Ken1997TL

The average customer is a moron though. Its best for a salesperson to find out if you're into cars or the brand in particular early so they don't waste your time.

SpicyMikey

Agree. My Acura dealer is fine. Actually more then fine. Very good.

I've gone to Lexus, mb, and bmw forums and they complain about their service dept too. You can't use these type of forums as a way to guage something like that.

taitando

Same here. My "shopping experience" with the Acura dealers around here were great. My "service" experience is an entirely different matter. My dealer tries to rape me whenever I take the car in for any service (ie. A1, whatever alphabet soup). They want to charge $200 bucks for an oil change and tire rotation. In the meantime, it's like pulling teeth to get a service loaner.

leedogg

http://www.motorauthority.com/news/industry/honda-delays-acura-introduction-to-japan/

Moog-Type-S

Honda is waiting for the next gen V8 RWD Acura vehicles!!!!!

derrick

Ironic to think that the Japanese wouldn't warm up to their own homegrown luxury marque. As much of a nationalistic country as Japan is (I think only South Korea being more nationalistic among Asian nations), I would imagine bringing something like Acura to their market would be easy ... but then again ... how big is their luxury / near luxury market? Taxes there are insane ... but there's like 100 million people to buy cars there?

Guess I don't know their markets very well.

leedogg

I think its more about honor and worthiness. WHEN they do come out, you can bet its going to be the next generation of vehicles capable of inducing spontaneous skeeting.

phile

It's not that they don't warm up to them, it's just that the Japanese luxury brands have not been distinctive enough from their own household brands to warrant the extra attention. That's why Lexus didn't bother opening up in Japan from the beginning, and now that it's available in Japan after all these years, it's not making a splash. The Japanese already had the Lexus vehicles, they were just sold as Toyotas. And now that Lexus is there, it's still a Toyota, except this time, it's wearing the Lexus badge.

As much as Acura has been a "failure" (according to some...) in the US, it actually has an opportunity in Japan to distinguish itself. Even the Japanese didn't have a RWD Honda that was imported here as an Acura (except the NSX, of course). But now we might see an Acura RL with RWD and a V8, etc...which the Japanese never had from Honda.

AlterZgo

I think it's a matter of people in Japan prefering something foreign as being more luxurious and unique. It's kinda like how there's a fairly small number of people in the US would prefer Cadillac or Lincoln over Mercedes or BMW or Lexus for that matter. Most people just don't equate our USDM premium luxury brands with status or luxury.

To the Japanese, Lexus doesn't feel all that special since they were basically buying Toyta Aristos just a few years ago before they became Lexus GS350s recently.

Honda, being a lower end brand than Toyota, would have even a more difficult problem - especially given their lack of a RWD V8 offering.

Edward'TLS

But how feasible is Honda's big RWD V8 sedan plan, now that people are going to smaller and fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles, and that CAFE is raising the fleet fuel economy standard. With the currently high gas price, drivers as well as truck/big-car makers are all suffering badly.

Trackruner228

iTrader: (1)

That probably shouldnt be in red that probably is the reason. Seems to me the only Lexus cars that do good are the real highend ones which Acura doesnt have now. So that probably is the real reason Acura wont be in Japan for awhile.

dom

It would be suicide to launch now considering the current state of the RL and lack of a halo car. The 2 year delay might perfectly coincide with the launch of the next RL and NSX.

Mokos23

So does that mean the next JDM Accord will be the Acura TSX too?

Is Infiniti also being sold in Japan now too like Lexus?

F23A4

F23A4

As the lineup on Nissan's JDM website (which includes the Cima-Q45, Fuga-M and Skyline-G35), I would say no.

SPUDMTN

Sorry to speculate...

...but, it seems that they could be waiting to debut the Acura brand with a presitge luxury sedan along with the new NSX. In order to be a true competitor with the big boys, Acura needs...NEEDS...a full-size competitor to the 7er, S-class, A8, and LS.

Like dom said, Acura is currently missing a true halo car. A midsizer as a flagship model is just unacceptable for the launch of a luxury brand. Further, a double-wammy introduction of a flagship sedan and sports coupe (NSX) would be perfect for building the brand.

The introduction of the Acura brand in Japan may be the introduction of Acura as a full-fledged luxury competitor. Only good can come from this, IMHO.

leedogg

Can you imagine the wealth of mods and kits that might result? I'm drooling already.

360

As a former acura owner, I had to got to 4 different dealers before I found one I liked. I lived in Austin TX. and would only take my car for service when i was in Dallas. (200mi away) Thats Thats how bad It was. But the service in dallas was great. As a former and current lexus owner and being part of 2 different lexus club web sites . There is very very VERY few complaints about the service department. Especially compared to here. Some are better than others , but i haven't been to a bad one. MB and BMW get alot of complaints too, well BMW not as much since every thing is free for the warranty of the car. But I've had some horrible service at BMW.


I agree with you on this. Who the heck is Pied Piper prospect. Is n't that a kids pizza joint. It's like saying were rated number one in quality by mary had a little lamb's quality survey.

goturcode

my acura service department treat me just fine always on point and on time, however when i walked on to the showroom floor once there were about 6 sales reps just sitting at their desk none of them got up to help or ask if i needed help i guess they don't take a 20 year old black male seriously,

einsatz

I liked the way my dealer treated me so much that I went back to the same dealer when I bought my 2nd new Acura. As soon as I walked in, the salesman that sold me my 03 CL-S recognized me, greeted me and did all the right things. Ended up buying the 04 TSX I have now from the same dealership (and salesman!) I got the CL-S from.

Worst dealers in my experience over the past 5 years: Audi, Lexus, Honda, Mazda.
Best dealers in my experience: Acura, BMW, Infiniti

01Cl_Type-S

maybe when they introduce acura to japan, we'll se a CL concept???

lito

This is good news indeed. We'll have a couple more years converting our TSX's and RL's to Accord's and Legend's. Long live JDM's conversions

GreenMonster

Yeah.. they should at least have a flagship vehicle in the lineup for the launch.

GreenMonster

Acura has to finish the NSX before they can even THINK of another coupe... But TOV has had a sub-nsx listed on it's model matrix for years (don't get your hopes up):

http://www.vtec.net/modelmatrix/

Edward'TLS

This is NOT good news. The longer TSX=Accord and RL=Legend, the harder it's gonna take Acura to establish it's supposingly premium brand image.

Mokos23

Sly Raskal

iTrader: (1)

Basically, they haven't figured out how to market the Japanese a Honda rebadged as an Acura that isn't very moddable which we all know is one thing teh Japanese love about cars.

Arcticcl9

I guess no one likes the TL in China

From the article:
Link to Article

CGTSX2004

iTrader: (1)

Once again, Acura fails at the marketing and promotion of a perfectly good car. They really need to hire people who actually know a thing or two about cars to launch products like these because they've been bombing left and right.

TMQ

Again, I'm not surprised.

1. There is no brand recognition in China about Acura. Acura is only known in the U.S., and here it's still mostly considered "luxury Hondas" to the average Joe, it's not associated with luxury, and even Chinese consumers who may know a thing or two about the U.S. auto market will be hard pressed to buy an Acura.

The auto market in China is very competitive, if not more, compared to the U.S. market. Cars from U.S., Japan, Europe, and domestic manufacturers are all sold there. There are tons of brands, and Acura will find it very hard to differentiate itself from the other players.

2. If you know anything about the Chinese auto consumers, as a percentage not many drive their cars to work (at least for now). Traffic is terrible and parking is limited. A large percentage will drive on after-work or weekend trips. The congested roads in the city and poorly developed roads in the country are not good for sports sedans - comfort and luxury are more important features.

In the luxury market, people who have money want large cars and will buy from well known brands. Audi, MB and BMW dominate. Since many are used for business, A6 and 5 series size cars dominate (in 2006, Audi sold 61,686 A6 and 15,536 A4).

I will say that Acura will continue to have trouble in the market place, until the brand has a large flagship premium sedan.

TMQ

from Asian Times (7/10/2007)

China car sales rev up nearly 26%

BEIJNG - As increasing numbers of newly affluent Chinese residents put the pedal to the metal in the first half of this year, both private car ownership and car sales were cruising smoothly.

Despite slackening in the past two months, China has managed to chalk up year-on-year growth of 25.9% in car sales for the first half of this year, sources with the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said.

From January to June, 3.08 million passenger vehicles were sold



nationwide, up 22.3%. The total included 2.29 million cars, up 25.9%, 107,000 MPVs (multi-purpose vehicles, known as minivans in North America), up 12.9%, and 158,000 SUVs (sport-utility vehicles), up 39.3%.

By the end of June, more than 13 million cars in China were privately owned, up 16% over the end of last year, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

The growth rate of private car ownership was slightly down, 0.96 percentage point, from the same period of last year, according to the ministry's traffic administration.

The number of motor vehicles across the country rose to 152 million, up 5.2% from the end of last year, and almost 90% were passenger cars and motorcycles. Up to 75.4% of vehicles were privately owned, up 5.1% year on year, the ministry said.

The number of car drivers exceeded 100 million, up 5.7%, and 82% of them were aged 26-50. The number of inexperienced drivers also went up, with 36.6% driving less than three years and 9.4% less than a year.

Beijing has 2.97 million cars. That number is expected to exceed 3.3 million by the time of the Olympic Games next summer. At least 1 million more parking spaces are needed to cope with the capital's rising car numbers.

CAAM sources said that in the six-month period, the top five best-selling models were Volkswagen's Santana and Jetta, Buick Excelle, Toyota Camry and Chery QQ. The top car makers in terms of sales were FAW Volkswagen, Shanghai Volkswagen, Chery, Dongfeng-Nissan and Guangzhou Honda.

Other foreign and domestic car makers also reported strong growth in sales.

Toyota Motor Corp and Ford Motor Co also reported strong first-half sales in the Chinese market, where they are competing to introduce new models to attract customers.

Toyota sold 212,000 vehicles in China during the period, up 77% from a year earlier, powered by brisk demand for its Camry sedan, the best-selling car in the United States in eight of the past nine years. Sales of the Camry in China came to nearly 78,000 units, well on track to hit the full-year target of 150,000, or more than one-third of Toyota’s total China sales goal of 430,000 vehicles in 2007.

Ford said retail sales of its wholly owned brands in China rose 25% during the first half to 93,206 vehicles. Sales of the mid-sized Focus sedan, made by a joint venture between Ford, Mazda Motor Corp and Changan Automobile Co Ltd, came to 55,676 units, up 66% from a year ago, it said in a statement.

Demand for luxury models was also strong in China, as its growing ranks of nouveau riche snapped up the latest premium models.

Toyota sold 12,000 Lexus cars in China in the half-year, nearly matching the 13,000 sold in all of 2006 and well on track to meet its full-year 2007 target of 22,000. Ford's Volvo, Jaguar and Land Rover brands posted combined sales of 8,779 units, up 66% from a year earlier.

But both auto makers still lag behind rivals General Motors Corp and Volkswagen AG in the Chinese market.

Meanwhile, Chinese car maker Brilliance Auto, a partner of BMW, said its sales grew 58% in the first half of the year. The sales of the Shenyang-based company rose to 140,000 vehicles from 88,600 in the same period a year ago, said company sources. Monthly sales of the company's Zhonghua cars - including the Zunchi (BS 6) and Junjie (BS 4) sedans - maintained at above 10,000 units for six months in a row this year.

The company exported 7,000 vehicles in the first half, up 125% year on year, with the number of its overseas distributors increasing to 41 from 33 at the end of last year.

Brilliance Auto, China's first car maker to hold an exhibition at the International Geneva Motor Show, mapped out a five-year plan in January to explore the markets in Europe, Russia, the US, the Middle East and other regions. At the end of last year, the company clinched an export deal with a German distributor to sell 158,000 Zunchi and Junjie cars in Europe over the next five years.

Brilliance Auto is expected to produce 300,000 vehicles this year, with sales revenues reaching 40 billion yuan (US$5.2 billion). It also plans to double its revenues by 2010, by raising its annual output to 500,000.

Another Chinese car maker, Chery Automobile, plans to raise its annual output to 1 million vehicles by 2010, according to company sources. The 10-year-old company, based in Wuhu, capital of Anhui province, is expected to increase its production capacity by 200,000 vehicles to 700,000 this year.

Chery, an ambitious flag-bearer of Chinese indigenous brands, became the country's fourth-largest producer of passenger cars in 2006, with sales of 305,200 vehicles, up 62% from the previous year. The company held a 7.2% in market share in China last year, up from 6.7% in 2005.

US Chrysler Group, which signed a deal last week to sell the Chery cars to North America and Europe, is to select four to six compact models developed by Chery for exports under Chrysler Group brands. Sales in North America and Europe are expected to reach 300,000-500,000 vehicles by 2019.

Chery also plans to set up a joint venture with Quantum LLC, a US subsidiary of Tel Aviv-listed Israel Group, in its attempt to explore the European and US markets. Once approved by the Chinese government, the 5.8 billion yuan ($744 million) joint venture will start production in 2009, rolling out 105,000 sedans and 45,000 SUVs a year.

Despite its fast growth, Chery is still far from becoming one of the global auto giants that produce an annual average of 2 million vehicles, said a company executive.

CGTSX2004

iTrader: (1)

If Honda really wants a piece of the China luxury car market, they need to step up their research and better understand their consumers there. There's a boat load of money to be made there, but they will not be able to do it without proper insight and leadership in the country.

TMQ

Honda is doing well with the current Accord and Fit, and should do fine with the release of the new Accord.

Acura is another story.

pnoi521

What dealership do you go to? Elk Grove Acura or Niello?

danfuller

yeah..they don't want to get behind when its about cars as well..

observer

I agree with TMQ.

Luxury buyers in China are looking for the status and prestige that come along with the brand. With Acura's lack of brand recognition (not just recognition, but recognition as a luxury brand), an Acura buyer in China would be paying luxury price without getting the luxury recognition they seeked in the first place.

And the same problem is plaguing Acura in Hong Kong. In the Legend era, Acura was a very respectable brand in Hong Kong, but for some reason it wasn't able to take off in the luxury market like Lexus has. Acura sales has been very poor in recent years, to the point that only one model (RL) is offered nowadays. Again, Hong Kong buyers, when paying the same price, would rather get a Lexus/Audi/BMW due to their higher brand prestige.

Overall, I think the idea of "value luxury" doesn't really work in China, where there's a much higher discrepancy between the rich and the poor. For the Chinese luxury auto buyers, money really is of no object, so the "value luxury" proposition Acura brings doesn't work like it does for middle-class America.

observer

After doing more research and thinking about this, my current conclusion is that the low sales of the TL doesn't necessarily mean Acura is not doing well in China. All that means is it confirms my theory that Acura can only survive as a truly luxury brand. It's possible that the TL doesn't provide enough luxury for potential Acura buyers so the vast majority of them got an RL instead. (This reminds me of someone who once said that in Dubai, the 7-series sells better than the 5-series, which sells better than the 3-series.)

In the official Chinese Acura website (http://www.acura.com.cn), it posts the car reviews from different car magazines. For the RL there are 6 different reviews; for the new MDX, there are 6 as well; but for the TL, there is only 1 review dedicated to it. Acura only sold 200 TLs in the first half of 2007, but I'd be really interested to know the sales figures of the RL and MDX. Does anybody know where I can obtain this information?

zamo

Thats pretty rough

http://www.leftlanenews.com/october-2007-car-sales.html

DarkSithCL

iTrader: (1)

If you read the report, it sounds like folks with money, who had it before the US slide face first into financial mud, are still buying the cars they want and the folks in the middle are hurtin, so they are buying more affordable cars... I don' know about FL, but here in Houston, there are so many new cars on most lots that there are cars and trucks parked on the grass... and there are more used cars than you can shake a stick at... just cars laying around everywhere like hay...

DarkSithCL

iTrader: (1)

BTW... people with cash still cannot swallow the super poor MPG of the Hummers I'm guessing...