neuronbob

It's four days later and the new grille still isn't growing on me. It reminds me of the grille for another luxury maker.....one whose styling is deader than than Acura.....Mercury.

I always liked the overall look of the 2G RL but now have come to appreciate how classy it really is. Are any others seeing their car in a new light?

It's like looking at a chick who was attractive, though not drop-dead gorgeous, who's good to you and is wholesome on the inside, who for Valentine's Day tries a radical hairstyle change that just doesn't work. You know she's still all good on the inside, but you can never get around how her face looks wrong for the hairstyle she's wearing. Total turnoff.

I'm either keeping this RL forever and adding a used 'vette to the garage for sport (less expensive option), or trading out to a 2009+ CTS-V.

dwboston

I agree completely. 4 days later and it still looks hideous. I'm adding the rear lip spoiler to my 2006 and forgetting that the MMC exists. If the FMC in 2010 doesn't abandon this dumb-@ss grille, I'll be looking at an Audi or Lexus at that point.

plastikman

I wonder if we all go over to lexus at the same time, if we could possible get a group buy discount ? ! ?

Jackzilla

Same here. Moreover, the more you study the fineness of the detailing of its design, you just scracth your head about how it can be so overlooked for the fantastic design and engineering value it is.

Just one example: other than the $90K BMW 750, I cannot come up with a single other car with "PERFECTLY FLUSH" side glass. from the "A" pillar to the "C" pillar. How many on even this forum are aware of this or how the side glass has to be fabricated to achieve this?

I'm just amazed that Acura can build and sell the RL for the price they do.

neuronbob

Actually, the RL is the first production model to have flush glass that meets the B pillars. Or at least, so they say on their materials. It's been that way since 2005.

Yet another area that Acura has failed to market.

Mike_TX

You know, totally aside from the grille itself, there are other "styling" cues in the front end that bother my sense of continuity and design flow. Looking at this comparison:



The flowing and aerodynamic shapes on the front bumper area of the '05 - '08 models look like something you might well see on a business jet or Ferrari sports car (see arrows for specific points).

On the '09, on the other hand, these organic shapes have been replaced by rather clumsy trapezoids and squared-off edges that project in different directions (witness the downturned outer edges of the fogs, as contrasted with the other dominant shapes that point upward, as one example).

We went from a single oval main intake, with aero venturi slit openings on either side, to multiple square-cornered slits, and from flush-mounted round foglights to awkwardly-shaped foglight "eyes" that droop at the corners.

Is that styling progress? Is that Acura Advance?

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cai06

I agree, it is a very radical redesign. I think it is part of the new corporate styling, I noticed the opposing foglights in the MDX too. Seems that they are trying to create a more aggressive stance. Also the arrow tailights have the same design cues as the RDX, and the upcoming TSX.

neuronbob

The overall look of the front of the new car is muscular. I do like the new hood and can tolerate the new foglight shape. However, the grille and front fascia look like they are tacked on as an afterthought and don't fit. Ewww! The grille looks much better as part of the Sport4 concept as it was incorporated into the design.

Mike_TX

But where is the harmony? The 2G RL had it. Every curve, every opening, every styling element washed over into the next one in a smooth, aerodynamic flow.

The front end of this new one is all lumps and bulges and conflicting shapes, and an overall scowling-catfish look. Who wants to drive a pissed-off fish?

Okay, I'm trying to find humor in it, but it's hard.

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static808

The 05 RL has a timeless look. Conservative, yes. Similar to its 1st cousin, the Accord, definitely.

The one thing that's been mentioned here is that the 05-08 RL defintiely can exist for years and years and look fashionable.

This new "thing" on the 09 RL is too tacky. I second neuronbob's opinion, the grille isn't growing on me.

I am sure Acura executives are freaking out. The reception for a low volume RL with the new grille was lukewarm, at best. Now slap that grille on 2 sedans that net about 120,000 in annual volume. I'd stop the production line and reevaluate this beak of a design.

VOdoc

Guys, you're right, four days of reflection just makes me sicker when I look at the incompetent design of the MMC. Besides the incredibly clumsy lines both at the grille-headlight interface and on the bumper, don't forget the added projection of the proboscis. That beak looks very '70s Pontiac to me. Horrifying.

Again--they already had a great-looking and classic car. Had they simply put the JDM LEGEND grille on, it would have resembled the 3G TL in a tasteful way. Way less retooling cost too. Alternatively, the TOV Photoshop looks great. Why couldn't the pros have come up with something as tasteful??

As Neuron said so aptly...Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot!!?? Heads must roll.

neuronbob

I appreciate the effort. I wanted the MMC to succeed, but given the universally bad reaction to it...it doesn't look good.

I think it's time for Honda to clean house at Acura. They need fresh blood and a marketing plan. If Honda can't fix Acura...it's already at the edge of irrelevance in luxury along with Lincoln/Mercury. I sincerely hope I haven't bought my last Acura, and that it will come back from the near-dead like Cadillac and Infiniti did.

static808

Neuron Bob,

you might have hit the nail on the head. If these model refreshes, MMC (RL), FMC for the TL and TSX totally bomb, Honda will roll some heads.

They have too much success and pride to abandon Acura. It might go the way of Infiniti and Cadillac. Lets hope not...as in they salvage the TL, TSX and regroup with the RL in 2010, or 2011.

Honda just dropped like $200million on F1 and the team totally sucked. If they have that committment for racing, I am sure they won't let Acura turn into Mercury or Lincoln.

This might be the valley that leads us to the peak...

jhr3uva90

What's wrong with going the way of Infiniti and Cadillac? At least they have RWD cars instead of milking the Accord platform for all it is worth.

xenonhid

Well if it makes you RL guys feel better, the TSX got this funky grill too

lumpulus

Hold on there, let's get something straight.....they were bad, but it wasn't all bad.

Also, 100 million per car is the average for any F1 team, so it's not like that kind of investment is unusual for F1.

Lastly, last year was Honda's first year as a straight Honda team after many years.(earlier, they were just supplying engines for some teams, the last time an all Honda team was around it was the late 60s.)

Tragically, I think the same design team picked the livery for this years entry that gave us the new RL.

lumpulus

Just went over to the TSX forum and looked....that doesn't look nearly as bad as it does on the RL.

vincethe1

hate to say it, but what if honda thought only market-wise about the new RL and why it's sales were so bad....

think of it this way, their logic was like this: RL didn't sell very well, and the small amount of ppl that bought it were unlike the majority of the market, they were the "crazy" bunch....so now we make something that THEY don't like, so that the rest of the market could possibly like by making it stand out more...

what if they are looking at all the bad responces from current RL owners and enjoying the results??

it propably isn't so, and it probably wudn't work even if it was so cuz the new car is basically the same with odd styling...and now even the "crazy" ppl that bought it in the 1st place won't buy it anymore, so it'll be a complete failure....

just a thought.

dwboston

It's not just the "crazy" current RL owners that hate it - it's all of the Acura and Honda fansites that hate it as well. It's generally not a good idea to anger all of the customers for your brand, especially the "aspirational" ones that currently own Hondas or TL's or TSX's. I don't think they put that much thought into it - it was nothing beyond "the current one doesn't sell and is 'boring', lets make it 'bold'".

neuronbob

Who you callin' crazy?

Just kidding. An interesting alternate theory there...

gavine

I pointed-out the flush B-pillar to my sales rep who sold me my car and he was amazed by it. He never noticed it before and said he couldn't wait to start pointing it out to other customers. Unbelievable!

CL6

As TampaRL knows, Dick wrote me back and he was fairly pithy in his comments to me. Essentially, he said to wait and see what happens...

blakura

I agree that the new RL has some really great features, but that exterior design looks like it came from a mole who is trying to destroy Acura from the inside. I was so disappointed when I saw that car that I started looking at the Infiniti website because if the new TL even remotely resembles the new RL, I promise to leave the Acura brand or at the very least, I'll just get an '08.

blakura

I mean really, people are saying that they would give the new Hyundai Genesis consideration over the new RL. I think the original 2nd Gen. RL was 10 times more stylish and tasteful, the new design is hideous and on the autospies website (sure there are some really biased people there), the question was asked if the new RL was a Stud or a Dud, as of yesterday, only one person called it a stud, 99 called it a dud and now make negative reference to it when talking about other cars. That is not the look of a flagship! Acura, what are you doing to our brand???!!! Is is too late to get new designers? You don't have to fire the current ones, just give them a job that doesn't affect the way the cars look. I know you Honda has deep pockets, just pay for some of those Italian designers, you'll get your money back and then some. Acuras are in my opinion the best value in the market, they just need to get the style right. I don't even care so much about not being RWD, new EPA regulations will have everyone looking for a FWD platform soon enough.

Qatar

A question we ned to ask our selves, is the 2009 RL going to sell better than 2005-2008 based on these features? We all know that all the accompanied Xm features will be available on other cars in months, so Acura will loose that advantage again and we are back to where we started.
Who thinks they'll be getting thier money's worth?
At least when the 2005 RL was released, i liked everything about it

darth62

Forgive me guys, for being a bit of an outsider. I currrently drive a TSX (which has 75,000 trouble free miles on it, btw) and was seriously thinking of upgrading to the RL. I don't see the terrible mistakes Acura made with the MMC. In fact, I rather like most of the changes (INCLUDING the front end). And, frankly, even if I didn't like the changes I'd still prefer an Acura product to anything from Lexus, Infiniti, or BMW (been driving Hondas for 20 years and always been happy).

But, I won't be buying one.

Why?

According to Motor Trend, the 2008 EPA MPG for the RL will be 15/21. That is not all that surprising given a slightly larger and more thirsty engine. But, I'm sorry, in this day and age I am not buying a sedan that gets worse fuel economy than the typical SUV and drinks premium to boot. Yes, like the rest of you, I can easily afford the fuel costs. But, that doens't mean that I like sending my paycheck to Saudia Arabia or Hugo Chavez.

Eoanou

Well the two pluses I can see are that the wheels are slightly better than the previous generation, although I think Acura needs to go with a larger wheel, and 18" stock wheel size would be nice.

Also the front headlights are a nice design cue taken from the MDX.

However the front lower grills need to be retooled, they look don't match the contours of the vehicle.

As for the front grill if the area with the logo is and that silver plate where slightly downsized and centered to the rest of the grill, it would be significantly better.

The worst part of the car is the tail lights and rear fascia, it seems like Acura is having difficulties engineering a beautifully designed rear fascia for the RL.

I think if all the front grills were modified it would be a great car, however I do think the front bumper should come down a bit lower, it sits really high too much ground clearance.

Eoanou

Also the point made about how Acura provides to many options stock, that is done typically to attract buyers as if to suggest that they are getting a vehicle with a plethora of standard options whereas its competitors are higher priced with less standard features.

In my opinion its a marketing strategy done by particularly weak car manufactures, for example Kia or Hyndai would market in that same way.

Qatar

I know we've bashed this car before its even released. Lets give Acura chance, maybe they'll release it with a different grill and some revisions.
But going back to what was said, we are 4 years behind, and according to Darth62 fuel consumption is down compared to the current Rl due the engine upgrade.
Honestly, i knew that Acura wasn't going to come up with a new engine and they'll probably put the MDX's, which is what happened.
I had the MDX for 2 months, and i hated the fuel consumption, now the same will happen to the RL.

jwaters943

Hoping for a different grille is a waste of time. The 2009 RL will literally enter production any day now in order to meet it's Spring '08 launch date. The most we could hope for is an alternate dealer installed grille or aftermarket option.

darth62

The fuel economy info comes from Motor Trend. But, for all we know, they could be incorrect.

http://www.motortrend.com/features/a...rl_first_look/

In the "if it ain't broke, let's just make minor improvements" category, the engine is mated to an upgraded version of the Acura's Sequential SportShift five-speed automatic transmission that you can shift two ways: via F1-style steering-wheel-mounted paddle shifters or the new straight-gate console-mounted gear selector. While adequate, we hope Acura is developing a six- or seven-speed transmission to better keep it inline with today's luxury competition. The RL's fuel-economy ratings check in a bit lower for 2009 at 15 city/22 highway.

If these numbers are correct, that means that RL gets the worst fuel economy in the class. In fact, the city MPG is identical to the MDX.

mdkxtreme

I don't know about you guys, but after reading that letter, it seems to be a fallacious argument using style over substance. Half of the letter has nothing to do with the styling of the RL but instead some background about the author and the Acura company. It doesn't do any good to lead onto helping Acura redesign the RL. And then, it only specified the grill, and only the grill, as the RL's faulty styling. I would like to quote, "I feel so strongly about this style change that I cannot see beyond the styling to even consider the worth of the engineering modifications and content additions." WHAT STYLE!? Be more specific. Is there something wrong with the door handle? Cup holder? Side skirt? The letter sounds very fluid but doesn't support it's thesis on what is TRULY wrong with the RL. My dad owns a 2006 RL and when I showed him pictures of the new RL, he didn't give the same disgusted face as I would imagine you guys would from all the comments you've been posting about. I'm not affiliated with Acura or anything, it's just I've been reading around this forum and all I see are complaints about the grill. Well, aside from the grill, what is wrong with the RL?

Chas2

Is that in Colliver?!?

Qatar

Aside from the grill, how about the interior room? Vehicle size which is smaller than the Accord. How about the rear design that looks more of Accord than Legend?

mdkxtreme

THANK YOU. I understood more about the design of the RL in those three sentence than I did in seven paragraphs.

sufall96

I Agree!!!

TampaRLX-SH

Building a case, providing background information, establishing credibility, acknowledging opposing views, and drawing conclusions from evidence are the fundamentals of arguing a point. They are all there. You need not agree with them.

Unfortunately seven paragraphs will not appeal to text message mentality.

You struggle to apply your academics as if you have real world experience. I may suggest: Reading, Writing & Research, 5th Ed. Veit, Gould, & Clifford

Don't be so quick to criticize what you do not comprehend. It may be wiser to complete the coursework before you start grading papers.

Qatar

ok, who here thinks that the 2009 Rl will over-sell the previous models?
The begining might be similar to when the 2005 hit the show rooms, but then started dying.
I hope i'm wrong

krio

You couldn't say better. Get my humble appreciations.

krio

I think even more hideous that the grill is the abosourd shape of the front lights.
If they got on the RL lights like the TL, or TSX, sharp and angular, the car should look much more better. The TL with such a grill will look very, very good.

[I]I am sure that they designed the new TL 2009 during the summer, put all the strenght on this car because is the more important one, got a great design from a car that is already a fantastic one, and thought a couple of months: get a restyled RL or too expensive?
Ok, let get the front grill of the TL on the RL, and let's tell pepole is the new brend shield...[/I]
Before the problem was that the RL was a limit to the growth of power and AWD to the TL, now is the TL that prevailed in the Acura range and influenced the TSX and the RL.