GMC Acadia

What We Like

Decent handling for its size

As with the previous Acadia, the new model goes through corners pretty well for a three-row midsized SUV. The steering has a nice effort—it’s not too light, but not too heavy, and it turns into corners in a natural fashion. We also appreciate that the steering delivers at least a modicum of feedback to the driver about the road texture and front-tire grip level. Body roll is kept in check nicely at regular speeds, and the Acadia maintains good composure through bumpy bends in the road. Still, when you pick up the pace on a curvy two-lane, you’re well aware of the Acadia’s size and weight. While it does possess some responsiveness to midcorner changes in throttle, the vehicle is far from sporty and certainly not as athletic as the Ford Explorer or Mazda CX-90.

Relatively comfortable ride

Some SUVs suffer from stiff suspension tuning, but we think GMC did a nice job with the Acadia, similar to the previous generation. It’s on the firmer side of things, for sure, but it’s absorbent when it counts. Although potholes and transverse ridges aren’t completely isolated from the cabin, we haven’t experienced any truly harsh moments so far. The body exhibits only minimal side-to-side rocking motions, unlike in many SUVs, which tend to sway occupants back and forth on undulating roads.

The turbo-four works well

With 328 horsepower on hand, the Acadia’s new turbocharged four-cylinder engine isn’t short on grunt. Besides having ample oomph for most situations, the throttle and transmission are tuned well for smooth driving, providing a predictable delivery of power. The Acadia also doesn’t suffer from any annoying hesitations off the line (unlike in many vehicles these days), whether from a full stop or a rolling one. Most upshifts are pretty subtle, and downshifts are decent but can occasionally be a bit rough. The transmission stays in tune with your right foot and the terrain, without much in the way of low-rpm lugging, a malady we see often with turbo-fours. And there’s decent power when you need it; put the accelerator pedal to the floor, the eight-speed automatic transmission downshifts quickly, and the engine provides vigorous steam. But there’s no hiding that this is a small engine trying to move a relatively heavy vehicle. You often have to rev the four-cylinder high if you’re trying to move quickly down the road.

Spacious second-row seat

The Acadia’s standard second-row captain’s chairs offer plenty of room for passengers. There’s headroom to spare, generous space for your feet underneath the front seats, and a good amount of underleg support. Both the door- and the inner armrests are well-positioned, but the one on the door has pretty thin padding for your elbow. The seat itself is flat, with hardly any contouring to help hold you in place, but the padding is comfortable.

One of the better third-row seats

Most third-row seats, almost regardless of the size of the SUV, are best left for children. But the Acadia has one of the roomier and more comfortable third rows, with the biggest difference being that the bottom cushion isn’t as low to the floor as in many SUVs. This results in a more comfortable knee bend for adult passengers. Even with that slightly higher position, headroom remains decent enough for average-sized adults. Still, underleg support is minimal and knee space can be tight, depending on how generous the second-row passenger chooses to be with their fore/aft adjustment. It’s also unfortunate, though common for the class, that the outer armrest is plastic without any padding.

Plenty of small-item storage

Befitting a proper family-friendly SUV, the Acadia is graced with lots of in-cabin storage nooks and crannies. The center console is well-designed, with a wireless phone-charging pad that does a good job of keeping your phone from sliding around, along with a handy bin to the right of it where you can stash another phone or keys so that you don’t have to use one of the cup holders as a de facto storage spot. There’s a large bin underneath the center armrest, along with an open bin beneath the “floating” center console. While we appreciate that this bin has a grippy rubber base to keep items from sliding around, the area itself is low and difficult to access, negating some of its usefulness.

What We Don't Like

The turbo-four sounds terrible

If the previous V6 emitted a “mellow growl” when accelerating, as we said in our road test of the last-generation model, then the new turbocharged four-cylinder’s sound is more like a raspy snarl. There’s a gravelly note to it, even when just moving out moderately, that detracts from the whole vehicle. Although the engine settles into the background when just cruising along at an even speed, the din is noticeable if the tachometer crests at 3,300 rpm. The problem is that it needs to do that often, even when you’re not trying to move out particularly quickly. Don’t be surprised if your passengers ask you if there’s something wrong with the engine. We had similar complaints about the engine in the 2024 Chevrolet Traverse we’re testing.

On the bright side, most other aspects of the Acadia are pretty quiet, with well-controlled road and tire noise, and only a small amount of wind rustling on the highway.

Front-seat comfort

Few of the drivers who have spent time in the Acadia so far have fallen in love with the front seats. They just aren’t all that comfortable. The main problem appears to be that the seat has too much built-in lumbar support, which forced one of our drivers to have to recline the seatback more than usual to alleviate the feeling. Not surprisingly, those who appreciate stout lower-back support in their seats were happy with it, especially because both front seats come standard with four-way lumbar adjustment, a relative rarity in this segment. The seat also isn’t big on lateral support, especially the bottom cushion. It’s quite flat, which makes it feel more like you’re sitting on the seat than in it.  

Driving position

Some aspects of the Acadia’s driving position aren’t agreeing with us. For example, the door armrest sorely lacks padding, which gets uncomfortable for your left elbow quickly. The center armrest has thicker padding, but it’s too firm. And some of our taller drivers have reported that the left footrest is too close and upright, which makes them feel like their space is restricted. Further adding to the issues for tall drivers is that the steering column is short on telescope range, which means you might not be able to sit as far away from the dashboard as you would like in order to be comfortable.

On the other hand, there’s tons of headroom, along with a decided lack of center console intrusion with the driver’s right knee due to its floating design, which leaves space beneath it. We also appreciate that there’s a clear view of the gauges through the steering wheel, something that’s becoming more rare these days due to automakers using wide, rectangular instrument screens.

Some odd controls

The layout of the Acadia’s controls is far from the worst we’ve seen, but GMC made some choices here and there that leave us puzzled. The biggest head-scratcher is the location of the small emergency flashers button up on the overhead console, mixed in with the SOS and OnStar buttons. This out-of-the-way location and the diminutive size of the button make it difficult to press it in an emergency, for example, if you want to warn drivers behind you about traffic suddenly coming to a stop ahead on the highway.

If you’ve been reading Consumer Reports for a while, you know that we like physical knobs for volume and tuning. And while it’s great that the Acadia has a large volume knob at the bottom-center of the infotainment screen, its nearly flush design makes it difficult to grab. We appreciate that the climate system has physical toggle switches for adjusting the temperature, fan speed, and the front and rear defrost. But the touchscreen buttons for functions such as the heated front seats are annoying because you have to press on the heated-seat icon, then press on another pop-up icon to either activate them or change the setting. This means that anything you do with the heated seats requires at least two presses.

And then there’s the drive-mode button; it’s on the left side of the driver’s dashboard, far out of the way. Worse, the pop-up related to the driving mode shows up on the center infotainment screen, not the driver’s instrument screen. This means the proximity between the button you’re pressing on the dash and the readout you’re cycling through on the screen are really far from each other, which takes the driver’s eyes away from the road.

Another oddity is that although the Acadia has paddle shifters located behind the steering wheel, you can’t just quickly tap one of them to accomplish a manual shift—for example, if you want to downshift to use engine braking to help slow the vehicle on a long downhill. Instead, you have to first press a button on the left side of the steering wheel with a tiny “L” on it, which then activates the paddles. This adds a needless extra step.

And finally, even the lane keeping assistance (LKA) on/off button has strange logic. It only takes one press of a button on the infotainment touchscreen to turn the system on, but it takes two presses in succession to turn it off. Worse, a pop-up comes on the screen after the first press that tells you that you have to press the button a second time, but it’s hard to read the information while driving, and the pop-up times out quickly and fades away.

No second row bench-seat option

Currently, all three Acadia trims for the 2024 model year come standard with second-row captain’s chairs without an option to order a second-row bench seat. While captain’s chairs are usually more comfortable and roomier than a bench seat, not giving buyers that option seems like a misstep because it means that anytime you carry a fifth occupant, they’ll have to climb into the third row.

What We'll Keep an Eye On

Fuel economy

As with every vehicle that goes through our auto-test program, we’ll conduct our own fuel-economy tests with the 2024 Acadia. That means we’ll hook it up to our precise fuel-flow measuring device spliced into the fuel line to get the most accurate mpg numbers possible—for city, highway, and overall. While you might expect that the Acadia’s new turbocharged four-cylinder engine should help it achieve improved fuel economy over the larger naturally aspirated V6 of the outgoing model, it appears that may not be the case. The EPA combined figure for the 2023 Acadia with the V6 and all-wheel drive is the same as that for the 2024 Acadia with the turbo-four and AWD: 21 mpg. We measured 19 mpg overall with the last V6-equipped all-wheel-drive Acadia we tested.

Grabby brakes

We’re finding the Acadia’s brakes a bit “grabby” or abrupt upon first press. This is especially noticeable at lower speeds, such as when you’re turning around or backing up in your driveway or a parking lot. But we’ve noticed this at higher speeds out on the road, too. There’s more initial braking force when you first step on the pedal than you might expect. This may just take some getting used to on our part, and on the bright side, they feel pretty powerful and confidence-inspiring when you need to stop quickly.

Third-row access

The Acadia’s standard second-row captain’s chairs leave a wide enough path between the two middle-row seats to get back to the third row—with a fair amount of ducking and contorting, of course. This is a quicker and potentially easier method than moving the second-row seat out of the way, especially since the Acadia uses an “old school” lever on top of the second-row seatback to slide and tilt the seat slightly forward. While there isn’t anything wrong with the Acadia’s lever operation, some competitors have a push-button setup that doesn’t require any physical exertion: You just press the button and the seat tilts and slides forward on its own.

Active Safety and Driver Assistance

The Acadia comes standard with several active safety and driver assistance features. These include automatic emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection, blind spot warning, rear cross traffic warning, reverse automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning, lane keeping assistance, adaptive cruise control, and automatic high beams. Some of the Acadia’s safety warnings are communicated via vibrations to the driver’s seat (called the “Safety Alert Seat”), a feature we’ve appreciated in the Acadia and in numerous other GM products.

GM’s excellent Super Cruise active driving assistance system combines adaptive cruise control and lane centering assistance, and allows hands-free (but eyes on the road!) driving on pre-mapped highways and some two-lane roads. It’s available on every trim.

The Acadia also comes standard with a rear occupant alert system, which uses rear-door logic to help prevent children and pets from dying when unintentionally left behind in a hot vehicle. There’s also a standard Side Bicyclist Alert that will warn you to not open your door, when parked on the street, if the system detects a cyclist approaching from behind.