Ah, yer an honest man, 8-), admitting in open forum what a bath you took. But I speak from the bottom of my black heart when I say to you, wasn't it a wonderful splash anyway? Better than the one with wife #1, about on par with #2, nowhere near #3 eh? And for the living Gawd that made us, how many splashes just for the pure, beautiful hell of it have we left, 8-)?

 

Amen, brother!

 

sometimes there is that need

 

I am with you. The money I would get off if I would have waited 1 more year (who knows even at that point it wont be MSRP?) would not have been enough to excite me. Life is too short.

 

Haha. I've seen 2 Maybachs so far and I've seen 2 RLs.

 

1320 in October.
1941 in November.
1967 for December.

1,371 for January 05.

 

Yeah, I'm a bit worried about the RL. It's been doing reasonably well without new Japanese midlux competition, but with the attention really swinging over to the M and GS, and the figures already down for January, I'm actually not sure Honda will meet its 20k goal.

Hopefully, for Honda/Acura's sake, I'm wrong, but my gut feeling is the RL is not going to sell as well as it should, given the excellent vehicle it is.

 

Yeah I have no doubt it will lose out in sales once the M & GS hit and it is a shame because as you say, the RL is such an excellent vehicle.

It'd be nice if all 3 of those cars sold well and took more sales from the German brands. hehehe

 

OK...this shouldn't be a major cause for alarm gentlemen - Aren't autosales always weak in January?

 

I don't know, but we'll see in the coming months when the competition is available.

Is the Infiniti out yet? When is the GS due?

 

I think so, but historically they're weakest in December, or so I was told by a salesman...

phile, Infiniti is Feb 28, Lexus is Mar 1, IIRC. Some dealership in Texas will have GS's in mid-Feb, though. Not sure why they get to be special.

 

We had a decrease in allocation for January and February, only 5&6 cars respectively but March is back up to 13 so go figure.

 

How did that happen...

 

According to a post on another forum Acura is claiming record 2005 RL sales again. Now maybe you can argue the record thing (a very small increase in monthly sales can give you a record when you are just starting off) but it looks like Acura is pleased with the results...or at least putting a good face on it.

Pete

 

If the other posted statistics are true (i.e., January 2005 represents a 200% increase from Jnauary 2004 and an all-time sales record for any Legend/RL January ever), Acura should be happy.

 

I've now seen 5 in South Florida... 3 Celestial Silver, 1 Lakeshore Silver, and 1 Nighthawk Black... but I'm still not convinced it is selling well. Granted, this is a $50k car, so not everyone is going to run out and buy one.

I searched Rick Case Acura's website since they're one of the largest dealers in the Southeast, and they have 35 in new car inventory. Granted, some could be pre-sold, but I'm sure there are a good number that aren't. I feel the incentives and discounts coming!

Re: the new GS and M, I'm sure they will take some sales that may have gone to the RL, but on the flipside, there may be people waiting to test drive all 3 before making a decision and they could realistically choose the RL. The outside package may not be trend-setting, but neither are the M or GS, and the RL is sweet to drive. We'll see.

 

In Houston, the discounts are already here. You just have to be firm about the offer. If you go directly to the sales manager they will take at least 2800 off including acessories installed. I was able to do even better than that but my timing was just right. I went to dealer a couple days ago and they still have a lot of cars on the lot, approx. 9 RL's. They had 12 when I bought mine a couple weeks ago. Most of them are white and no one in Houston wants a white RL. They would sell you a white RL behind invoice with accessories if you wanted to buy it I bet.

 

How do RL sales compare to the new A6?

And is there a central place to see all this data????

 

1209 A6 sedan sales in Jan.

 

Like the RL, not too much to be concerned about at this point. Although unlike Acura, Audi was planning on 24K as the annual sales number...

 

I have yet to see an RL on the road here in Michigan. I have however seen a couple in the dealer service department, for what? I don't know. But with at least 16 RL's sitting on two local dealers' lots, and 9 at a third, this screams "great time to buy", below MSRP.

 

"Below MSRP"

I dont think it will be below but probably pretty close to MSRP. We had a lot of them sitting at the dealers last month but not as many here now. They must be selling them now. None of my family or friends have seen any others on the road yet and all want to know how did I manage to get it so soon (Go to Acura and buy it!).

I went to Colorado Springs and Denver this past weekend several times between the 2 cities in fact and I did not see an RL during the entire stay. I was there for 5 days and drove from Colorado Springs to Denver to Vail and back. I looked for at Least 1 RL and did not see one. I think Colorado has the largest selection of Audi's on the road I have ever seen in the states.

 

Guys,

Do you really mean "below MSRP"? If so, I am puzzled

Most of us who bought early paid MSRP because we had little choice if we wanted the car, but today I would have thought that a couple of thousand over invoice would be getting in range, and if a dealer is desperate then invoice might not be too far off.

Pete

 

Pete,

I think the dealers have been wanting to get rid of some of the inventory to get more allocation. Invoice will only be available for a short while if at all. The popularity of this car is increasing quickly and in limited availability.

 

Just a little FYI, I've gotten a quote from an Illinois area dealer for $46,800. I guess it's worth the drive from Detroit, Hopefully I can get my local dealer to match the price. If not, I might just have to trade my TL for a different brand. By the way, the TL-S is in the shop for a bad transmission. Only 30 thousand miles, with all its service up-to-date, and needs a trans...come on ACURA.

 

I'm not doubting you, but I'm curious as to the source of your information on the RL's increasing popularity? For as large a market as South Florida is, I still rarely see one on the road and I commute 50 miles per day through one of the most congested areas of Miami. I have seen a couple in the neighborhood, but that still doesn't convince me they're popular.

 

My own personal opion (doesn't carry much weight). I am just looking at the numbers of cars being sold vs. number os cars being shipped into the staes this year. They are selling better than previous year model. However, since they are only sending 20,000 to North America the RL is limited this year.

Is the 20,000 cars to cover both the US and Canada or just the US?

 

Acura Canada says the total FY05 model year allocation for Canada is in the 600-700 range

 

A quick calculation may help here.

It looks like the RL has been selling about 1200 per month for the last 4 months. Now that is between the US and Canada. Making a wild-assed guess that 60% of the vehicles end up in the states gives us a total of 2900 cars spread over the 50 states. Compounding my original wild-assed guess, let's say that only 20 states are selling the RL, that makes it only roughly 145 cars per state. With these types of numbers, it's no wonder we don't see many on the road yet.

Feel free to add your own wild-assed guesses, but worst-case is a minimum of about 60 cars per state (assuming 60% head for the US and are evenly distributed across all 50 states).

As a sanity check, look out for Hummers...how many of them do you see...again it's probably not many (unless you're in Ahhhnold country like I am where we know all the CA wierdo's have far too much money etc. etc. etc. )

Pete

 

I was thinking something along that line. Perhaps the RL is more popular in certain areas, so depending on where you live, you may or may not run across one, despite what the sales number says.

 

1,412 for Feb. 05

 

And Lexus sold 1,602 GS300 and 345 GS430. It's hard to tell if those numbers were for mostly the outgoing model or the new model, as the outgoing model hasn't sold this well for a very long time now.

 

Wow, look at those sales number for the V8 GS...and people bitch about Acura not having a V8 RL option? Come on...from a business standpoint it makes no sense.

If I was running a car company I'd have V8 only or no V8 option.

 

I was reading an article in MotorTrend last week, it stated that high-end luxury vehicles that offer a V8 engine option don't sell in high volumes. Not because there isn't a demand for them, but because automakers only produce a set number of those vehicles per year! I'm sure they're making a profit. Either way, that would probably explain why the GS V8 isn't selling as many units as the V6. Just a thought!

 

Are we on the same planet?
True luxury offers a V-8, no matter if they sell 2 year.
Audi 4.2
BMW 545
Benz E500
Caddy STS
Infiniti M45
Lexus GS 430
Lincoln LS V-8 (even Lincoln has a V-8)
Jaguar S-type

Not sure if that is all but it seems we are the odd man out (as Volvo and Saab). But by your theory, those car makers above are idiots, and have been for years offering low-volume V-8s. And that is just the mid-size class, most offer V-8s and even V-12s with the larger model cars.
Heck, they sell many more V-6 Mustangs than V-8s. But imagine a Mustang with only a V-6.

 

To answer your question... no, none of us are on the same planet as you (thank god) and what do you know about "true luxury" anyway?

 

By the way, Mods, did you let 1SickLex slip back in under a different name?

 

Are we still discussing "How well is the RL selling"?? Seems like we are really getting off the subject matter here..just my , but I'm more interested in reading about how well the RL is selling. Maybe someone should start a thread discussing the other guys.

 

Agreed. As to the V-8 vs. non V-8 consider that the other referenced manufacturers HAVE V-8's and they can and do use the same engine in a number of different vehicles. There's a huge cost differential between designing a car so that it can accept multiple powertrains and offering those powertrains than there is to engineering a new motor that - in Acura's case - would generate perhaps only hundreds of sales. And of course none of this has any relevance to the thread topic - how are RL sales? I did my part last month, it's on somebody else this month.

 

He's a
I can't imagine wasting my time hanging around a forum for a car I don't like.