From the Acura sales site, http://www.hondanews.com/CatID3000?m...49297&mime=asc

year-to-date sales of the RL is 6867 units. My RL has a VIN of 17XXX. Where are the 11,000 other units? Are they on dealer lots? Could the year-to-date sales be for the U.S. only and the other units would be Canada, Worldwide sales, etc.?


Crap if Acura has only sold about a third of their production run, these cars should be cheaper than the TL when buying.

 

I may be COMPLETELY off but do the Acura RL and Honda Legend share VIN ?

If so, that may explain where the "lost" cars are.

 

Maybe VINS do not go up in increments of 1?????

Maybe Acura only will produce about 10000 units but space the VINS over a 20K range???

 

Hmm... good question. Might be worth a try asking in Car Talk, we have some very knowledgeable members there.

 

I believe the Acura RL and the Honda Legend share VIN numbers since they are essentially the same car. Also, Honda's goal was to sell 20,000 RL's between Oct 1, 2004 and Sept. 30, 2005. I don't know what the Oct, Nov, and Dec 2004 sales where, but that might make the number look a little higher.

 

They do not skip n umbers in the VIN. The last 5 digits represent which car off the line it is. So 00001 is the first car and 17263 is the 17263rd car off the line.

I am curious about the legend sharing the same VIN - it is a distinct possibilty since they are essentially the same car.

 

Wouldn't it be great if someone from Acura would read this board and answer our questions?

 

I believe that RL's sold in Canada have their own VIN range. I took delivery of my RL in December, VIN 001xx, its not likely that I have one of the first 200 RL's built

 

I counted 12,085 RL sales from October 2004 to May 2005. The last six digits of the VIN are reserved for the production sequence. It's the manufacturer's choice on how to enumerate it. They could put a particular number in the first of those six positions to indicate if it's designated for the U.S., Canada, or Japan or something like that. Or they could put their own check digit in one of those positions to ensure accuracy. It's unlikely they did this, though.

01 = Originating country
02 = Make
03 = Type
04 = Restraint system employed
05 = Vehicle Line (TL, RL, etc.)
06 = Vehicle Series (i.e. base, S-Type, A-Spec)
07 = Body Style
08 = Engine Type / Displacement
09 = Check Digit (used to verify VIN accuracy)
10 = Model year
11 = Location of assemply plant
12-17 = Production sequence

 

the units are all built in the same place, but distributed to other countries, that is why there is so many vin's.

 

Prefessor,

Sometimes the simple answer is the right one.

"Year-to-date sales" is normally a calculation starting January 1 through the current date. In this case it represents January through May sales, or a five month total.

As a result it doesn't include the sales made in October through December 2004.

Dave

 

My rough calculation of 2004 calendar year U.S. sales of the 2005 model year RL comes to 5218 units sold. Add this to the 6867 units sold in 2005 and this means that their are 12085 lucky RL owners in the United States. If we project June to September sales to be 1400 units per month, and the projected sales for the 2005 model year will be around just under 18,000. Since the Acura RL is also sold in Canada, we can add another couple thousand units to that total (the total in Canada may be higher since we Canadians really love our Honda's and we really love the benefits of AWD). This brings the total number of Acura RL's sold in the 2005 model year to 20,000. Does this number sound familiar?? Despite all of the doom and gloom being spouted in internet forums, Honda will sell the exact number of RL's that they had planned to. For all of those who will argue that the discounted prices being seen today in some markets suggests disappointing sales, please consider the possibility that Honda deliberately priced the RL too high to maximize early profits and then allowed the dealers to discount to a price that is based on the competition in this segment. I have been told that a similar sales pattern was seen with the new Odyssey minivan which was held at MSRP for a period before being discounted several thousand dollars in some markets to assure sales over the competition.

 

Thanks Dave,

The ole Professor gets a lesson. I think your concept of a calendar year v. a model year is correct.

 

Excellent post!!!