Acura TLX discontinued

trd1zz said:
I don't see many w126 outside of car shows. But when I do rarely see one actually being used as a daily driver it's usually a diesel, and for some reason most have rust on the lower body panels.

I don't see many E39 though? Although with E39 you are now encroaching on the time period that LS430 enters the scene. LS430 are definitely more plentiful out there on the roads as daily drivers than any comparable MB/BMW of this time. Again, UZ engine still purring like a kitten.

That said, from this time period, I do see plenty of W220 and W211. The problem is they are usually parked on the side of the road especially in inner cities with the Airmatic suspension collapsed, and the car literally sitting on top of the tires. Completely un-driveable. They are so worthless to begin with, that once their suspension goes (for the 4th or 5th time) it's not even worth the owner's trouble to call a tow truck. They just abandon it. Eventually the police mark it after the car doesn't move for months and the city tows it away. Straight to the crusher.
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Same problem in Lexus, ask me how I know. Lasts same time, it has the same supplier as MB and BMW. What is the most common conversion-upgrade on GX470?
Lexus is bought by older people. There is no discussion about that. MB and especially BMW attract younger people, especially at that time, and they change vehicles more often. The second and third owners are little Johnny from down the street who wants to look cool. Lexus ain't gonna attract girls. No one looks cool in LS400.
Somehow, my FIL had two transmissions replaced in his Lexus, and I never had to do that in BMW. So, spare us this attempt to feel more secure about your own decisions.
 
edyvw said:
... So, spare us this attempt to feel more secure about your own decisions.
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Come on now. That's getting personal. You can't be that touchy. It's not his fault if Lexus remains more reliable and maintains some resale value as opposed to becoming a paperweight.
 
Yeah. No reason to get personal.

It's just cars we're talking about here. Metal, paint, rubber, fluids, and plastic... especially in BMW's - lots and lots of plastic.
 
goblin said:
Come on now. That's getting personal. You can't be that touchy. It's not his fault if Lexus remains more reliable and maintains some resale value as opposed to becoming a paperweight.
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IDK man, I owned a Lexus, my family owns a Lexus, I still own two Toyotas, a BMW, and a VW. I have business in Europe with 20+ delivery vehicles (all VWs).
How many BMWs or VWs have you owned, or our friend here, who is in the cult?
Maintaining value is not indicative of anything but the fact that, as long as there are sheep, there will be wool. The Current Tundra is a prime example of that.
We get into a discussion about something, and it always ends with: "I know you want a Porsche, but have you tried an Accord?" Some people like to live, some just like to own refrigerators and sit on the couch. I cannot take resale value into my grave. I like to breathe and have fun.
 
Why would it be a cult to notice that most non-W140 (hallowed be its name !!!) S classes you might see parked are low riders :)

I have business in Europe too. I don't deal with fleets, I know what my friends drive. They drive VW group products, because they still have access to realatively inexpensive labor, and the import channels from Germany are wide open, and geographically close. And also because Japanese there is usually UK-built, and Europe-specific, while the Made in Japan Japanese is outrageously expensive. The US market is a whole different animal.

And I'll be the first to mention that here in the US, when owning a garage, having some basic skills, and especially if you had a car lift - an older German is probably the absolutely best bang for the buck vehicle you could have (I'm not familiar with the US cars, so I might be wrong here), and also the most fun. I have an LCI E61 535xi and I absolutely love it beside all its quirks and its love for sitting on jacks. It's just that I can't promote it to the position of primary car that you can actually rely on.
Then again, I don't have the lift and the skills, just some space and some basic tools :)

PS: And we were never in the try accord vs porsche discussion here. T'was about the TLX. That poor thing. I didn't even find it that ugly.
 
The E60 535 went out of production 15 years ago. Those cars have quirks - I owned the wagon E61 variant with 6 speed but it was unfortunately stolen - but in what world do people think any car that is 15 years old or older is a reliable daily driver that won’t require work? I think of that car now and it was a long time ago. My kids were small. I had more hair and less grey in it. My mom, who is unfortunately very ill, has a Honda CRV from that same time - 2009 - and it is sitting disabled in her garage because the starter is bad. In 2009 she was healthy and had her mental capacities intact. Not today. Much time has passed. My point is not to bash - both Honda and BMW make some very good cars but when any car hits a certain age, again repairs must be expected. That is not a critique on build quality - it is just the nature of things.

Acura makes some very nice cars but like Ford they realize all the action is with SUVs and their cars are not special enough in the market for them to stand out. It’s sad but life goes on.
 
goblin said:
Why would it be a cult to notice that most non-W140 (hallowed be its name !!!) S classes you might see parked are low riders :)

I have business in Europe too. I don't deal with fleets, I know what my friends drive. They drive VW group products, because they still have access to realatively inexpensive labor, and the import channels from Germany are wide open, and geographically close. And also because Japanese there is usually UK-built, and Europe-specific, while the Made in Japan Japanese is outrageously expensive. The US market is a whole different animal.

And I'll be the first to mention that here in the US, when owning a garage, having some basic skills, and especially if you had a car lift - an older German is probably the absolutely best bang for the buck vehicle you could have (I'm not familiar with the US cars, so I might be wrong here), and also the most fun. I have an LCI E61 535xi and I absolutely love it beside all its quirks and its love for sitting on jacks. It's just that I can't promote it to the position of primary car that you can actually rely on.
Then again, I don't have the lift and the skills, just some space and some basic tools :)

PS: And we were never in the try accord vs porsche discussion here. T'was about the TLX. That poor thing. I didn't even find it that ugly.
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No, I said it is true, there are a lot of those later S class that are low riders, because that audience wants the looks, the power, the gadgets, but does not know anything about maintenance or does not have money for it. Astro drives one, not low rider etc. Cult like to point that. Though they just part where you can dip S class into seawater, unlike Toyota, which rusts when it gets cloudy.

Japanese cars are not big hit in Europe, bcs. Europe has expensive fuel, and emissions are measured differently; hence, it requires more complex engines. The Japanese are full of issues, especially in the diesel department. That is why there are a bunch of VWs, etc. They had some good stuff. What was sold here as the Acura TSX, in Europe, was the Accord. The stick shift and 2.2CDTI engine were good. Not on par with VW, BMW, or FIAT engines, but it was a good contender that lacked marketing.

I had E61 in Europe, made 485k km before selling. 525d, M57 single turbo. It was my brother's and my business car. Italy, France, Germany, Turkey, name it. Had two water pumps, one EGR cooler replaced and then regular maintenance. It could still hit 240km/h the day I sold it.
I now have an E90 328 xDrive. Kids drop-offs, skiing (2x a week), work, groceries, and I track it. never missed a beat. 14yrs old car. Every time I sit in it I look forward to drive it. I spend driving from point A to point B, not thinking why I am not there, so I can do whatever I wanted to do, but why the drive is over, because I had fun driving it.
I would, though, consider owning IS500. That is only Japanese vehicle that I would actually buy bcs. I want it, regardless of its issues (meh transmission, heavy front, horrid steering), but some of those things can be resolved.
The rest of mediocrity, spending time in a Camry because. IDK, obsolete stuff that makes it inherently more reliable, with Mickey Mouse brakes, handling like a wheelbarrow? Yuck.
 
RBT said:
The E60 535 went out of production 15 years ago. Those cars have quirks - I owned the wagon E61 variant with 6 speed but it was unfortunately stolen - but in what world do people think any car that is 15 years old or older is a reliable daily driver that won’t require work?
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RBT said:
both Honda and BMW make some very good cars but when any car hits a certain age, again repairs must be expected. That is not a critique on build quality - it is just the nature of things.
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All cars require work. This does not make all cars equivalent in reliability or costs to run.

Assuming parts availability you can try to run any car you want as a daily driver for as long as you like. It's just a matter of how much money you want to spend? How much time you want to waste? Mechanic will gladly take your money. Tow truck will gladly tow your car.

When your car is on the lift for the 4th time this year and you are awaiting the mechanic call for the estimate, or worse, you are on the side of the road with hood propped and steam coming up like a BBQ grill because your cooling system was assembled with LEGOs (BMW), you start to care less and less about how fun the car was to drive and more and more about your finances and your time.

Sometimes you actually need to feel and be burned by the fire instead of just look into the fire. Probably why the older buy more Lexus (as mentioned a few comments above). They got burned when they were younger.
 
trd1zz said:
All cars require work. This does not make all cars equivalent in reliability or costs to run.

Assuming parts availability you can try to run any car you want as a daily driver for as long as you like. It's just a matter of how much money you want to spend? How much time you want to waste? Mechanic will gladly take your money. Tow truck will gladly tow your car.

When your car is on the lift for the 4th time this year and you are awaiting the mechanic call for the estimate, or worse, you are on the side of the road with hood propped and steam coming up like a BBQ grill because your cooling system was assembled with LEGOs (BMW), you start to care less and less about how fun the car was to drive and more and more about your finances and your time.

Sometimes you actually need to feel and be burned by the fire instead of just look into the fire. Probably why the older buy more Lexus (as mentioned a few comments above). They got burned when they were younger.
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Yes, you can make any car a daily driver as long as you like if you have no regard for your own time, your money, or perhaps both. Arguing about which 15-20 year old car, or even older, is pointless and not interesting. I am sorry that you obviously had a bad experience with a German car, I would gather. That being said, the German car manufacturers are not as successful as they are because everyone has that experience. So I have determined that you just like to argue. Whatever. Take care.
 
trd1zz said:
All cars require work. This does not make all cars equivalent in reliability or costs to run.

Assuming parts availability you can try to run any car you want as a daily driver for as long as you like. It's just a matter of how much money you want to spend? How much time you want to waste? Mechanic will gladly take your money. Tow truck will gladly tow your car.

When your car is on the lift for the 4th time this year and you are awaiting the mechanic call for the estimate, or worse, you are on the side of the road with hood propped and steam coming up like a BBQ grill because your cooling system was assembled with LEGOs (BMW), you start to care less and less about how fun the car was to drive and more and more about your finances and your time.

Sometimes you actually need to feel and be burned by the fire instead of just look into the fire. Probably why the older buy more Lexus (as mentioned a few comments above). They got burned when they were younger.
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So, how many BMWs did you have problems with? Which ones did you own? What particular problem you had?
 
trd1zz said:
At least the Japanese still making more affordable sedans with manuals. Civic Type R (FWD!), Integra S, GRC.

BMW moved on. You want a manual sedan? $80k M3.

And the Japanese still offers a naturally aspirated V8 sedan in the IS 500.
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Some say (Cue Jeremy Clarkson) that with the automatic transmission getting better fuel economy than the manual transmission and everyone having cellphones integrated into their vehicles this pushed the manual transmission by the wayside. In 2007 I wrote a college paper on how the BMW 335i could be a real performance machine or comfortable car with good fuel economy if you kept your foot out of the accelerator pedal. At the time the BMW salesman said that the manual transmission take rate was 30-35%. In the F20 it was 5%.
 
trd1zz said:
At least the Japanese still making more affordable sedans with manuals. Civic Type R (FWD!), Integra S, GRC.

BMW moved on. You want a manual sedan? $80k M3.

And the Japanese still offers a naturally aspirated V8 sedan in the IS 500.
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Some say (Cue Jeremy Clarkson) that with the automatic transmission getting better fuel ec than the manual transmission and everyone having cellphones integrated into their vehicles this pushed the manual transmission by the wayside. In 2007 I wrote a college paper on how the BMW 335i could be a real performance machine or comfortable car with good fuel economy if you kept your foot out of the accelerator pedal. At the time the BMW salesman said that the manual transmission take rate was 30-35%. In the F20 it was 5%.
Carmudgeon said:
The biggest contribution Toyota made in that project was in eventually making a manual gearbox available. A Getrag.

Otherwise, the Supra is basically a Z4 coupe with Toyota styling and suspension tuning (which is arguably better than its cousin's). They both roll off the same Steyr assembly line in Austria. Peel away the cladding and panels, and the guts would probably be much more familiar to someone who has wrenched on BMWs than Toyotas. No JIS screwdrivers or 12mm wrenches needed.

Before release, the model's final form was leaked…after someone found the entire vehicle logged in BMW's ETK parts catalog. Now, why would a Toyota badge need to be assigned a BMW part number, Dr. Zaius?

The Fiata 124 Spider could at least claim to have FCA's engine.

I know someone who had a first gen TSX, and spent a fair amount of time in the car. Very solid car (though the center stack backlighting was a common failure), and more European in sensibility than Japanese. But its steering did have that Honda trait where the effort would change mid-lock (also reminding me of the 2nd and 3rd gen Preludes I'd driven). Dunno whether it was by design, or a consequence of the geometry changes at certain steering angles, but it didn't have that full consistency in the controls like one expects on a European car. Or the old pre-EPS ones, anyway. K24 was decently sized, and liked to rev, but weaker down below, and having to rev it in certain situations acted to temper any luxury aspirations.

AWD can try, but cannot fully make up for the physics when a large mass is sitting on top of, or in front of the front axle line. Audi, which is not Japanese, and does have longitudinal engines has also still suffered from the laws of physics. I've also had daydreams about the S3 and RS3 and while I'm sure the trick torque vectoring rear differential is neat, and works well, can't fully get on board with the notion of a $65k Golf sedan, and handling so heavily determined by electronics tuning, not natural vehicle dynamics. But I'm old school. And in that price range, many options if one doesn't need to buy new.

Acura was originally created with the intent to provide Honda owners with nicer vehicles to step up to. They clearly weren't gunning for the Germans, as Toyota and Nissan did.

Problem was, that relied on owner loyalty to a large degree, and the company also hamstrung the brand by refusing to offer anything larger than a six, as mentioned.

They've reinvigorated the brand in more recent times, but were adrift for a long time, in the purgatory of near, but not fully being accepted as a luxury brand. The MDX kept them alive during the struggles, and CUVs became their bread-and butter. But I think its greatest sales success is still the Integra line, which were always "nicer" Civics at heart. That it took them so long to acknowledge that, and try again, was a bit delusional.
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At least the Audi RS3 uses the inline 5 that is proprietary to that car. Apparently VW wanted that engine to power the newest Golf R before it came out but Audi told VW to go stuff it, absolutely not.
 
97prizm said:
Some say (Cue Jeremy Clarkson) that with the automatic transmission getting better fuel ec than the manual transmission and everyone having cellphones integrated into their vehicles this pushed the manual transmission by the wayside. In 2007 I wrote a college paper on how the BMW 335i could be a real performance machine or comfortable car with good fuel economy if you kept your foot out of the accelerator pedal. At the time the BMW salesman said that the manual transmission take rate was 30-35%. In the F20 it was 5%.

At least the Audi RS3 uses the inline 5 that is proprietary to that car. Apparently VW wanted that engine to power the newest Golf R before it came out but Audi told VW to go stuff it, absolutely not.
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Audi didn’t tell anything to VW. VW owns Audi as well as Porsche, Bentley, Skoda, Seat, Lamborghini etc.
If it made financial sense, they would, and S3 would be dead! People who buy cars like that are not sold on real leather instead of fake. Not that they don’t care, but it is far from being priority. Get me 5cyl in $15k cheaper car, done deal.
That is the problem with North American strategy that VW has. They are afraid that VW will canibalize Audi sales so they cannot properly compete with Honda, Toyota etc. EU has Tiguan hybrid for yeas, we don’t. Chinese have Atlas (Teramont) with VR6 turbo, we don’t. Etc, etc.
 
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