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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: designman (Nov 17, 2006 7:11 am) TagMan
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Replying to: designman (Nov 17, 2006 7:11 am) Okay, here's the difference between "Performance Engineering" (isn't that just design choice?) vs. QC Engineering: individual AMG and M projects typically cost less than $100 million, some only a few million dollars in R&D cost. Give me $100k (heck even $10k), I can make a typical BMW better performing than it is in stock form; here "performing" meaning handling, BMW's forte; BMW has nothing special when it comes to engine output in the overwhelming majority of its cars or weight reduction. QC engineering on the other hand is an entirely different. Making consistent and reliable cars entails massive capital investment in robotics, running into billions of dollars for a platform, in addition to whatever design choices made related to products. It involves process engineering. You can probably see the vast difference in capital requirement between "tens of million" vs. "billions." A billion is 1000 million not 10 million. BTW, I'm not saying BMW is doing it wrong, given the context of its competitive environment. Training workers to accommodate product variation/update is a lot of cheaper than spending billions on acquiring new robots. There is a trade-off however in the end result. This difference in approach also explains why BMW and MB can offer more product variants whereas Toyota/Lexus tend to offer less variants despite having greater volume of sales. Poor little BMW quality-control engineers ain't good fuh nuttin'. They only put their money where their mouth is with a 4-year warranty with free maintenance and great lease deals, the latter of which has everyone perplexed Warranty and leas subsidies are partly gambles based on the interest rate difference between Euro vs. Dollar donominated debt over the past few years. Some of it is just plain old marketting ploy to defend an artificial MSRP; e.g. there is no way the financing arm itself can make money from a deal that entails 1.5% lease interest rate when the short-term borrowing cost is 5.25% in the US and 3.25% in Eurozone. Warranty and lease subsidies can book "sales" up front, but eventually there will be massive write-offs . . . they always do. More Toyota worship and sanctimony. Not really. Someone who worships Lexus in HELC would not be mentioning Toyota.
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Replying to: dewey (Nov 17, 2006 4:20 am) Apologize for my embarassingly bad anglish I erroneously wrote: The fact that a such a small company like Jaguar which happens to be owned by a financially trouble parent(Ford) is proof that any auto manufacture can be successful in achieving outstanding reliability and sales service success. Correctly I should have written: The fact that such a small financially troubled marque like Jaguar( owned by an even more financially troubled Ford) can accomplish such high ratings is proof that any auto manufacture can be successful in achieving outstanding reliability and sales service.
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You might wonder, if you were reading recent posts. Fortunately, members are given a hint with the make/model listing at the top of the page, right after "What is this discussion about?" along with the paragraph defining the topic. Let's stick to the vehicles and not engage in brand wars, namecalling, or general manufacturer quality, please. As always, conversation baiting other members is off-limits. |
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Replying to: dewey (Nov 17, 2006 8:00 am)  TagMan |
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