HondaOnly

I attended a market research discussion about Acura. I had never been to one and was curious to see what it was like. I was paid $100 for showing up. There were 10 of us gathered in a room with a two-way mirror where marketing people got to watch our discussion. The only thing we had in common was that we all had TLs. We talked about the car, the other cars we considered, our experience with dealers, salespeople, service departments, the criteria we used in deciding what to buy, why we settled on Acura, etc. I assumed Acura was behind it, but at the end of the discussion, the marketing guys came out and revealed that they were from BMW, which I kind of guessed because the moderator steered the conversation towards BMW near the end of our session. But it was interesting to hear what other people thought of Acura and some of the other brands and this just confirms what most people already knew. BMW definitely considers Acura competition. I hope Acura realizes what a great position they're in right now with the TL. If they just add AWD and get a handle on some of the build quality issues, they could really take it to BMW.

mrjoshua

I hope you mentioned a primary motivator for purchasing an Acura over the competition had to do with VALUE rather than a nameplate.

If I had to think of an album to name my TL after it would be U2's "Rattle and Hum." But I still know I saved $8,000+ in deciding to forego the purchase of a comparable car in BMW.

Legend2TL

Interesting, BMW are the fastest growing car brand in the US.
But as Andy Grove of Intel said, "Only the Paranoid Survive" which also applies to the car makers as well.

rets

2nd place: Hyundai/Kia... due to their "new copied cat" designs and long term warrantee...

mrjoshua

Many people laugh at the notion that Hyundai/Kia have to somehow provide a 10-year warranty due to their cars being of low quality. From what I've read, however, they're not in the shop very often any longer. The psychological advantage of having a car being covered for that long is huge and will end up forcing other manufacturers to improve their own warranties.

Besides, if Acura insists on keeping production in the US they're going to have to improve their overall warranty. The Americans building them are drunk half the time. Evidence of this is proven in the build quality of my '04 TL.

Lore

As cool as it is to be considered for one of these meetings, I'm wondering how BMW got ahold of owner records?

HondaOnly

Lore, I was wondering that too. These people called me at home so now I'm wondering who gave out confidential information like that.

mrjoshua, I did mention VALUE as my biggest reason for getting the TL. In fact, that was a word I heard quite a lot. People were constantly saying how you get more for your money with Acura than any of the other brands.

PhilB

I wonder if registration records are available via the FOIA. If not, maybe they just had someone park at a busy intersection and record license plate numbers, then run them through a license plate database to get contact info.

-phil

NoRespect

Please provide evidence of this statement other than your build quality. Build quality may be based upon many factors, none of which may be fault of the people doing assembly. For instance: demand, quotas, engineering issues, poor material choices, Management indifference. I haven't even added in the quality of the sub-contractor's work. Do we assume that the transmission problems are due to drunk Japanese workers? or design problems?

Most of the people (not all) who put your car together have pride in their work. They have a better understanding of the quality issue and the effects it will have upon their jobs and livelyhood than we give them credit for. Does any factory worker in this country not understand this? Perphaps you should lay some of the blame at the feet of the people that control the companies, the ones who make decisions as to what is "good enough". That guy on line is responsible for putting the part on, not analyzing it, figuring out how to improve it or the installation of it. Do you think he/she made the decision to use double sided tape to put the head liner on?

I have a pretty nice car (04TL), not perfect, but the nicest I have ever owned. Yes, I couldn't afford a BMW, value is important to me. As an engineer, I feel that I have gotten my money's worth so far...

Lore

Even if the license plate method was what they did, I doubt that information is publicly available! This just reeks of a privacy violation.