Did anyone else receive a JD Powers Survey for the RL with the crisp new dollar bill enclosed? I received mine in the mail this week and I plan to fill it out this weekend. Unfortunately, to my dismay, I will have to report some of my initial quality issues that I've experienced over the past 3 months.

This is my 5th Honda/Acura product and I have been a very happy and loyal customer, but my initial impressions of my RL have been quite mixed. I'm hoping that Acura will be able to resolve these initial quality problems quickly, so that I can enjoy the RL the way it was intended to be experienced.

 

Negative reviews will affect the rating of the RL and therefore the resale values. Some of the owners will be very concerned. How do you feel about this issue?

 

I cant really suggest to you what you should say but I must say that I have read your posts for sometime now. I realize your frustration in your new car but if you look at the exoeriences of most on the board, we are not really having many issues. Consider the overall experience if asked before answering your questions.

 

I think you should be honest. If you're not completely satisfied, you should list the reasons why.

I wouldn't be concerned about it adversely affecting other owners. You belong in a random sample; if there are overwhelmingly more owners who are satisifed than those who are not, quite honestly your opinion may not even matter (statistically speaking, that is). But if there are more owners like you, then Acura has a problem.

 

Thanks Phile! I couldn't agree more!

Just so that everyone knows, I am still a loyal Honda/Acura fan (and other car manufacturers) and I wouldn't maliciously trash the RL in this JD Powers survey, but I will tell them about my personal experiences over the past 3 months. Of course, there are more positives, than negatives, but I'm a little surprised at my list of initial quality issues. I understand that there is a boatload of technology packed into the RL, and as such, I would expect some minor technology glitches along the way and I am also anticipating that these "glitches" will be resolved shortly. I also understand that there are many of you that have a perfectly working RL, and I must admit, I'm envious of you, because that is what I was expecting of my vehicle.

So the techie problems I can deal with, but the squeaks and rattles are something that I'm less tolerable with. My glove compartment squeaks and rattles whenever I accelerate, stop, and drive over bumpy or not so bumpy surfaces. I also have a rattle on the back shelf area. I've already taken my RL in for servicing this week and they couldn't duplicate that back shelf rattle, but they did hear the front glove compartment's squeaks and rattles. According to the service manager, they do not have a fix for this and they have placed a call into Acura Tech Support to see if they have any recommendations and they'll get back to me.

In an attempt to placate me, the service manager said that he's been driving the owner's RL and he has the same rattle. Was that suppose to make me feel better?

I understand that my vehicle might just be an anomoly, but a recent car mag stated the following in their review:

"the sheer number of bits used to build it mean that inevitably rough roads elicit some unseemly squeaks and rattles".


So maybe I'm not an anomoly? If not, I would have expected more from Acura engineering for their top-of-the-line vehicle.

On a brighter note, I applaud Acura for taking the initiative and sending out the initial "update" letter and notifying the customers of potential problems. I also hope that Acura Tech Support will resolve my unwanted noise issues. If these items are addressed and resolved, I will be a very happy RL owner.

 

I would honestly say that my positive experience is more than the negative. I agree completely that if I was asked to take part in the survey, I would only be one sample of a randomly selected group of RL owners. My next question is, how confident are you about JDP's survey method(randomness, sample size, etc)?

 

I'm somewhat confident. I'm not an RL owner, but I've bought 2 new cars in my lifetime and I've never been contacted by JDP to fill out any surveys. I wonder what their criteria for sampling would be?