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Sedans High End Luxury Cars
24700 messages, Last post on Dec 01, 2009 at 12:24 PM
You are in the Sedans Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
Let's try to define this forum as being limited to luxury performance vehicles where the mainstream version in a typical configuration has an MSRP of at least $60k.
A luxury vehicle with a base price of $59k qualifies because it would typically be bought with some additional equipment, bringing the MSRP over $60k.
Vehicles like the E, 5, A6, M, or GS, even if available in certain versions over $60k, don't qualify because they are cars from companies that have higher end cars in their lineups.
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Replying to: tagman (Jan 21, 2006 3:39 pm)  Awesome look ! Now if all S-class looks like that, the LS would not hold a candle to the S-sedans, IMO....
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Replying to: merc1 (Jan 21, 2006 12:50 pm) Let me try this one more time. Here is the line from Len that started you off on this tirade: But if you have a lower cost to build you use that to your advantage on pricing and they continue to have a huge edge on the Germans in build cost. Len said absolutely nothing about people buying cars because of fascination with Toyota's profits. We are talking (really speculating at this point) about how the new LSes will be priced as against the Ses and the 7s (and the A8s for that matter). The point is that if Company A can build a car for $50,000 that can compete in the marketplace against another car from Company B that costs B $60,000 to make, Company A can potentially charge anywhere up to $10,000 less than Company B and still stay in business. If A can sell as much as it wants at the same price as B sets for its product, it will. But if it can't meet its sales goals at that price, A can come down and sell the car for anywhere between $50,000 to $60,000 that it needs to to get the job done. The relevancy right now? Len has been suggesting that Toyota has been moving up the price of the LS towards the S and the 7 for the last few years, and will be doing it again even more forcefully with the new versions of the LS it will be introducing. So if his surmise is correct, THE CUSTOMERS WHO ACTUALLY BUY THESE CARS WILL BE EXPERIENCING A SHRINKING OF THE PRICE DIFFERENTIAL BETWEEN THE BRANDS. Understandably, if someone is only interested in the history, or the technology of these cars, PRICING IS IRRELEVANT. But for those people who are actually looking at buying one of these cars, PRICING STRATEGIES ARE EXTREMELY RELEVANT. Now, you just have to accept that some people who frequent this forum are actually mostly interested in possibly purchasing one or more of these cars and want to learn about them. Others may be more interested in the business side of building these cars. Still others (and I assume you fall in this category) are only interested in appreciating these cars for their individualized approaches to beauty and amazing implementation of technology. Hopefully you agree that there is room in this forum for all of these folks. Pricing is very relevant to people in the first two categories. Pricing is totally irrelevant to people who only fall in the third. [For example, the fact that MB is dropping the price of the S500 by about $2K likely is not very significant to your interest in the car; for people in the first two categories it may be VERY interesting.] As long as the context of the discussion is "High End Luxury Marques", a mention of pricing strategies available to a manufacturer about to introduce a new HELM car is indeed relevant and appropriate - and to some of us, even (dare I say it?) interesting. I rest Len's case.
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Replying to: oac (Jan 21, 2006 4:22 pm) |
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Replying to: garyh1 (Jan 21, 2006 4:27 pm) |
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Replying to: oac (Jan 21, 2006 3:20 pm) |
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| Never though id see the day when people would say Lexus is as good as Mercedes-Benz or BMW | |
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Replying to: michael_mattox (Jan 21, 2006 2:23 pm) CR has recently upgraded the 5 series to satisfactory reliability. Writing from my own experience, I have had 3 BMW's since 1993 and have only had to have regular oil changes paid for by BMW, and of course, new tires. I don't believe I am the lucky exception to the rule here. BMW had a reliability problem. They listened. They fixed it. |
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Replying to: garyh1 (Jan 21, 2006 4:27 pm) IF,IF,IF,IF,IF . . . his surmise is correct . . . then I must say the "value" equation would be altered! Now, IF, IF, IF, IF, IF the "value" factor changes, then we can further surmise that the Lexus buyer will weigh less on the "value" as it relates to the historic price advantage. That, therefore leaves the "other" factors related to the buying decision. Well, that leaves "reliability" itself. That's pretty much the majority of what you hear from the "Lexus camp" nowadays. To me, that's important, but it's "thin ice", if it becomes the ONLY factor by itself. The other HELM's are generally considered reliable "enough" to be considered by prospective buyers, that's for sure, and the styling and/or handling advantages of the other HELM's need to be considered, of course. The "new" model factor always helps, so we can expect that to assist the sales of the S-Class and the LS for a while. In the long run, I think Lexus can in fact close the price gap, somewhat, due to their historic sales momentum, social acceptability of their cars, and "reliability" statistics . . . but I do not think that those factors are enough for Lexus without a "noticeable" price advantage. If the prices were about the same . . . yes, there would be those that would still buy the Lexus, of course, but, IMO, those numbers would SHRINK, and more buyers would then choose the other HELMs as the preferred choice. Let me conclude, though, by saying that I do NOT actually believe that Lexus will give up their price advantage, and that they KNOW very well what their formula for success is here . . . and you can expect them to continue with their winning and BRILLIANT formula for years to come. Hence, the Lexus price advantage MUST stay. TagMan
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Replying to: tagman (Jan 22, 2006 9:33 am) On the business side there is another important thing to consider here. Many of the same people own these prestigious brands as dealerships. But the Lexus dealerships are far more profitable than the MB dealerships. There are a number of reasons for this including the much better price elasticity Lexus gives their dealers on MSRP to dealer cost. We all should know well the power of the retailer in the distribution chain of any business segment and cars are no exception. I would expect the MB dealer network to bring a lot of pressure on MB for changes in the years to come and they will use Lexus as a big wedge. |
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