask about during inspection include airbags.