BippuLexus

Not only that but the Acura TLX has been beating Lexus IS sales for years actually. The Acura TLX and even the Acura TL sales has been always higher compared to the Lexus IS.

Even the peak grilled Acura TL (which is by far the worst and ugliest TL), sold better, on average, than the Lexus IS during 09-12.

Sulu

Don't quote autowriters when it comes to automotive brand or product development. They don't know what they are talking about since most of them are not engineers nor industrial designers nor professional marketers, and do not realize that it takes many years to design new product or that it takes many years of planning to bring a new brand to the market.

If it was so simple and the success of Acura did inspire Toyota to introduce Lexus, it would have meant that Toyota saw Honda's success with the new Acura brand after only 1 or 2 years on the market (1986 to 1988), and then was able to snap its fingers, sign up new dealers, certify completely new product and introduce it all in new showrooms, all in 1 year (by 1989).

I highly doubt that any smart marketers would have made a decision about the success of a new brand after only 1 or 2 years. Secondly it is not possible to sign up new dealers, and get them built and populated with new product in only 1 year.

Acura and Lexus were developed in parallel. Acura did come to market sooner but it did not inspire Toyota to introduce the Lexus brand.

I worked on the upgrade of an existing product at a previous employer, from the start of that project (right from the initial "let's do something to improve our product" stage). That top-secret project started 6 years ago but was only introduced last month. (I left that employer 2 years ago, wondering if I would ever be able to say "I worked on that product!" and finally got the chance to say that.) To the layman, it would seem that the project started a few months ago (when word would have leaked that the manufacturer would be making an announcement at a trade show), when in fact, it took 6 years for some changes to an existing product; a new product would have taken longer. Now, it will take another few months to a year or more to certify the product for the market -- so it will have taken 7 years from initial conception to first delivery and sale.

Fizzboy7

I agree, the TLX is selling well- at least in my neck of the woods (Santa Clarita, CA). The lease is very attractive, and undercuts some rivals. No doubt that is a big draw, especially for non-car enthusiasts.
Don't forget the IS350. Also a 6 cylinder sedan, available with AWD. I'm pretty sure Infiniti has an offering too. Not sure how those leases compare to a TLX V6 lease, but I'm guessing the loaded up TLX has it's own inflated sticker. The current V6 IS should have very big discounts at this stage in it's life.

sears1234

I think both Lexus and Acura have very good quality, and their main stream are both FWD based vehicles.
Lexus is very comfortable and quiet and the FWD doesn't bring any disadvantage ,which most of its customers accept this.
But for Acura, it's different story, because it try to bring sports characters to its lines, the FWD is completely a disaster.

BippuLexus

I purchased my 18 Lexus IS300 this year. And from my experience, when shopping between 7 dealerships, there isn't big discounts. I purchased my 18 Lexus IS300 for about roughly 43K OTD with the sticker being about 45K closing in onto 46K.
EDIT: I wanted to have an edit to add some context. My friend, who bought the 2016 Lexus IS200T, paid roughly 41K OTD with a sticker price of 43K and some few hundred dollar change.
And my cousin, who bought the 2014 Lexus IS350 F-Sport + Navi (a few months after release), paid 47K OTD with a 50.5K sticker.
From what I gather from my experience and my friend/cousin experience with their pricing, the Lexus IS at this current time still sells roughly at the same rate of discounts as previous model years. There is nothing huge - its pretty much 1-2K off sticker price and then OTD. Keep in mind this is California pricing and our cost of living might be higher than other states prices.

I believe the Lexus IS won't be getting steep discounts till roughly MY2020 or until the MY2021 Lexus IS is spied. <--- At least that's what I think because the Refreshed Lexus IS is still relatively new considering it was only refreshed a year ago and still has about 2-3 years of life left.

I think Infiniti offers the best lease deals, with Acura following second and Lexus third. You can possibly lease a Infiniti Q50 Red Sport for less than $400/month with 5K down.

rogers2

There are a number of reason Acura is not as successful as Lexus. Those reasons have been discuss a number of times on this forum. Acura hasn’t challenge Lexus for years as a premium brand. How on earth are you aiming for Lexus when you won’t bring a V8 to the market? Give me a break! I have own a number of Acura’s and I absolute love my NSX until it got stolen. Such a beautiful machine….At this point both companies have an ugly grill sorry ask any women and she will tell you the truth. It just look better on some vehicles.As far as I’m concern Acura can close up shop and just make nice Hondas…are step their game up.

mmarshall

Consider, though, that, today, for various reasons, Lexus is taking those V8s OFF the market.

UDel

That is a big mistake, 4th Gen GS should have got a V8 option over that overpriced hybrid and the new LS may suffer because of no V8, sales this month were not very good.

BippuLexus

While the Lexus LS sales did drop this month to 908 units, its still pretty good and averaging pretty close to each other considering it did 999 in April and 1,008 in March. I predict sales will probably shoot back up once its Lexus' Golden Opportunity Event.

I don't think a not having a V8 will hurt Lexus LS sales. Because the Lexus LS TTV6 holds itself pretty well against the Germans.
According to Lexus, MB, and BMW website - their official 0-60 numbers:
Lexus LS: 4.6 seconds
S450: 5.4 seconds
740i: 5.4 seconds
S560: 4.6 seconds
750i: 4.6 seconds (4.3 w/ xDrive)
Basically - the Lexus LS with a TTV6 is only slower than the M760i and S63/S65 AMG and has a better average MPG than the competition.

I think that's a pretty good feat considering it has no V8 trim. Hopefully they add an LS-F that can compete with the M760i and S63/S65 AMG.
I think the main problem is the "sporty" styling is not sitting well with some people and the average consumer can't look pass the badge.

pman6

what was the actual percentage discount, not including taxes and fees?

Lexus should be easy to get at least 12% discount, and now that sedan sales are getting beat by SUV sales, maybe even bigger discount than that?

sears1234

In this class, no one really care about 0-60 number, neither how much gas you can save, it's a symbol how much successful you are.
If a customer care about how much gas he save, he doesn't belong to this class at all.

BippuLexus

According to the math - I got about a little over 14% discount for the purchase of my 2018 Lexus IS before taxes/fees.
And my friend got about roughly 12.5% discount for the purchase of his 2016 Lexus IS200T before taxes/fees.
And my cousin got about 14% discount for his purchase of his 2014 Lexus IS350 F-Sport before taxes/fees upon initial release.

Agreed. You can get about 12% discount easily at a Lexus dealer at any given moment with a car's life cycle.

However - I wasn't referring to that. I was referring to FizzBoy's quote of "The current V6 IS should have very big discounts at this stage in it's life." <--- Based on my recent experience of shopping around for a 2018 Lexus IS (I looked at both Lexus IS300 and IS350) and people I know's experiences, it feels that discounts are pretty much business as usual in roughly the 12%-14% range. The discounts are pretty much the same now as it is back in 2014. I'll give it another few years, maybe in 2020 or 2021, before "huge" discounts.

I'm not surprised by this because the Lexus IS isn't old yet. I'm surprised people think the Lexus IS is "old", when the current model of the Lexus IS is pretty much just 1 year old since it refreshed in 2017. Its also 2 years old since the AR Turbo + 8Spd Sport DirectShift on the IS200T/300 was introduced. The 2GR-FKS introduced this year on the Lexus IS350. And with a total of 4 years old today if you count the generation. I personally don't think that's old because car life cycles last roughly around 7-8 years for most cars. I would say the Lexus IS is in the prime - where there is a design freeze and Lexus has given it everything it wanted to give it.

You can't really generalize everyone in this class though. People looking to buy the S-Class, 7 Series and LS will care about performance or at least some form of decent acceleration. If they didn't, I'm pretty sure MB, BMW and Lexus could just make these cars FWD and 4 Cylinders. Secondly - I agree. It is symbol of how successful you are. This is why the S-Class is averaging better sales than the LS and 7 Series. Its because the S-Class is the definition of this segment. MB marketed insanely well to get the S-Class to where it is. This in turn cause majority of likely average consumer in this department to look pass numbers, stat sheets, and features for that MB Badge.

KingSun

This could be wrong. Just because you can afford or least an 100k car doesn't mean that you don't have an budget.

BippuLexus

+1 Very good point. The most wealthy people in this world live on a budget, a insanely good budget. Look at Mark Zuckerberg - he only wears basic tees and jeans. I believe he still drives his black Acura TSX.

rogers2

1st it's not a lot wealthy people in the world but theirs alot rich people. Plus some people pick and choose what they're going to spend their money on for example. Some people spend their money on houses, trips and boats. Me on the other hand prefer to spend my money on a nice car and house. When I went to purchase a new car such as my s550 the last thing on my mind was the gas mileage b/c I didn't care.