Acura sets its sights on 200,000 U.S. sales
04-19-10, 09:45 AM
#17
Lexus Fanatic
Well, Acura, of course, has changed over the years with the market. Seems to me that what we are debating, in this thread, is IF those changes were correct or not....and what they need to do to meet the target 200,000 sales goal. Obviously, in the styling department, some of those changes were not correct....that seems to be pretty much a given from most of us involved (including you and me). What is less clear is the reliance on larger V6s and 5-speed automatics, instead of a V8 and 6-speed. There, opnions seem to differ a little more.
04-19-10, 09:46 AM
#19
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When Acura sells on average 150 units a month for the past year for the whole nation, I don't think you can use the word significant in any way to describe RL sales.
04-19-10, 09:53 AM
#20
Lexus Fanatic
Well, Acura, of course, has changed over the years with the market. Seems to me that what we are debating, in this thread, is IF those changes were correct or not....and what they need to do to meet the target 200,000 sales goal. Obviously, in the styling department, some of those changes were not correct....that seems to be pretty much a given from most of us involved (including you and me). What is less clear is the reliance on larger V6s and 5-speed automatics, instead of a V8 and 6-speed. There, opnions seem to differ a little more.
04-19-10, 09:55 AM
#21
Lexus Fanatic
Is that number from Acura's own sales records? The RL's presence, in the D.C. area where I live, while certainly not numerous, is not as rare as you would think. I agree, though, that the RL's numbers can't compete with much of its competition.
04-19-10, 09:56 AM
#22
Lexus Fanatic
In the premium import-rich areas of Silicon Valley (known by all the major car makers as one of the most lucrative markets in the country), RL's are seen ocassionally. They are durable cars so you will tend to see the same RL's around for years, but repeat buyers are extremely rare and diminishing rapidly.
04-19-10, 10:02 AM
#23
Lexus Fanatic
That's the thing that I noticed the most.....the superb overall build quality, fit/finish, and the solidness of just about everything from the sheet metal to the smallest interior *****....even other current Acura products don't compare. If I were in the market for a new 45-50K car, this would (probably) be #1 or #2 on my list.
04-19-10, 10:09 AM
#24
Lexus Fanatic
That's the thing that I noticed the most.....the superb overall build quality, fit/finish, and the solidness of just about everything from the sheet metal to the smallest interior *****....even other current Acura products don't compare. If I were in the market for a new 45-50K car, this would (probably) be #1 or #2 on my list.
The build quality, fit/finish and solidness is no better than the same attributes of Lexus, Mercedes, BMW.
This would be one of my lower choices in the $45-$50K price range.
04-19-10, 10:12 AM
#25
Yes, in some ways, I'll agree. The Legend was also a superbly-built car, except for some clutch problems in the few manual-transmission versions built (yes, there actually were some). But it did not seem to sell in the big numbers the Integra did. The Integra, especially the 2-door coupe, was especially popular, of course, with the young, caps-on-backward crowd.
04-19-10, 10:14 AM
#26
Lexus Fanatic
04-19-10, 12:44 PM
#27
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Code:
E-Class 5-Series Genesis MKS M GS A6 S80 STS RL Mar. 5,042 2,886 2,145 1,443 1,440 645 799 851 400 163 Feb. 4,043 2,270 1,762 1,751 817 488 507 662 332 131 Jan. 3,824 2,469 1,670 1,280 872 529 507 532 233 110 Dec. 5,437 3,914 2,354 1,787 808 1,063 796 751 360 221 Nov. 4,824 3,462 1,751 1,426 416 596 527 581 279 176 Oct. 6,071 3,043 1,850 1,609 536 494 669 541 355 155 Sep. 3,812 2,861 1,665 1,316 447 501 623 502 434 150 Aug. 4,671 3,812 2,316 1,370 618 669 561 565 337 149 Jul. 5,556 2,486 2,015 1,205 726 551 511 602 358 131 Jun. 2,781 2,757 1,838 1,365 682 454 571 1,098 1,220 135 May 2,275 3,904 2,079 1,321 658 516 516 1,088 637 169 Apr. 1,795 4,319 2,076 1,178 441 468 388 681 711 202 Total 50,131 38,183 23,521 17,051 8,461 6,974 6,975 8,454 5,656 1,892
04-19-10, 12:53 PM
#28
Lexus Fanatic
Yes. That's based on Acura's monthly number over the past year. This is a table I throw up in the monthly sales thread. You really get the sense of how pathetic RL sales really are when compared to the competition in the mid-sized luxury class. Here in SoCal, I do see a lot of RL, but as pointed out by others, it's mostly older models, rarely do I see a shield grilled RL.
That was the point I was trying to make earlier about the cars being durable, having no repeat buyers, so the ones you see are several years old. The ugly beak/shield grill does make the nearly non-existent new ones easy to spot.
04-19-10, 01:10 PM
#29
The new RL initially sold fairly decent, I believe it was around 1200 units per month for the first couple of years, so you will see a good number of them on the road. However, the sales fell flat shortly after and for the last few years have been almost non existent. This is why the re-freshed RL with rice-style tail lamps are a rare sight even here in NYC - I've only seen it twice.
04-19-10, 05:49 PM
#30
Lexus Champion
They had a good thing going with the 3rd gen Integra and they knew it. Honda/Acura has usually stuck to their new body style every 4 years, except for when it came to the Integra as it ran from 1994 to 2001.
They need to bring back the Legend and Integra with their original mojo intact. AND LOSE SOME OF THOSE BUTTONS ON THE CENTER STACK!!!!
They need to bring back the Legend and Integra with their original mojo intact. AND LOSE SOME OF THOSE BUTTONS ON THE CENTER STACK!!!!