I was surprised that Acura put a low resolution camera on the new MDX. The pictures are blurry, and much worse at night time. My old 2005 MDX has better picture quality than the 2016. I like the car. Just thought the camera doesn't fit the Acura brand well. Any one else share the same view?

 

Yep, it started in 2014. You are not the first or last to notice this. I know how you feel.

 

I have a 2013 and it also totally sucks. During the day is blurry. During the night is literally unusable.
Any car today costing half as much as the MDX has better a camera/screen combo.

 

In Canada, only the top-most trim level (elite) MDX, with the standard "surround view backup camera system", can show a high resolution backup image.

All other lower trim level MDX's have the pitiful low resolution backup image that everybody hates so much, especially at night-time or in low ambient light conditions.

 

One of the existing complains.

Hopefully Acura will upgrade the camera during the MMC.

 

I have a 2015 MDX and my wife has a 2015 TLX and the difference is huge. Her camera and display is much sharper and brighter than mine. Go figure, makes me think the really don't put the pest options in the MDX.

 

Wondering if there's anyone brave enough for to do a retrofit from a TLX?

 

right.

they should just be plug n' play. my concern is the actual shape of the camera's housing found on the TLX. If it is shaped any different than the MDX? Actually, as i write this to make such a determination. I see the housings between the to are different. Plug n' play might not work. Looks like some soldering might be the way to go?

 

When it Tsunami hit Japan, it took out several industries that were vital to the automotive industry. One resulted in the need for several manufacturers to change paint colors (including Acura which had to their change their white and BMW which had to change a gray) and a factory that made the majority of high res back up camera systems - the industry is still recovering from that.

 

A good portion of 2012 touaregs sold without backup cameras because of this tsunami. A nearly 70k car without a backup cam even available. People count yourselves lucky for having one!

 

BMW had to give a credit of $1800 for people to buy the nav in the 5 series because they had sufficient stock - but none of the stand alone cameras so they essentially gave away the nav.

 

VW did no such thing unfortunately. People were paying full price and not getting anything.

 

^^^^^

VW is an economy brand, and so don't expect them to offered the full suite of luxury amenities. Its luxury brother brand, Audi, is the one that will give buyers everything - for a price of course.

 

This was the touareg, not a golf or jetta. A 65-70k plus car. I don't care what the badge is, at that price I would demand a backup camera as soon as they could.

 

Good info, thanks for that.

 

Unfortunately, it is what it is. It doesn't matter whether you care the badge or don't care the badge.

Economy brand VW Touareg : Nop.

But premium brand Audi Q7 : Yes.

 

I would still throw a shit fit lol

 

Sorry. That's a very North American point of view that raises the likes of BMW and Mercedes to that above VW.


The Phaeton got extraordinarily good reviews in Europe and outsold BMW and Mercedes for some time as THE executive sedan, but it failed miserably in the US - it was (and is) the Bentley for those that can't afford the name.


The Touareg is a fine vehicle that is (in Europe at least) certainly considered the equivalent of Audi, MB or BMW.


American buyers buy by name, Europeans buy by price and value. Any car in this price range is going to be a company car and not a POV.

 

For what it is worth, VW fit and finish is far beyond Acura.


Go sit in a Touareg and compare it to a MDX

 

Absolutely ceb. Every single person who has sat in my touaregs would be blown away at how high the interior quality is.

Blows the mdx out of the water in terms of handling, towing, ride, luxury. Pretty much everything. Only set back is the missing third row.

 

TLX back up cam is actually worse than the MDX

 

I too agree that the Touareg is damn good vehicle, all except its utterly poor reliability that is typical of all VW vehicles.

On the other hand, even though Audi vehicles command a much more premium pricing than VW ones, a lot of those $ is spent in better build quality and in better vehicle reliability.

Therefore, Audi > VW.

However, even the more reliable Audi vehicles are still miles away from the top notch reliability offered by the top Japanese automakers such as Honda and Toyota.

In terms of the automobile buying traits between European and US customers, keep in mind that the road systems and speed limits are vastly different in Europe and in the US.

Therefore, automobiles designed for the European market and embraced by the European buyers may not suited well in the North American market, and vice versa.

After all, we are all living and driving in North America, and so it is us who decide what is good and what is not good for the North American market, irrespective of how well a European vehicles is selling in the European market.

 

Your assumption of VW reliability is accurate for the past VW products. Not the current. Most VW products share the shame exact parts bin with audi, more importantly engines and transmission so not sure how they would be any more reliable.

 

^^^^^

It's mostly the electronics/computer components that tend to fail prematurely on VW products, and even though VW and Audi products may share the same hardware, but the firmware/software/calibration/operation are completely different especially in terms of engine/transmission tuning.

Also, unless a VW vehicle has 100% the exact same parts as an Audi, which will never happen, otherwise the VW vehicle will NEVER share the exact same reliability of the more premium Audi product; and Audi reliability > VW reliability.

 

If you look at reliability studies done in Germany, you'll find that VW, BMW and Mercedes are head and shoulders above Honda and Toyota.

More to the point, MB, BMW Audi, Ford, Opel and VW are all considered "normal" cars, just like Chevy, Ford and Buick. The European markets are far different than ours. The cars have small engines (BMW 316/318, Mercedes C180 and so forth), cloth interiors but the same tech as the ones sold here. Anything bigger than a C class or a 3 series will most likely be a company car. The top selling Honda is the CR-V at 100th place. Here is the list if you are interested

Die meistverkauften Autos



Right. Here are the breakdown statistics from the German AAA (ADAC). Green is good, dark green is better, orange is worse, red is bad.

https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/unfa...cePageId=47921

 

The second link you posted (Vaguely) supports what I am saying about VW equaling audi reliability. It is too bad though that the touareg and q7 are not on there. Furthermore, as you can see, the a3 and golf have pretty much the same reliability with golf beating the a3 in 2007 and 2008, which is no shocker since they share a huge amount of parts. Same deal with tiguan and q3.

 

So, getting slightly back on topic, anyone brave enough to try a camera retrofit on the MDX with something better in resolution. If the Canadian model has at least 1 model that has one better, it should fit well... Hopefully software doesn't end up being a problem.

 

The Canadian model with the better camera is found in the around view system. It may not link up properly as a one camera system. However, in other cars with around view (Nissan rogue) the cameras all link to a converter which then patches them together. So it may not have anything to do with individual cameras in this case as well.

 

I posted that link more to show the Euro vs Japanese differnces but yes, VW and Audi share so many parts that reliability is about the same. In addition, wasn't Audi just rated the highest in initial quality?

 

I am not sure. Honestly I don't look too much into that stuff. They gave that "award" to a few kia vehicles in the past. I don't hate kia, but when they got the award back then, they did NOT deserve it.

I still stand by my opinion that VW reliability = Audi reliability. Inly Audi will bend over backwards to help you if you have issues vs VW's really bad service generally.

 

"If you look at reliability studies done in Germany, you'll find that VW, BMW and Mercedes are head and shoulders above Honda and Toyota."


CEB, as for their claims and statistics, the Germans just got busted for falsifying stuff. I agree that German luxury blows the Japanese out of the water, it's no contest. However, if we're talking about reliable cars, for whatever reason, the German brands are losing the race (at least here in the U.S.). If I could buy a Mercedes with a Toyota engine in it, I'd gladly pay six figures for it.
Disclaimer: early 80's Mercedes diesels have been the most reliable cars in the history of automaking........it's just not the eighties anymore.

 

Those statistics come from breakdown statistics compiled by ADAC - those stats aren't influenced by the carmakers.

Today J.D. Power ranked the Buick above Toyota for reliability and Audi just received an award as well.

 

CEB, I think the point is that Germans are going to claim that Germans make the best cars, and the Japanese are going to claim that the Japanese make the best cars. I'm neither German nor Japanese, so there is no patriotism in my claims.
I love the drive of BMWs, I love the luxury of Mercedes. They are great cars for what they are. What they are, however, are not in the conversation for most reliable cars on the road.

 

For what its worth, the J.D reliability thing put porsche as number 2 and only beat by lexus. It was more dependable than honda, acura, and toyota.

 

The Canadian "Surround View Camera" is an entirely different system than our single-input low-definition rearview camera system, with the main module being able to process higher-def video input streams.

I highly suspicious that our rearview camera main module may not be able to process the much higher video-stream bandwidth from the new camera.

 

OAMTC (the Austrian AAA), the RAC (the British AAA) and the ACI (the Italian AAA) all have similar findings.


FWIW, servicing a BMW, MB, Audi or VW in Germany is cheaper than servicing a Honda there - and the Accord (our TSX) is considered in the same league as the A4, 3 series or C class as far as standing.


Many of the reliability problems here are induced by inept servicing and - in part - because of the mods made to make the cars compliant. My 280SEL 6.3 was dead reliable with the exception of leaky hydraulics that plague MB to this day. But that never deadlined the car. My BMW that I drove here, OTOH, tried to kill me several times with failing high pressure fuel pumps - caused in part by the gas we have here.


Will I buy another German car here? No, but I also wouldn't buy Japanese in Europe.

 

So then you're stating that reliability is dependent upon a respective market? Okay, I can go along with that.
I guess my question is, where do you live?

 

In a way it is. All modern cars are inherently "reliable" and breakdowns occur with time, miles and maintenance. Many of the problems we see with German cars here are caused by not fully understanding how they work. Who knew that you can't just go to Walmart and buy a replacement battery for your BMW because the battery needs to be mated with the car using a BMW computer for it to charge properly? Who understood the intricacies of CAN-BUS when it first appeared?


Any indy in Germany knows about battery registration and how to do an Audi/VW DSG fluid change but V-TEC is a four letter word to them - the exact opposite of here.


So yes, a German car in Germany is more reliable than the same car here.

 

Whoa.... This thread took a detour to Germany and came back.

 

Bear in mind the MDX is an incredible value - where else can you get a car with all those features, utility and reliability for under $45000? X5, Tuareg, RX, etc? - $50-$70k for similarly outfitted car. They do cut corners to bring us that value and the camera looks like one of them.

Also, you can't compare JD Powers "initial quality survey" with reliability - not even close.