rominl

iTrader: (4)

well, styling is always subjective. but imho when you ask 100 people, 80 of them say it's weird, then at least we have a general "public" feeling

of course, to the remaining 20, power to them

LexFather

It is well known C&D blows Honda/Acura on a monthly basis. I take what they say with a grain of salt. Everyone ELSE has bashed it pretty much. Don't give it a free pass b/c its a Honda product. Its ugly like the rest of them.

As for the Maxima, seems the majority like it. It looks far classier and proportionate than any Acura sedan. Nissan did a stellar job with that vehicle.


This is just an ugly car. Ugly like an Aztek. Period. Its not opinion. Its ugly.

Cons-polarizing design
http://reviews.carreview.com/blog/2009-acura-tl-review/
Not overwhelmed, Caddy did this years ago
http://www.leftlanenews.com/acura-tl...09-review.html
But on the production car it strikes us as an oddly shaped appendage that looks out of place.
http://www.automobilemag.com/new_and...iew/index.html
It's a strange look that reminds me of a spaceship from "Buck Rogers," not a modern luxury sedan
http://www.cars.com/go/crp/research....id=7&year=2009
I’m convinced that the TL’s designers held a séance with the Prairie School architect, discussed organic architecture, hit the crack pipe and emerged with “Keen Edge Dynamic.” Sure, Acura has finally cured the TL’s aesthetic invisibility. But at what cost? Viewed dead-on from the rear, the TL’s creased butt looks like a Cars character, complete with mouth (Aura-like trunk strip) and eyes (rear headrest). It’s weird, true and freaky.

And then there’s the front…

The TL’s new snowplow snout will have your eye out, and transfer traces of satin chrome paint flecks in the process. Some west coast Acura dealers are painting the power plenum prow the same color as the body for a more, uh, understated look. No surprise there.


http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/review-2009-acura-tl/
While the 2008 Acura TL looked chiseled and lean, the 2009 TL integrates Acura's controversial "Power Plenum" grille and "emotion advanced" design.

This fourth-generation TL sports rear haunches reminiscent of the Lexus GS and outgoing Nissan Maxima.

http://www.motortrend.com/photo_gall...ery/index.html

Thus far, the opinions around the MT water cooler have been...it would be charitable to call them "mixed."
http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...ive/index.html

Firstly, I think it takes the best design features of Acura concepts, then messes them up as good as it can. The front-end reminds me of a city snowplow, and the rear end is sloped to such a degree that you could cover it with snow and teach your kids to ski on it.


The four exhaust pipes LIE about the power that does not exist underneath, for this is not the Lexus IS-F, and it certainly doesn’t sound like it either (the IS-F has a wonderful Nascar-sounding engine). About the looks, what can I say?

What’s with the lines and sharp creases? Trying to be like Cadillac, is that it? Well, that’d be the worst idea, seeing as how Cadillac is a company in the midst of reinventing and finding itself. There isn’t much of an Acura identity, so there’s nothing to adhere to, and therefore nothing to strengthen the brand’s presence (they still don’t get it).

Bottom line: an exercise in fugliness.
http://www.zimbio.com/Acura+TL/artic...+2009+Acura+TL

Uhhh...have you seen this thing? "The overriding sensation I get from the TL," Takahashi confessed, "is ewwww!" Mused DiPietro: "Was an elephant seal the inspiration for that nose or what?" At least our test car was silver, which minimized the fugliness of the TL's metallic snout. But that failed to spare it our collective aesthetic scorn.
http://blogs.edmunds.com/strategies/...portsedans.0.*

What Needs Work: See photos.
Something weird this way comes. The '09 TL's nose is ideal for opening old cans of Hawaiian Punch.
The TL's rear end design was inspired by Ultraman. But not really.
And the TL is an even weirder bird than the lovely outgoing model because it has a large metallic squid beak on the front of the car. Whoops. We mean a broken buck tooth. No. What we mean is that the TL looks like what Pontiac designers of five years ago thought the future would look like.
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...opanel..1.*#10

LexFather

REad post 117.

For the 2nd time we are talking about the ACURA TL in this thread, not anyone else. The GS and A6 are a class above it and HAVE BEEN SOLD FOR YEARS. THe TL is all new.

If you are going to read SELECTIVELY exit this thread. Post 117 CLEARLY explains the reasoning behind calling it a failure thus far. You cannot come close to making accusations of people "hating" on Acura when you are not even beginning to read or see the points made with links and facts that prove otherwise.

LexFather

Guys let me make this clear, STICK TO THE TOPIC.

-J-P-L-

Mike,
I've read your posts and respectively don't agree with that reasoning.

BECAUSE: Comparing the TL with the rest of the competition NOW in this horrible economy is the most fair way to gauge how successful each model is.

You could take any model and run a year to year analysis and you would see that in most cases, 2008 will be the worse year (especially November). That is why comparing this year's TL sales to '04, '05, and '06 when business was booming makes little sense.

Do you not agree?

leedogg

Nevertheless, we can still derive a few things from those numbers, as the percentage decrease are all relative to each car. Its hard to tell how much of the decline is due to the poor economy vs poor styling. What I noted from the numbers posted was that out of those vehicles listed, the TL ranked 3rd in terms of suffering the least.

LexFather

It makes a lot of sense as Acura's sales goals for the TL those years was 70k and for this new model, it remains at 70k. Again, I don't doubt the economy is hurting it but Acura as a brand was hurting with sales for 2 years+ now. So they were not booming.

We all know on paper, this is a good car. Good interior, space, features and the engine is solid. The Tl has done this since it was built in America. This class is now great though and that exterior is simply going to scare people off.

However at this point I think we should agree to disagree.

I don't disagree with that. Just giving what I consider expert analysis.

-J-P-L-

Fair enough. After all, people can't agree on anything.
Proof? 10's of thousands of people bought the Aztec because they liked it more than any other choice in the market, lol.

LexFather

lol,

Even Consumer reports hates Acura's styling direction. They have historically loved Hondas/Acuras.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/car...ml#post4061376

DrUnBiased

Well since your not answering my question directly, I'll just drop it.

I find your opinion on the TL interesting. Here is another question for you though... With the BMW 3 series selling over 11k units this time last year and only 6k something this year even though it has just gone through it's MMC, is that a product that less people want?

Some people here say you really hate Acura but I wonder how true that is. After all, most of the threads in this forum that are about Acura have been started by you, you are always very active in the Acura discussions, and you spend a lot of time and effort to research the Acura numbers to post for all of us here. Almost seems like your into Acura more than Lexus, or any other manufacturer for that matter

91LS400LEX

For the last several years I have not been able to figure out why Honda-Acura has never had a V8 and then when the latest RL came out, I was wondering what happened to the luxury car from Acura? Its more of a sports sedan than a luxury sedan. The 96-04 RL had a V6, but it was a nice car and had a larger look to it - then the 2005 redesign, the car looked much smaller. Now the new RL is nice I think, but it should serve as the mid-size model - replace the TL with it or something, then make a really big V8 model to compete with the LS460, S-Class, 7-Series, etc.

Even Nissan has had a V8 since 1990 (Infiniti Q45) and of course Toyota-Lexus in 1990 (LS400) and even in the actual Toyota line starting in 2000 with the Tundra truck.

Another thing that puzzles is why dont Honda have a car to compete with the Toyota Avalon and Nissan Maxima? They never have and the "luxury" Toyota and Nissan have been around since the early 70s - remember the Toyota Crown/Cressida and Datsun 810/Maxima?

Now the Accord is nice, but it competes with Camry and Altima - NOT Avalon and Maxima.

Honda-Acura needs to get on the ball and offer a larger Honda named car to compete with Avalon-Maxima and a larger V8 Acura sedan to compete with the LS460/S-Class/7-Series, etc. Maybe put a Honda badge on the current Acura RL and start fresh with a new V8 RWD RL sedan.

UDel

Nissan and Toyota have had v8s since 1963 and 1965 for their rwd luxury sedans the Nissan President and Toyota Crown. Honda never had a v8 for a car sold to the public, Honda did not have any rwd luxury sedans or coupes while Toyota and Nissan did for a long time before Acura came out or Lexus and Infiniti later came out. Honda did not even have a v6 engine for any of their cars sold to the public until 1985, Honda was always known mainly for small highly efficient 4 cylinders. It was much easier and less expensive for Nissan and Toyota to come out with rwd and v8 for their upscale brands because they already were making those type of vehicles and engines that were sold in Japan since the 1960s and had the R&D and tooling and experience with those type of vehicles and powerplants where Honda had nothing close to those type cars or engines even in the 80's. Honda was also a much smaller company then Toyota and Nissan back then and most likely did not have the finances and money for a brand new v8 and a large rwd platform at the time and it would have been too big of a step going from mostly fwd small 4 cylinder models to big powerful v8 rwd cars. The first Acura Legend in 1986 was very similar and heavily shared with a British Rover model that was also sold as a Sterling model in the States.

Instead of investing in a large cushy rwd v8 luxury sedan to go against the Lexus LS and Merc S class Acura chose to go after Ferrari and invest a ton of money into a highly technological mid engined exotic called the NSX which changed the supercar world, they lost money on every one that sold which was not helping Honda developing a v8 or large rwd platform for Acura but the NSX was a huge deal for Honda/Acura and Japanese automakers in the performance department and showed Japan could produce a exotic sports car that could compete with and beat traditional European exotics.

Honda did toy with a v8 and used one in initial testing of the NSX along with a few other types of motors including a turbo 6 cylinder but chose a NA 6 cylinder instead, a v8 was also rumored to be built for the 2000 Legend but was dropped as it was not meeting performance expectations nor was the business case for it strong enough. Rumors have the next RL/Legend/flagship being on a rwd platform and a prototype sedan was seen and photographed being tested on a stretched TSX body that was obviously a larger rwd sedan. A v10 is coming for the NSX replacement if it ever hits the road and stops being pushed back, a v8 has been confirmed by Honda higher ups but exactly when it will come out is speculation. I agree Honda/Acura should have had a v8 and front engined rwd car out a while ago mainly to shut critics up but it is extremely expensive to do when they have never really done that type of car before.

As far as a large Honda sedan to compete with the Avalon and Maxima, again Honda has never had a larger sedan in its lineup unlike Toyota/Nissan which had the Maxima and larger Cresida in the past for awhile. It is doubtful many Honda buyers are asking for a larger plusher more expensive sedan model then the Accord so there is not much incentive to build a brand new model in that segment and the new Accord is pretty big now, not much smaller then the Maxima or Avalon.

IS350jet

The new Accord is actually bigger than the new Maxima, and is just slightly smaller than the Avalon.

-J-P-L-

One thing to consider is how many applications that Honda could incorporate a V-8 in. I see four models which I think is enough to justify the development of one (which costs 100's of millions).

This list would be the next gen iterations of these models (NSX needless to say)

-RL
-NSX
-Ridgeline
-Pilot

A potential 5th?
-MDX

91LS400LEX

Oh really? Thats interesting. I thought those had inline 6-cylinder engines.