I am curious about how your tires are wearing. My assumption is that the FWD models' front tires will wear more quickly than the AWD's 4 tires, overall, even with regular rotation, due to the amount of hp and torque sent to the front wheels. I could be way off, but want to know for future considerations.
I've got about 30k KMs on the car and since I use winter tires for 5-6 months out of the year it's harder to tell. Having said that, everything seems to be wearing evenly at this point.
Tires are wearing evenly on my AWD. I would however think that a FWD V6 would wear the tires pretty good simply because it can light them up so easily lol. Also for weight on the front.
That being said, tire rotation shouldn't be a negative Id think when purchasing a car. My Genesis went through a rear set every summer.
The AWD on the TLX still has a front-wheel drive bias. To save gas, AWD turns off and it is in front-wheel drive. That probably contributes to the front tires being more worn than the rear wheels. Also, only 90% of power is sent to the back wheels with SH-AWD. The front tires are still spinning faster than the rear tires, contributing to more tire wear in the front.
Pardon my ignorance, but given the same sized wheels front and back how is it possible for the front to be spinning faster (eg doing more rotations) than the back unless the wheels are "burning rubber?" So far, my the back end of my car has gone exactly the same distance as the front end.
The AWD does reduce rubber burning starts, though. Tire wear is also related to bearing weight. Since the engine is in the front those wheels will tend to wear faster. That is independent of the presence of SH-AWD, though.
My understanding of the TLX SH-AWD is that there is always some power to the rear wheels. Check this out -- I just bought a new AWD Pilot, and am glad to see it is SH-AWD Anyway, in theory, I would think the AWD system would mitigate premature front tire wear.
SH-AWD on the 2015 Acura TLX and the 2016 MDX, i-VTM4 on the 2016+ Honda Pilot
On the latest TLX and MDX, Acura “secretly” changed the SH-AWD system design. Below is a cut-away image showing its mechanical structure, you can see it can be considered to be a variant of the Honda VTM-4.
The major functionality differences between this new SH-AWD and the “old” VTM-4 are:
1. Rear wheels will always get power;
2. Torque vectoring feature in the rear wheels (the hardware of VTM-4 can do this too, however Honda chose to not implement it)
Compared to the previous SH-AWD, this new SH-AWD has these different features:
1. Overdrive ratio raised to 2.7% (from 1.7%) – this will decrease the possibility that SH-AWD becomes ineffective, as discussed in the above “When SH-AWD Will Not Work” section;
2. Hydraulically-controlled clutch (old SH-AWD: Electromagnetic clutch)
3. Smaller and lighter
Simply speaking, clutch packs in the new SH-AWD system are responsible for 100% of the workload, with the increased 2.7% overdrive ratio, the wear and overheating issue should be more serious than before. The reason why Acura can still let such system pass at least 10% of the torque during cruising in a straight line is: progress in the material technology make it possible to manufacture clutch plates with excellent anti-wear properties, so although there are lots of friction wear and heating under normal operating conditions, the new SH-AWD component can still maintain good reliability.
For the 2016 and up Honda Pilot, although Honda is marketing its AWD system as “i-VTM4″, it is in fact identical to the latest SH-AWD.