weed4life

Well et me start by saying I got the car today. I was hugely surprised when I received the car and it was GRAPHITE NOT BLUE like my previous thread. I took it out for a quick test drive and I must say I was impressed with many things, but not everything.

First, love all the features...absolutely great how the Japanese can incorporate all these features for such an inexpensive vehicle. It has alot more features than my 03 A6. Interior build is nice, luxurious, and I love the dual armrests.

Some dislikes...the drive quality...could be better. I think my A6 with 19's drives slightly smoother. The steering wheel is difficult to turn as well, seems very rigid (probably not used to it yet). ALso the navigation interface is a pain in the @ss to use, but again something probably not quite used to.

My biggest dislike is the sound system, was expecting some booming sound...the BOSE system in my A6 is far superior unfortunately.

Thats about it so far though. Some pics below...more to come. (I know its stock...but not for long)

sunny158

congrats...you will like the car.

I have the same exterior/interior combo but with much more miles than yours. I have 65K on my 05 RL.

Cheers.

neuronbob

I'm sorry to hear about that. It looks nice, regardless.

....which brings me to your first mod, which will be (minimum) 18's with decent rubber. That greatly improves the ride and those dowdy stock wheels are meh.

Don't worry. The big knob becomes second hand after a day or two. Further, make sure you read the navi manual as you can speak many of the requisite commands.

Welcome to the club, officially! Now mod her up! Given the excellent job you did modding your A6, we are expecting great things.

Storm982

06 with only 18k miles, not bad.
looks good. congrats!!!

Storm982

btw... is that your white A6 in the background of the first pic???

Chas2

Congrats on a fine car. Navigation interface with the knob is secondary. Most everything can be accomplished via voice.

470hpGS400

iTrader: (1)

Looks great. I agree on the nav. Acura nav is usually rated behind Lexus but Audi is generally way down in the list. Try a 5.1 DVD-A to test the audio. That is where it really shines.
Now time to mod it.

470hpGS400

iTrader: (1)

I would also add that my current 20's actually feel better than the stock 18 Michelins that were on there. Not too mention it handles much better.
Also, if you plan on lowering, you can get a brand new A-Spec suspension now on Ebay for $390.00 shipped. $650.00 regular price can be had for $390. A fantastic deal. If interested let me know and I will post the details.

SupaRookie

wow, only ~18,000 miles. Mind if I ask how much you got it for? Whether graphite or blue, they are both great colors. I prefer WDP or LSM. The A6 looks great.

GoHawks

You're kidding right? I have a Land Cruiser which has the EXACT same NAVI that is in the Lexus models.

There is no comparison. Period.

I'll take the Acura Nav over the Lexus/Toyota models any day. Even my wife who lives with the Land Cruiser every day comments how much more she likes the Navi in the RL. She says it's much more intuitive and easier to work.

470hpGS400

iTrader: (1)

What exactly is no comparison? The Acura unit is much slower, locks up, no icon reference for address book items, screen blanks out while scrolling,etc. So exactly what does the Acura have that is no comparison?
Also, realize that you are comparing an older Lexus nav (gen4) to a newer Acura nav system. Other than the cute little road pop ups on the Acura and nicer graphics (compared to the older Lexus nav), it still pretty much lags. No saying it is bad, or no comparison, but not up to Lexus standards especially compared to the same years.

neuronbob

I think that's just your car. My navi is not slow, has never, ever, once locked up in over two years of ownership, or blank out while scrolling. If you're having those issues, you need to take your car to the dealer.

weed4life

Questions to answer:

Storm982 - Yes that is also my 03 A6 in the BG, check out my original post for pics of it.

SupaRookie - No one here will believe it but I bought the 06 RL for $10...off a family friend. Have bill of sale for proof, pretty much got the car for free, he bought a CLK convertible and didnt have a need for the RL in Florida. =)

Also another thing i noticed today, the Navi gets washed out in direct sunlight....to the point where it is almost invisible.

EDIT: Modding will be done in the coming months, I now live in Colorado, so I will be purchasing spring/shocks, wheels, spoiler within the next month or two. However because of the amount of snow we get in DIllon, it will be sitting in the garage for the time being until the temp gets higher.

robarsan

If all you paid was $10 for the vehicle, you shouldn't be complaining about anything.

GoHawks

Same here. Mine has worked flawlessly, and I still felt that the Acura Nav in my '01 Tl was more intuitive than the Gen IV nav in the Land Cruiser. Maybe not as robust as the Toyota's, but then the Toyota's was newer.

I will give you that the Acura nav doesn't have the address book icons. My older Gen IV nav has them and aside from showing me where my saved addresses are as I drive with a "cute little" icon, they are worthless to me.

I also hate that I have to hack the nav everytime I start the car so that I can program the Nav as I drive.

Let's also talk about the voice recognition integration into the nav. It is worthless in my Toyota, and from what I've been able to gather when I visit ClubLexus, it's only marginally better in the Gen V.

I haven't noticed any measurable difference in calculation between the two, but the Lexus Nav segments the continental US into regions, so that may give it a slight advantage. Unless you happen to live on the fringes of those regions and yo have to go in and change the region everytime you need to search for a location in the neighboring region.

Not sure about the Gen V nav, but on my Gen IV, you have to set up the default speeds for the different types of roadways (i.e. Highway, rural, etc.). The Acura Nav constantly adjusts your ETA based on the speed you're traveling.


That's not even getting into Bluetooth integration, but that's another topic.

470hpGS400

iTrader: (1)

Again, you comparing an older version with a newer version. I could compare my old barton AMD with my new Intel- so what? Apples for apples.

I have that same setup in my GX and still find it to be much better in many areas even without the "errors" that Acura has-my car affected or not. Gen 4 does not even have bluetooth so why even bring it up? Lexus is 2-3 generations over what your system has in the Toyota. Gen 5? Are you aware of that? Don't blame Lexus or Toyota because you have an older vehicle.
Acura only came out with a new version on their 2009 RL.
Sorry OP for taking it off topic.

470hpGS400

iTrader: (1)

OK, the 5 minute rule on this site is annoying.

But to clarify on the nav, this could go all day long. I can appreciate that others have different opinions but for you to come trolling over here to state ,"are you serious" is in poor reflection on yourself as perhaps you should give credit to others that perhaps they may not agree with you.

Yes, the Acura nav does have some nice features over the Lexus nav. But, overall I much prefer the Lexus nav. Not once, ever, have I had a glitch with any of the Lexus nav systems. The Acura nav is known to have issue after issue. Read the threads, they are all over the place. Now if there is actually something wrong with my nav then I may would feel differently. But again, reliability comes into play and you definitely do not want to get into a conversation about Acura vs Lexus reliability.

weed4life

not, just giving my thoughts. Love the car. Started using the Navi pretty well today.

EDIT: Gentlemen please stop arguing on my thread...

470hpGS400

iTrader: (1)

My bad, continue on. I will respond to your PM shortly.

dwboston

+1. I've never had an issue with the Acura navi system. If it's locking up or blanking out then it needs to be serviced.

The guy with the problems wouldn't be using a copied nav disc, would he?

470hpGS400

iTrader: (1)

No, I do not even believe in downloading songs, those that do should be given 5 years. Original factory dvd.

When I mean blank out, what I am referring to is the screen taking a while to refresh itself while scrolling at top speed. I saw another RL with the same exact thing-05. At top speed scroll it blanks while trying to keep up and refresh. Not the entire screen, just portions of it while refreshing.

vinodc

I'm not trying to stir up anything more....but here's my opinion....based on owning both acura and lexus.

on my Previous Lexus Gs430, 05 model..the navi was very simple to use, no freeze ups, i just felt overall, super user friendly, fast refresh rates. My parents own a 2008 Ls460L......now THAT is a navigation unit!! super fast, and beatiful screen, I have to say nothing compares to it.

Having used the Acura RL naviagtion multiple times....its a good one as well, but its just not that user friendly, as lexus per se....But thats just my opnion. I feel it takes a lil more effort to do certain steps then necessary. overall, still a great system.

Now also owning a 2008 MB350...hands down.....WORST navigation unit in the world. Its not user friendly, poorly designed, just such a hassle to use. it's been well documented on how poor MB's Command system is, but there newest command model out now, is much much better.

Everyone will have there own opinion i just felt Lexus went a lil further in user friendliness.

GoHawks

First off, who's trolling?

Secondly you need to do some research. The Gen IV Nav, at least the one in my '04 Land Cruiser has voice recognition (recognition is a relative term in this example) AND bluetooth. Look it up.

Secondly, we can talk about Toyota/Lexus reliability if you want.

I used to be an avid Toyota/Lexus fan, and to some extent I still am, but they've fallen a notch with me.

When my Land Cruiser had 40K miles (4K miles after the bumper to bumper warranty expired) my Navigation screen went south. Because the screen also controls the audio and climate control it needed to get fixed. It wasn't something that I could say, "I'll live without the Nav".

Having no heat in the dead of January in Chicago is not a good thing.

The problem was related to a known TSB, but I was technically out of warranty. Fortunately I had purchased a Toyota extended warranty.

The warranty company originally tried to get the unit repaired, then tried to get a salvaged unit until the dealer had to inform them that the part was redesigned and the TSB called for the new part to be used to avoid having the problem reoccur.

When the part came in, I asked the dealer what it would have cost me if I was out of warranty.

Are you ready for the price?

$5,000!!! Yes, that's right, the touch screen and the related parts were FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS!

If I didn't have the extended warranty I would have had to dish out for a $5K repair on a 2.5 year old car with 40K miles on it.

Since then they had to replace the head unit twice because the bluetooth module (someone needs to tell Toyota that according to you I'm not supposed to have this feature) wasn't "unmuting" the radio after a phone call. Warranty company was billed $700 for that one.

Then had the backup camera fail. There was a TSB on that one too, and the warranty company was billed $900 for that, although Toyota did extend the factory warranty on that since that too was a chronic issue.

I recently had the switch that locks the center differential replaced, since that failed too, although to be fair, my Land Cruiser now has 91K miles.

Now having said all that, I really do like my 'Cruiser, and mechanically at least, it's rock solid, but the electronics are another issue.

Just do some research, Toyota has come under much criticism lately that their quality has taken a hit.

Now I'm not saying that Honda/Acura is better since I have had a couple of recurring issues with my door handles, but aside from that, it's been solid in the 40K miles I've owned it.

Saying that Toyota trumps anyone else in quality is no longer an automatic statement any more.

GoHawks

Sorry.

470hpGS400

iTrader: (1)

I'm going to respect the integrity of this thread as well as the wishes of the OP, however, I would ask that if you are really prepared to go over reliability studies involving Lexus (not Toyota) and Acura or any other issue, but all means open another thread. You can also PM me as I would thoroughly enjoy continuing this. Thanks.

ssim3

Someone page Miketx the way he loves theLexus Nav lockout & functionality. He could offer some great insight. To me Nav is used when I travel maybe every few months so it is not a big issue to me.

neuronbob

Ahum.....guys get it back on topic please.

Please open a new thread discussing the navi in the BT/electronics etc. subforum.

DoctorTuna

Congrats on the new ride, and double congrats on finding an 06 with only 18K miles, nice find!!

You mentioned mods, let me be the second to say that the first thing that needs to go is the stock wheels/tires. I happen to have a solution for you!!

http://s529.photobucket.com/albums/dd334/DoctorTuna/
https://acurazine.com/forums/car-parts-sale-361/sold-fs-ronjon-legend-19-wheels-397231/

Otherwise enjoy the new ride, "She's a beaut, Clark, she's a beaut!!"

weed4life

Thx guys...and Tuna...r u trying to get me to spend $$$$....tisk tisk, its already snowing here in Colo so unfortunately no wheels just yet, right now looking for mainly good suspension, tint, and a decent spoiler (Not the mugen one.)

EDIT: (I always end up editing) Anyway I got used to the Navi today, its a breeze to use; therefore i retract my statement about the Navi. Ride quality is still an issue that I will deal with until I get new wheels.

470hpGS400

iTrader: (1)

That's funny. Doc, you still have them wheels? Figure you would have sold them by now. Nice set of rims.

Weed4life, with the 30% off on Ebay +10% additional with a coupon, now is the time to purchase items for your RL. Spend spend spend buddy.

DoctorTuna

All my interest has been from the West Coast and shipping is very steep, even when I come down in price, no takers. I refuse to give the set away, its worth more to me to keep them for my next ride if needed. I'll keep them up for sale, if someone wants to pay a reasonable price then I will let them go, for now, they actually look good in my garage!! (Wife wouldn't let me mount them in the living room.... ) Sorry, off topic!! Back to our regular scheduled programming.....

Sylvain

That's interesting, a couple of your points are very much in line with the comments I made in your other thread about getting that car. Namely, the drive quality and the sound system. I (too) was expecting more in those areas. At least, you got the "benefit" to have had a good deal on it...