rdgdawg

THX for the review Cap'n

And again, I'd take a loaded Genesis 4.6 over this all day

cl400

i saw a white one on Edens. i had to check it out and i thought it looked fantastic in person.

my local dealer gurnee hyundai will have one this week,, so i'll be checking it out again.

lamar411

Nice review.

The back end is so boring to me.

YEH

Anyway, a fair review.

YEH

While those Hyundai dealerships shouldn't be so **** about test drives, w/ the 1st small alottments, it's kinda understandable, esp. since they were quick to sell out.

Chevy dealerships did the same thing when they got their 1st small shipment of the Camaro a few years back.

The Genesis sedan still outsold all the RWD mid-size imports aside from the E Class and 5 Series, so the outlook isn't all that bad, esp. since the Genesis has a way higher take on the V8 than what is the norm.

dj.ctwatt

^ High dealer lot time can be (and often is) a result of poor inventory management. E.G. just because toilet paper may sit on the inventory shelf for a long time does not mean people do not want/need it, nor does it mean low sales figures.

mmarshall

Guys (and especially to Mike)..................I have to apologize for not posting in this thread earlier. I didn't see the thread until now (or when Mike posted it in my own Equus review). It was originally posted on CAR CHAT while I was away recovering from surgery....so I missed it.

Anyhow, good preview, Mike. I think we agree on most of it, though my opinion of the interior is a little different from yours.

LexFather

Bingo.

No problem Mike. I knew you wanted to review this car and thought of you and jumped on the opportunity, hope you enjoyed it.


Please provide evidence of this myth. We want to see NUMBERS, statistics, a link of some nature.

What we do know is they aimed for 50k Genesis a year, 20k sedan, 30k coupe and have NEVER came close to that mark.

Please provide evidence of the V-8 Genesis take rate to back up your claims. Thank you.

Finally it is apples to oranges b/c the Genesis can be bought from 30-45k. In other words a loaded Genesis price ENDS where the rest in the segement START. The rest of the segment is from 45-90k. You can get a Costco Genesis for what 27k? What GS, E, 5, etc can you buy for 27k new?

Thus, apples to oranges. Do not bring up any other cars b/c we are talking about the Equus and now Genesis here.

Thank you.

jli

if you think comparing a genesis to a gs, e, or 5 is apples to oranges, then comparing an equus to a 7/s/ls is also apples to oranges. Also, if you take the cost of the vehicle into consideration, the equus is loaded at 65k. comparing that price to a high end s-class or 7 is apples to oranges as well. what's the point of this thread? I'm just saying

lamar411

I was at the Chicago Auto Show and checked out the Hyundai lineup, especially the Sonata, Equus and Genesis then went to check out their rivals in the Toyota/Lexus lineup. The Equus just does not feel as nice as the LS inside, especially the center console, which wasn't as simple or flowing as the LS, IMO.

LexLaw

Thanx Mike for this in depth review. I gotta be honest I totally prefer the reviews from you MMarshall and the rest of the CL crew than half of the garbage from the so called experts in the rags. You guys much far further in depth in to the car as opposed to putting the typical BMW bias that all of the major publications tend to follow. That said, this is definitely one of the cars that I plan to check out up close when the Auto Show comes to town down here in ATL. This will be the first year that I miss the NY Auto show but I still have plenty of cars on my agenda to check out. I love Hyundai's product line and direction that they have taken. The Equus seems to be a real player in this segment. Perhaps this will motivate Acura and Cadillac to make their flagships become a reality as opposed to just being concepts.

I think the Equus needs a bit more advertising to educate(brainwash) consumers who are on the fence or simply in the dark about this product. They have been quite effective in doing so with the Sonata. Though it's at a substantially lower price point, they still need to attack this with the same vigor. As for the car itself, I do think that the dash layout is a bit weak. At least from pics that I've seen. I do like the front end kinda jazzy yet nothing memorable. But nothing is wrong with playing safe, it works for Lexus doesn't it? The rear, as many have mentioned is nothing exciting and that I think is where car makers can take risks. All in all I am looking forward to seeing this car in the flesh, now whether I want this car in my garage is a whole 'nother story.

mmarshall

Thanks. I try to accomodate as many CL-member review requests as possible. I probably would have reviewed the Equus sooner, but I had major surgery in late December, and had to recuperate for a few weeks. By the end of January, I was ready to go again. ...though I started driving again in the middle of the month.

My next planned reviews, BTW, by request, are the 2012 Ford Focus (when it is released) and the 2011 Dodge Ram 1500 4.7L.

The car reviews in the better auto-enthusiast magazines (and the Motorweek TV show) are generally pretty good, but I agree with you that a lot of the regular local-newspaper car-reviews are garbage, from writers who seem to know very little about evaluating a car. Jeremy Clarkson, on Top Gear, is quite good once he actually gets to the car itself, but he spends a lot of extraneous time on things like politics, his emotions, the scenery, jokes, entertainmant, and other matters before he finally gets to the car.

YEH

Just b/c YOU haven't heard of it, it doesn't mean it's a "myth" (it's not like I 'm gonna just make up stuff, unlike, ahem some people).

Hyundai USA CEO Krafcik stated this in an interview w/ InsideLine.

http://www.insideline.com/hyundai/eq...n-krafcik.html

From same Krafcik interview.

And note, w/ regard to the retail sales marketshare for the Genesis sedan, it is doing this w/o the benefit of having available AWD which is a killer for sales throughout a big part of the US (according to AutoNews, nearly HALF of the sales for the CTS sedan were for the AWD version).

Also, those sales goals were set prior to the Great Recession, and Hyundai's sales goal for the coupe, was overly optimistic considering the weak market for Asian coupes.

Nonetheless, as the economy has been slowly improving, the Genesis has seen a monthly year-over-year sales increase for 16 consecutive months.


OMG. Can't believe you are bringing up this "argument" again (like for the 10th time) - lol!

Fine, it's an "apples to oranges" comparison, but along those lines, any comparison of the LS400 to the German flagship sedans is also "apples to oranges" considering the LS400 way undercut the Germans in pricing.

Also, at least the Equus has the excuse of having to price accordingly due to not being sold under a brand/dealer network (if sold under a separate brand/dealer network, an additional $10-12K would have to be added to the price tag).

The original price of the LS400 is right about where the pricing of the Equus is today, and that's even having been sold under a separate brand/dealer network.

And gee, even today, I wonder what the price discrepancy is for an LS460 compared to a comparably equipped S Class?

Hint: it's a lot more than the $6K price differential M. Karesh cites btwn the IS350 and a comparably equipped BMW 335ix.

(Somehow, I have a feeling we are going to repeat this all over again.)

TRDFantasy

With everything you said, it still doesn't answer the question of exactly how many Genesis sedans are sold versus Genesis coupes. We have the V8 mix now for the sedan, which is nice, but we don't have exact sales figures on the Genesis sedan only.

dj.ctwatt

^ if you had read his link, you'd see that they break down those market percentages as Genesis (implying sedan) and Genesis Coupe (which is, err, the coupe). I know it's confusing since they share the same name, and many car companies lump the sales altogther (like they do with the Yaris 5 dr, 4 dr, and 3 dr).

The Genesis sedan has 6.3% of the market, and the coupe has 5.1% of its respective market. And to be fair, both vehicles have very little to do with eachother besides the name. . . a stupid move on Hyundai's part.

I guess if you want more specific numbers, you can find the total vehicles sold for that segment and extrapolate from the percentage. I don't know. I just wanted to see if the numbers were made up or he heard it from somebody's cousin's uncle's roommate's hyundai salesman. But coming from Krafcik himself, even without the numbers, 6.3% market share is impressive. Acura can survive off less than that!