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Where does the Lexus brand fall in terms of prestige and luxury class vs Audi and BMW?

Toys4RJill

As long as Audi and BMW have 12 cylinder engin, they will be ahead of Lexus for their cars.

The Lexus GX460 and LX570 are the one exception and are higher in prestige and luxury compared to Audi and BMW. Both BMW and Audi don't have anything has the prestige of the LX.

Och

iTrader: (3)

LOL, the GX is about as prestigious as a minivan, and LX has about as much prestige as a lump of wood compared to X5M and X6M.

Fizzboy7

About the same, with good virtues across the board. It's really all personal preference. Many people have a pre-set idea about these brands based on what their parents or friends had while they grew up. That sets in solidly and helps lead the way to future car buying decisions.

blacksc400

iTrader: (4)

In US, Lexus is very successful that it sits comfortably with MB and bmw as tier 1. As which is more prestige it's completely up to the individual

Johnhav430

Again, in the real world, reliability stands for a lot, and Lexus seems to have nailed it. But I don't think reliability equates to prestige, and is why I think while it is the highest as far as Japanese cars go, I truly don't think it's there with BMW and MB. One of my tests is to look at the service lounge, and see what's going on at any given time--this is like doing a drive by to a prospective home purchase, it is a tell.

The Lexus lounge is usually jam packed, and imho the age of the customers is well over 60, the BMW lounge, despite the fancy snacks, water, food, etc., is empty. Part of the BMW culture is to take off in a loaner, almost to the point it's an entitlement. I have seen customers state they do not want a car of a particular color (this is overboard imho). I hear that Lexus offers loaners too, but neither of the two that I visited did, for small jobs. BMW offers one for a state inspection, which they collect $6x for (btw Toyota charged $7x and Lexus even higher for this job).

imho Lexus reliability is stronger than its notion of prestige, my .02

Johnhav430

I'm not an Apple fan, although I do have a 4th gen iPad (the first with the lightening connector). imho BMW's brand is valuable like Apple, meaning, some of the sales is made because the brand image is so strong--their own studies said that most X1 drivers had no clue that the first gen was RWD based, and so they switched it to a FWD platform. Why would anybody want a "premium" SUV that is FWD? Prestige, I suppose....imho Lexus brand is strong, due to reliability, but not in the same way....not from a prestige standpoint...

amphiprion

Agreed, additionally in the US, Lexus has been able to climb up the brand perception ladder without having the storied history of BMW or MB which is an amazing feat.

ragingf80

The X1 is not premium and it's not an SUV. It's a crossover, and crossovers are cheap versatile city vehicles. They are not performance cars and they are not light off road vehicles. The move the FWD is purely economical, and something I don't personally agree with. But i'm not a BMW board member, so it doesn't matter what I think.


As much as I love my BMWs, this is what attracts me to Lexus. It's certainly got more prestige than Toyota, and comes with that reliability. This, to me, this puts Lexus in a special place. In the C class thread, there is an ongoing debate about the IS vs the 3 Series vs the C class. Pointless IMHO, the IS loses in more cases than not in performance in those areas, but that's not the most important characteristic of Lexus.

Toys4RJill

Mercedes, Audi, and BMW branding has very little to do with their reliability. Its the prestige and the level of real or perceived engineering that is what sells them. Reliability does not equate at all with prestige.

Unless you are speaking with all the owners. What are you trying to get from looking about people inside a service dealer?

I wonder if this has anything to do with visiting the dealer for service one less time per year for the German brands compared to Lexus.

** I will add and say that there was a time when German reliability and quality for Mercedes was at the top or even better than the Japanese.

Toys4RJill

I don't really know what comparing Apple to BMW really does. The X1 sells because it has very good reviews. I believe its a 10Best for Car and Driver. FWD aside, the entire segment is mostly FWD at this point.

mmarshall

At one time (1970s, 80s...even, to some extent, into the 1990s), Audi reliability ranked among the worst. Even aside from the notorious Audi 5000 unintended-acceleration issues, many of those old Audi products (Fox, 100LS, 4000, 5000, etc...) felt like they were just thrown together on the assembly-line. (I can still remember test-driving some of them). Brand-new vehicles, sitting right on the lot, drove with rattles, squeaks, creaks, loose-feeling hardware/controls, components that didn't work, misaligned wheels, out-of-balance wheels/tires, and a general feeling that the workers, designers, and engineers in the plants were taking too many coffee breaks. In contrast, until the mid-1990s, when lower-cost competition from Lexus and Infiniti really started to hit Mercedes hard and forced some compromises, M-B produced vehicles that were like the Rock of Gibraltar, some of the most well-built on the planet.




Yep, like I just said above......until well into the 1990s, Mercedes reigned as the King of build-quality, although Toyota and Honda were best in the low-priced field. The rise of Lexus, however, was the start of M-B's downfall, although lately, Mercedes seems to be catching back up again.

LexBob2

I agree, reviews on the X1 have been very favorable and it's regarded as one of the top CUV's in the segment. C&D did a comparison test that included X1, NX, Q3, GLA and QX30 and in their words the X1 "ran away" with the test.

97-SC300

iTrader: (17)

X6M lol.... you mean that Acura ZDX with more power? I finally found one person who actually likes that POS.

blacksc400

iTrader: (4)

Well, me and Och both own one.