Do any of you who actually saw the new TL have any accurate idea of the SIZE? (Length, width, whatever.)

Or maybe have there been posts about this on other threads? I know that prior to the last few days there were various estimates and impressions, but I haven't noticed anything specific since the Seattle viewings.

 

a few insiders have said that the interior will be larger than the current TL. And as we already know, it will be a few inches shorter.

 

I would love to see it exactly as you stated.

I hope the seats are as supportive as those in the Legend coupes of the mid 90's.

 

Yeah, but -- what's "a few"? Some of the people who said that, when asked to pin it down, said they meant the car would be 191" -- which is just an inch and a half shorter. Others said, maybe a couple of inches longer than the TSX, which would make it 185.

What I'm asking is, does anyone FINALLY have a reliable specific impression, based either on having actually seen the car or on somehow being able to tell reliably from the pics? (I sure can't.)

 

From the interior shots, it appears that the seats are very well bolstered. Have you sat in the new Accord? I really can't imagine the TL's seat being any less comfortable.

 

Wish I could've seen one in person (walked by the hotel once but didn't see anything) to get a feel for this because this is the number one question about the car to me - I live not too many blocks up the hill from the hotel in these pictures and the size of the car is tantamount to me even considering it (well, the price has an impact as well :-) ), no matter how amazing it is.

 

Yeah, Vito, that's right -- and deep down everybody else knows that's right too, but most people seem to be panting away as though it doesn't matter. 185", 189", 191" - wtf difference does it make?

It makes a lot of difference. Think TSX vs. U.S. Accord, sort of. Or, A4 vs. current TL. Or a million other examples.

 

Here's my analysis.

First I entered "235/45-17" into the tire calculator at http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html and got 25.3 inches as the tire diameter.

Next, using the image posted in another thread


I measured the following (results are in pixels):

tire diameter = 75 pixels
length = 533
wheelbase = 333
height = 169

It's now trivial to convert the pixel measurements into inches. Format below is
parameter : 04TL value : 04TSX : 03TL
where the 04TSX and 03TL values were obtained from cars.com:

length : 180 +/- 5.5 [see below] : 183.3 : 192.5
wheelbase : 112 : 105.1 : 108.1
height : 57 : 57.3 : 53.7

The uncertainty in my pixel measurements are +/- 2; this translates (not shown here) to an uncertainty of 5.5 inches for the length. So the length for the 04TL should really be expressed as 180 +/- 5.5 inches.

 

Thanks for your time to perform this calculation.

I think we can say that the TL is at least as long as the TSX (most likely even longer), so it would be safe to say over 183".

the thing to be careful about in doing this is that it is hard to exactly figure out where the car and tires start and stop due to shadows and that the shot is not dead on (it is at a slight angle).

I still would guess it will be in the 188 - 190" range, this is the size of the camery and maxima in the mid 90's and would match up with the 03 accord size.

 

Wow. Good job on the pixel count. We really are crazy about this stuff, huh?

That's a pretty big uncertainty. But I guess it would have to be since measurement shows that it's shorter (?) than the TSX. Still, even at the upper limit of 185", it's WAY shorter than the current TL (which was promised). Maybe the true "ends" of the car were masked by some amount of foreshortening in the picture. I guess we'll see. The wheelbase is very impressive, though. We'll definitely get more interior room out of that.

 

With a wheel base that long, and such short overhangs, maybe the engine is not tranversely mounted??? Could that be?

Also, it is hard to read the true front and back as the corners of the car are tapered back (always wonderd how that would do in an impact, even at low speeds to protect the lights/sheet metal front and rear????).

 

I came up with 185" for length and 115" for wheelbase, with the same uncertainty. I used the wheel diameter, and calibrated based on a picture of an '03TL.

-r

EDIT: Just measured the height, 59".

 

Yes, in fact in the garage next to my TypeS-Navi is a NBP EX-V6-Navi.

It was my hope Acura would build upon the 03 Accord interior.

 

Great work, DNB -- this is kind of what I was hoping someone could do.

BUT -- I suspect some error, or (to use a gentler word) artifact.

If any of you believe the car truly is around 180", you should all be making appointments with your local neurosurgeons for brain transplants, because that's the only way you're going to undo all the breathless assumptions that you've emblazoned into your heads during these past few weeks.

If it's 180 (or anywhere real close to that), almost everything we've been assuming about the nature of the car is WRONG.

 

Why worry about tire size. Just measure the wheel diameter and map it out to give you a proportionate length.

 

You're welcomed to try it -- I wish you would.

But I'm afraid such a method is not failsafe. Even DNB, whose IQ I would estimate as somewhere in the low 200's, obtained a result which I would say (no disrespect intended, DNB) is utterly implausible.

Sorry -- but think about it. Does anyone accept 180" as being anywhere close to the actual length?

Here are some cars of about that length:

Toyota Corolla 178.3
Audi A4 2-dr 180.0
Volvo S60 180.2
Corvette 179.7

If the new TL is going to be that size, it's a very different car from what everybody's been thinking.

 

That was my first impulse. The inner part of the wheel (the one in contact with the tire) does have a diameter of 17 inches. However, this is not what can be seen in the picture. What can be seen is the outer lip of the wheel, and I don't know its length (i.e., the length of its overhang past the 17-inch diameter.)

 

It is quite possible that the length is 183" or a little over it. That value is within the limits of uncertainty as mentioned in my post.

Actually, it's not that hard to estimate the distances to +/- 2 pixels. Use the rear tire for the tire measurements.

Instead of guessing, I suggest you give the picture measurements and calculations a shot. Or try a different approach such as acura_driver's. I found it hard (even with the most generous of measurements) to come up with a length over 185".

I posted the image and method with the intent that other people could examine it, try their hand at it, and base their judgments/guesses on it.

 

No, no, no. Don't say "180". Say "180 +/- 5.5 inches." There is a world of difference in those two sets of figures. The latter figure means it is quite possible that the 04TL is longer than the 04TSX.

I'll edit the original post to make this less unclear.

 

Quite possible? Why would the 04 TL be smaller than the TSX?

J.

 

That's the point I'm trying to address.

If someone said "the 04TL is 180 inches long," [which is what people took from the original post] most people would understandably be puzzled. They'd shake their heads and say "why would the 04TL be smaller than the TSX?"

However, suppose someone said "the 04TL's length is under 185.5 inches" [180 + 5.5]. Wouldn't that be more in line with most people's expectations?

[This is too much work at night. I've got to find me some postwhore threads.]

 

OK this is getting interesting. Looking at the side view of the new TL, what I am seeing is, the front overhang is almost nonexistent, the rear doors are larger, and the trunk is longer. Contrast this with the TSX, which has a significant front overhang but smaller rear doors. I think it is possible that the TL is close in length to the TSX, but I can't imagine it would actually be shorter. I am sure the interior will turn out to be larger.

 

Interesting indeed. When I first saw the short length and long wheelbase I thought of the G35. So I looked it up:

G35 length = 186.2
G35 wheelbase = 112.2

Hmmmm.

 

DNB, pal -- let's get real.

I love the fact that you did the calculations. I was hoping someone would do it, and that it would be someone like you who knows what it's all about.

But, something went wrong, since, even if the actual length is within the "range," the method undercalculated the number.
What do you think it could have been?

It doesn't really help much to point out that the upper limit of your range is plausible. Fact is, the CENTER of your range is NOT plausible (we think, although anything's possible). I think we would have to say that if the calculations were valid, the center of the range would have been at least plausible.

P.S. (Edit) Maybe the problem is that the method's range of error is just too wide. I think that's basically what you're conceding -- and in that case, maybe we have to say the method doesn't work for this situation. In any event, it was a valiant effort. I'm thrilled that you tried it.

And, on second thought, if the TL comes in at around 185", I'll have to say the method is vindicated. That figure would be in line, sort of, with what we've thought about the TL, if just barely. Probably it would indeed mean that the TL is quite a different car than what most people have thought -- and, as luck would have it, more like the kind of car that most of us would wish it to be.

 

Since nobody has commented on my calculations, I'll throw them out there again.

I came up with 185" for length, 115" for wheelbase, and height of 59". I think the accuracy is +/- 3%. I used an estimate of the actual wheel diameter, and calibrated based on a picture of an '03TL.

-r

 

Sorry, AD, I missed it the first time!

Interesting -- and unless there's somehow the same "artifact" for both you and DNB, maybe this means the car REALLY IS on the shorter side of what we'd been thinking.

Virtually no one had been projecting that the car would be this small. Few people are taking notice of this thread, and in fact few people on any thread are paying attention to what we might be able to decipher about the size of the car. Odd, because, as I've said here and there, this is the one main remaining major variable that will determine the character of the car -- and IMHO it determines the car's character more than any other single variable.

Before you and DNB (or anybody) presented any such results, I had been stating how wide was the range of what had been speculated, and usually the range I gave was 185 to 191 for the length. And I was surprised nobody "called me" on giving a lower limit as LOW as 185, because reallly hardly anyone had been indicating anything less than about 189. Yet, with perhaps the new indications being that the actual size may be significantly smaller than most anyone had thought, people aren't taking notice.

I don't get it.

And DNB, maybe your calculations will be vindicated after all!

If not, it means that somehow DNB's and AD's methods were affected by the same artifact.

 

Let me start off by saying that I think the 04TL is longer than 180 inches. But my thoughts and the values derived from the picture are two different things. And there should be no correlation between the two.

Now let me address an apparent misconception: You (and others) seem to be taking "180 +/- 5.5" as the mean and standard deviation of a normal distribution. It isn't.

Here's how to interpret it: I analyzed the picture and came up with a value of 180 inches. Now, that's not necessarily the correct value; I may have misjudged the positions of the various pixels when determining the distances.

So I assumed I could've been off by +/- 2 pixels in doing the various measurements. I think this is a reasonable assumption. After doing additional calculations I figured that this uncertainty of +/- 2 pixels translated to +/- 5.5 inches. In other words, if I had misjudged a pixel or two here and there during the measurements, I could've arrived at a length of 185 (or 175, for that matter).

So interpret the statement

"180 +/- 5.5 inches"

as either

"between 174.5 inches and 185.5 inches"

or the shorter, less technically accurate but probably sufficient (for our discussion, anyway)

"less than 185.5 inches"

Yes, one could say the error bars are pretty wide.

We can make them smaller if we can find an object in the pictures that is (a) larger than the tire and (b) of known length/size.

 

need someone in seattle to measure something else in that picture of the tl, preferably in the same "plane", else i would think it'd get mighty interesting in the calculations to have to include perspective (measuring how far back the hotel is from where the car was, etc.)....

 

Thanks for doing this.

BTW, I alluded to your results in one of my posts last night. But I wanted to spend some time thinking about it.

First, a qualitative (and obvious) comment: Our results both show a long wheelbase and a length shorter than the 03TL's.

Now for more minutiae: It's also apparent that the dimensions you've derived are consistently 2 -- 3% greater than mine. I don't think this is a big deal, nor is it particularly interesting. It is probably indicative of systematic differences in the way the sets of results were obtained.

What's really interesting is that the ratios of length/wheelbase and length/height in both sets of results agree to within < 1%. Here are the ratios, with the format
ratio : acura_driver's value : dnb's value

length/wheelbase : 1.60 : 1.60
length/height : 3.13 : 3.15

Here's one way of looking at this. Suppose we were both off in the scaling factors we used to obtain our results. Furthermore, suppose the true length of the 04TL is 189 inches. The height of the car would be 189 / 3.13 = 60.4 inches.

Now that's a pretty large number. The Matrix is 60.6 inches tall. The Focus and Civic have heights of 56.3 and 56.7 inches, respectively. Can you imagine a car almost as long as the 03TL with a roof as high as the Matrix's?

Given the above, I find it hard to believe that the 04TL's length is anywhere near 189 inches.

 

Actually, Lycos' initial sighting of the 04TL in Seattle (http://www.acura-tsx.com/forums/show...=&threadid=901) had this:

I also remember comments that the 04TL concept was considerably shorter than the current TL. However, I didn't think those comments would necessarily carry over to the production model.

 

lenght wil be 186-187 inches. the new RL will fall in the 190-193 range. The TL is designed to compete with the new longer 3 series due out next year. the RL will go after the 5 series. The TSX will eventually match up against the 1 series due out ? Thes will all be designed on the premise of a sports sedan. Not trying to compete for the 60-70k luxory market. ?yet?

 

DNB, my whole point was that in the side photo of the Desert Mist car, it is hard to see the exact start point and end point of the front and rear bumpers, because the design of the car uses angled corners on the bumers, with the VERY center of the bumper being the longest distance from front to back (if you measure the exact corner, it will be shorter).

I am not saying that you measured the exact corner, I know that you did not do this, just that you may not have exactly gotten the longest point.

Acura has the angled corners of the bumbers on purpose to MAKE the front/rear overhangs look artificially smaller than they really are. (and the overall car shorter).

If you see the close ups of the car in the latest shots, these angled corners of the bumpers are very evident.

Sorry to carry on, but, I just am not sure that you really got the dims to the center of the front and rear bumber based on the angle of the photo (hard to see where the end of the front bumper is).

DND, you did a great job with what you were given, I just think that Larch is giving this too much credit.

If the photo was from further back and straight on, I think we would have more acurate information. Thats all.

And Larch, I have always said the car will be in the 188" range, still feel that today.

 

Just for grins I superimposed an image of the TSX (from the Acura.com website) over the '04TL in Photoshop. The TSX has more overhang in front, perhaps 6". The TL has more overhang in back, perhaps a couple of inches. The TL's wheelbase is longer, and it it taller. Interestingly, the doors look to be the same size.

This method could lead to more accurate estimate of the '04TL's dimensions, but I don't have time to play with it more now.

-r

 

Love it! Great stuff -- DNB, AD, NEED and all.

We still don't know, and I still say there was some artifact in the first method because the basic bottom line number came out (presumably) way too low -- and there's got to be a reason for that (I'm calling it "artifact"), and maybe NEED hit the nail on the head as to what that reason was.

But -- great work. Looks like we're getting somewhere. Even if the results so far aren't that close to the real number, we're getting some methods going. If y'all feel like persisting -- including taking a close look at what might have been wrong in the initial methods -- we may come out with a pretty darn close estimate in advance of any official data.

BTW I am fairly well convinced at least that the size of the TL will be in the lower end of the range that had been surmised in advance -- or, even if not, that it will LOOK, FEEL, and BEHAVE smaller (except for interior room, which will be nice).

 

Ok Larchmont, today I picked up a copy of the September 2003 Automobile Magazine, in it had an article on the "2004's FAB 50" (aka the 50 hottest new cars of 2004). On page 88, it states that for the 2004 TL, "is slightly shorter and wider than its predecessor."

This would make the car a little more nimble being both wider and shorter. However, this does not answer your question as to exactly HOW SHORT????????

They also go on to say “with exterior design cues that tie it closely to the smaller TSX sedan.” So it should be larger than the TSX, correct?

This article also states that "Engines essentially are carried over with a few tweaks; the uplevel Type-S again will be powered by a 260-horsepower 3.2-liter V-6."

OK, if these bozos at Automobile don’t know there is no “type-S” I am not sure that any of their info can be trusted.

 

Wider, huh? That's all I need to know -- won't fit in my garage!

I think they're just assuming; doubt they really know.

Right. Forget about all that other stuff. ("Never mind!")

 

Larch, just had to get you going on this again, but the article is real, too bad the bozos don't have their facts right, would have been nice to get confirmation of any sort!

 

Put me in for 188 in length, 72 in width, and 108 for wheelbase. Since the '04 TL is based off the Accord platform, I don't see the wheelbase changing much.

I guess I'm on the need4spd bandwagon.......

 

I think the wheelbase will be longer (look at the side view -- no front overhang) and the overall length shorter than the '03.

 

It is an optical illusion, the front and rear bumper corners are angled back to the corners of the car where the fender meets the bumper. This design creates the "illusion" that the overhangs are short, BUT it is only the distance from the fender to the start of the bumber that is short.

In actuallity, the over hangs are the normal size if compared to the centers of th bumpers.