- 2026 Acura MDX 3-row SUV blends comfort with sporty styling.
- Pricing starts at $53,250 | Price it your way
- On sale now | See Acura MDX models near you
The 2026 Acura MDX 3-row SUV carries over after a significant refresh for 2025 that updated the interior with more user-friendly interfaces and more luxurious options. That keeps Acura’s best-selling model fresh against a host of redesigned and refreshed rivals, including the Lexus TX, Genesis GV80, and the Lincoln Aviator.
The MDX leans more toward the town than country side of design, avoiding all the cladding and boxy off-road SUV elements dominating the industry. We appreciate its subtle but sporty profile, fronted by a 3D mesh grille that appears to be bending time and motion past its checkmark running lights and down its smooth sides.
This kind of muted elegance carries over to the updated interior. Let’s revisit the cabin of this 3-row SUV.
Comfort, Cargo and Passenger Room
The MDX seats seven passengers in relative comfort, but unlike the related Honda Pilot or other Honda vehicles, Acura doesn’t make them bigger than rivals. Like other Honda vehicles, though the MDX’s versatile seating arrangement stands out.
The MDX comes with three seats in the second row, but the narrow middle seat can be folded down into an armrest with cupholders — or a divider for bickering siblings — or it can be removed entirely. It weighs about 25 pounds, so it’s not a heavy lift, and it creates an aisle to the two seats in the third row. Unlike the Pilot or the Honda Odyssey minivan, however, the removed seat does not fit in the cargo storage area. The covered storage hold is too shallow, but if you wanted to remove it while on the go, that seat could fit behind the third-row seats.
Headroom and legroom (38.5 inches) in the second row can easily house 6-footers behind 6-footers, and the push-button sliding seats make it easy to get in and out of the third row, even with the middle seat intact. But with just 29.1 inches of legroom, the wayback seats in the third row are best for grade-schoolers. That’s about the same as the Lincoln Aviator, while the GV80 is slightly larger. For more space, look to the Lexus TX with 33.5 inches.
Cargo room measures up about the same: enough without being generous.
Where comfort matters most is up front, where driver and passenger occupy standard 12-way power seats with lumbar support. Those memory seats are heated and covered in synthetic leather upholstery.
Features and Tech
Those comfy front seats are supplemented with a good range of standard equipment and much-improved user interfaces. The most notable upgrade from MDX models just two years prior is a prominent 12.3-inch touchscreen that replaces the prior finicky trackpad in the console, which was difficult to operate while driving.
That enabled Acura to redesign the center console as well, integrating USB-C ports, a wireless device charger, and storage under the elbow rest. The infotainment system runs on Google built-in, so the graphics are crisp and it’s responsive. Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard, and fortunately, there are standalone buttons for climate control, heated seats, volume, and drive modes.
Luxury options range from massaging front seats to a 19- or 31-speaker Bang & Olufsen premium sound system.
Standard driver-assist features include recently improved hardware and software for smoother adaptive cruise control, a more sensitive blind-spot monitoring system, and a sharper automatic emergency braking system.
Materials and Design
Even on top trims, Acura relies on gloss black plastic around the vents and center stack, as well as around the electronic gear shifter buttons mounted on the console. It attracts dust and fingerprints, but mostly blends into the background with the aluminum accents. We like the option to opt for open-pore wood trim on the dash and door panels on Advance models. In an odd move, Acura makes the wood or brushed aluminum console option distinct from the door panel option, and they’re limited based on trim.
Most trims feature a range of leather upholstery with suede-like insets and contrast stitching. For more color pop, consider the red leather upholstery limited to A-Spec and Type S models.
Build and price your own version of the 2026 Acura MDX, see this week’s Kelley Blue Book Fair Purchase Price, or check out Acura MDX models for sale near you.
