As I posted previously, I sold my 05 tl, and ordered an 06 infinity m35x, basically optionless. It had mostly what I needed, with one or two additions I put on.
Car arrived exactly when promised, even though the dealer, called and said it might be delayed because of holiday.
I learned my lesson, from having the nighthawk black pearl, and the time it takes to keep it nice, so I went with the liquid platinum, with the bourbon leather/rosewood trim. As I stated before, I am not enthralled with the cars looks, but have come to appreciated it more.Outside, it sort of looks like a large g35, and inside, it kind of feels like I am not in a car, but in an office, with a desk in front of me. Its sort of hard to explain.
The buying experience was not as pleasant as I had with my tl. I had a lot of crooked acura dealers playing all kind of games, till I finally went to a dealer, who showed me courtesy and honesty, and it was one of the easiest large purchases I have ever made.
With the infiniti, there was absolutely no pressure, but no enthusiasm either on their part. Basically, it seems their technique(and I went to three dealers) was that the car sells themselves, and their customers come to buy an infiniti. Each dealer gave me the keys to the car for a test drive unaccompanied. They never bothered me in the showroom. Seemed not to care, if I purchased or not. But I told them what I wanted and was willing to order, and I gave them a low ball price, and they gave me back a slightly inflated price, and we hit what I thought was a sweet spot for both of us. Easy transaction, but seemed they couldnt care less. Kind of an eerie feeling.
The acura dealer, were a more enthused bunch, and seemed to congratulate me for buying a tl, and introduced me, to the service manager, and other people in charge. They took great lengths to get my car prepped perfectly, and assign you a rep, who spends anywhere from an hour to two hours with you, and goes over everything in the car, as well as setting your defaults that you want, programming your phone, and taking care of you.
At infiniti, the car was prepped perfectly, and I was shown where the manual was, given a few directions, and asked me if I had any questions. It was more matter of factly.
Car was filled with gas, car had seven miles on it(my tl had 1.4 miles on it new).
Drove the car home with a little nervousness, since traffic was bad, and trying to get used to controls, and it was raining and getting dark, but I was happy to park it in my garage.
Will report back in about a month. Oh by the way, my normally choppy ride back home, felt like I was riding on dr. scholls gel insoles. I mean the car, absorbs every inperfection in the road, while I feel giving you even a better feel of the road then the tl. I took it easy, so cant compare acceleration or braking, but it felt good not pre scanning the road, for minor ruts and imperfections.
I hope I have made the right decision, as this has cost me roughly 18,000 dollars out of my pocket for the difference on my selling of tl and buying of m35x.
I took the audi a6 3.2 for one more test drive, just to make sure. While I do like the looks of the inside of the audi, I felt the dealerships almost impossible to deal with, and unwilling to sell anything less then a fully loaded a6. They act like they were selling passages to heaven or something. LOL
But the absolute lovely ride of the m35x, I kept coming back to. If anyone gets a chance, take it for a ride, and you will see, that you dont need a bone crushing ride, to get a nice handler. And having the awd, is a comfort to me.
Man, I liked that tl, and it was a great value, but couldnt take it on my back.

Thanks

 

Congrats on the new car and sorry to see you leaving the Acura community!

 

Congrats! Love the M's!! Maybe one day!

 

This thread belongs in our Car Talk forum

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This probably belongs in Car Talk.

Sorry to hear you left your TL behind, though! The M35 is defiitely a sweet car, though. Still looking at the M35x myself, but will likely instead buy some RonJon wheels for my TL and save some bucks.