High End Luxury Cars

24699 messages, Last post on Nov 30, 2009 at 6:41 PM

You are in the Sedans Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens

What is this discussion about? Audi A8, BMW 7 Series, Jaguar XJ-Series, Lexus LS 460, Mercedes-Benz S-Class, Volkswagen Phaeton, Maserati Quattroporte, Mercedes-Benz CL-Class, Sedan

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.

Outline

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#4435 of 24699 pablo by mariner7 Mar 15, 2004 (6:36 am)
Another huge blunder by VW is when they conceived the new Golf platform, they didn't think of building a crossover off it. Now they have T-egg to fight RX & FX, but nothing to fight HL and Murano. VW would have their hands full fighting off the Japanese both here and in Europe w/o making strategic mistakes, which they made plenty of.
#4436 of 24699 syswei by ljflx Mar 15, 2004 (6:52 am)
In the past JD Power got their new car sales data from RL Polk. RL Polk tracks every car sale in the US through every state's DMV. This is also how JD Power tracks used car sales and knows - via the Polk data - which cars are being held onto. Thus they can survey satisfaction at any time during a cars existence and know exactly where that car went. The surveys are weighted but not in the true demographical (financial data on buyer income) sense because personal data about the buyer is not collected other than name and address. No information company is ever interested in the buyer - per se - just the block of constituents the buyer profiles. Car Fax - which is the company that tracks how often a car is re-sold and has a consumer relationship (the others are all B-to-B models) is now owned by RL Polk but was initially a JV between then and someone else. As I said - I went down this whole path of an auto strategy for my former company but abandoned it because we changed directions strategically due to other opportunities that materialized. Certain members of this board simply refuse to believe it but the auto industry has great respect (and fear) for the CR data and reacts immediately to it. If you notice none have ever been able to successfully sue CR and the quality of the data is the reason. I think I've said enough about all this but I know this whole area inside out. VW - a company that seems to be very confused at the moment and missed ordinary business matters such as currency hedging this past year. They were too lost on a lux strategy that only made sense if they didn't own Audi or intended to spin them off. Money wasted on the Phaeton would have been much better spent on improving car quality of both Audi and VW.
#4437 of 24699 ljflx by designman Mar 15, 2004 (8:35 am)
Perhaps you can answer this? I find it very curious how the BMW 5 series and Cayenne didn't get reviewed in CR. Both were out before the now-venerable Acura TL, especially the 2004 Cayenne which came out last year.
#4438 of 24699 Pablo - Sales figures for U.S. Ford Taurus vs. BMW 3 Series by footie Mar 15, 2004 (9:40 am)
FYI Re: Post #4431 "The BMW 3 series has long overtaken cars such as the Ford Taurus as best-sellers" taint so per JDP year ending sales reports: 2003 Ford Taurus 300,496 2003 BMW 3-Series 111,944 The entire BMW units sales for the U.S. including MiniCooper was 270,000 for 2003, about 10% less than the Taurus alone (which fell over 9% in 2003 from 2002). I don't think that the BMW 3-series has ever 'long overtaken' cars such as the Taurus. Good point about the 'massification' of the BMW market. 270,000 cars of any one kind isn't very unique.
#4439 of 24699 designman by ljflx Mar 15, 2004 (10:56 am)
They didn't review the Acura TSX either. They extensively tested the TL in February but gave no data on satisfaction or depreciation because its so new. They scored it a notch under highest reliability though (every other Acura is as high as it can go). They will tend to predict reliability based on past models and how other models in the car line are doing. They probably underscored the Acura here. The 5 is yet to be tested and they simply did not predict its reliability. I'd be glad if I were BMW because the 7 scored very poorly, the X5 scored poorly and the 3 and the Z4 were average in reliability. The Cayenne has yet to be tested and CR does not publish data if it does not have sufficient sample so I'd guess the latter is the case.
#4440 of 24699 Ljflx by prattster Mar 15, 2004 (1:05 pm)
Yeah, the new TL being a top pick is interesting since it's been on sale since fall not much time to build a reliability picture but since almost every Acura and 90% Honda's are recommended or top picks CR is pretty confident. Nonetheless, it's flying off dealers lots even prior to this good buzz. Real surprising is the '03 Toyota 4runner V6 being below average but the V8 much better than average. It being the only Toyota on the used cars to avoid list. The GX470 the only Lexus rated slightly below average. What issues were affecting the GX, small 1st year production issues? How the heck they list the LX470 as NA data it's been out since '98?
#4441 of 24699 Prattster by ljflx Mar 15, 2004 (3:57 pm)
They've had the LX like that for years so I don't get it either. The TLC always scores the highest marks possible though. A lot of reported vibration problems with the GX that some have said they have are probably behind that average score. I asked my sales guy what was going on and he said they had no reported problems out of the norm but that Lexus was changing tires because enough complaints had come in. Lexus pretty much switched over to Dunlops and Michelins and away from Bridgestones on the GX as a result. Mine is perfect and I expect it will be that way for the 3 years. GX problems have been way toned down on the GX board so maybe they are gone or very minor now. I had also heard that Lexus was overwhelmed by demand for the GX and had to scramble to up production by 35%. By the way the SC430 also scored only average in its first production year.
#4442 of 24699 by pablo_l Mar 15, 2004 (7:45 pm)
I forgot to say "in Europe". The 3 series is the best selling sedan there, period. The trend will become true in the US too, the trend upmarket is clear.
#4443 of 24699 Pablo by ljflx Mar 15, 2004 (8:27 pm)
I doubt it. The 3 series is 40% of BMW sales and will compete with BMW's own X3 in future. If the 3 were to overtake a Taurus in volume then BMW would either need to increase sales by a factor of 2.5x to 700k cars a year or have the 3 series represent 65%+ of all US BMW's sold. I don't see either scenario happening anytime soon. The 3 is just not that popular and doesn't meet the family needs the way a family sedan does. Merc1 - been kinda quiet. Maybe you're away . But anyway I finally caught up on the Maybach board. Seems MB hasn't made those cars as perfect as they represented they would. Maybe they just can't do it the way they used to anymore - even on a very low volume car.
#4444 of 24699 ljflx by merc1 Mar 15, 2004 (11:18 pm)
Yep, you're right....they've lost it. How dare Maybach deliver one defective car! Even higher priced German junk. The only "perfect" cars come from Buick and Lexus. M