I went to Acura and Lexus over the weekend. Acura claims to be a luxury car and so does Lexus. If you compare showrooms and especially the service departments, the Lexus puts Acura to shame. In the Lexus service department, they have coffee, fountain drinks, work stations with internet connections, nice sitting rooms, home theater room, will give you free loaners no matter what you are in for, and is even willing to come and pick up your car for you for maintenence. The Acura service department has 2 vending machines and 3-4 old chairs for you to wait in. Lexus also gives 2 years of free maintenance while Acura(majority of dealerships) dont' give any free maintenance at all. why would Acura claim they are a makers of luxury cars but when you are in their dealerships, you feel like you are in Honda dealership. I think if Acura wants its reputation as a luxury car maker to improve, they should look at what Lexus is doing.

 

Cadillac also claims they're Luxury vehicles. Will their show room better? Check Audi's, too.


IMO, I have to agree "many" of Acura dealers don't serve customers as satisfying as Lexus dealers usually do.



Move to Cars Talks tomorrow noon.

 

The acura dealer in my town has starbucks coffee, nice places to sit, magazines and newspapers etc...and they charge too much for their cars. :P

-dys

 

it also depends on the acura dealership that you go to. some will be more "luxurious" than others. its hard to compare because the dealerships will vary. but i have to admit that lexus offers some top notch service for their cars.

 

it just means that the lexus dealer is making more money off of you than acura. doesn't it? how else can they afford all the "luxurios" items?

 

I don't know what ya'll service departments are like but over here in Philadelphia Ardmore Acura treats you like a king lol. From Fountain drinks, gatorade, junk food, starbucks coffee, Brand new love seats, and oh yeah did i mention full screen tv with satellite tv. I love getting my car fixed and just sitting there watching football.

 

Well, all those added amenities come at a price. It's all rolled into the MSRP/service prices.

As far as the loaners go, I don't have any experience with Acura service yet, but my brother has an '02 IS300. He's had to take it in for repairs a few times now. Once, they gave him an '04 RX330 as a loaner, and this past time they gave him an '04 ES330. Considering I've heard of numerous people getting Enterprise rentals as loaners from Acura, I think Lexus definitely knows what they're doing in this category.

 

Acura can upgrade the dealer but the cars will be the same. The 2 companies are on 2 total different spectrums. As for the dealerships, that gap will only widen as Lexus told the dealers they had to spend money to upgrade with all the cars/SUVs being sold. The total bill is $850 million dollars worth of dealer upgrades across the country.

Here in Atlanta, Nalley Lexus has moved into a brand new (knocking down a Service Merchandise) 3 story dealership. It is amazing inside and out. Their Alpharetta is only 5 years old and top notch as well.The funny part is Infiniti moved into their old building . Due to their growth in sales.

The Hennessy Lexus downtown is moving into a new state of the art building and their Gwinnett store will expand as well.

Acura has no intentions of becoming a true luxury car brand, rather remaining a fine premium car brand. With sales at an all time high, their strategy is clearly working.

Lexus maybe expensive to an Acura and seem like overpriced but to it's intended competition, BMW and Benz, it is underpriced and seen as a value.

 

In response to the first post, sounds like a mecedes dealer in Buena Park, CA. Downy Acura is just like the nissan dealership pay for everything.. nothing complementry = ( anyone know how Cerritos Acura is like?

 

I have read Mercedes is now going to drop the free maintenance on 2005's. Wonder if Lexus will follow suit?

 

My Acura dealer (Sterling Acura of Austin) does all of the above, with the exception of the free maintenance. Free cookies, bottled water, home theater, work areas with internet ports..

 

What you find differs on how much your dealer wants to be luxurious, not on Acura coporate.

My dealer (Motorcars Acura) has free refrigerated drinks/hot coffee, newspapers, TV, and workstations (though without Internet access). Seems pretty luxurious to me. It's located just off the main sales floor, so you can wander from the overstuffed leather couches (comfy!) to look at the cars. I am treated quite well when I visit, and am reasonably pleased with their service. In fact, I can't wait for my next oil change next month...I'll be able to get a look at the new RL.

 

Bobby Rahal Acura (yes, THE Bobby Rahal) has all of the ammenities, also. Perhaps it's because their dealership is only a few years old. Then again, you probably won't need all of those goodies as they will give you a loaner if it's going to be more than 1 hr to service your car.

 

I think it depends on how new the place is. The Acura dealer I go to is ok. I'm just happy the leave the remote there for the TV! They are building a brand new one next door for Acura, so I bet that'll be top notch!

Joe

 

personally I dont care about the amenities @ dealer with the exception of the loaner.

Maybe thats because my dealers showroom perks amount to the lunch wagon that arrives at 10 and 2. Then again I got a great deal on my TL!

 

2 year free maintenance would be awesome. Since BMW/Audi/LExus is all doing it. Why not Acura. I asked my salesrep about that but he had no answer to it. That is what I call excellent service from BMW/Audi/Lexus. I can careless about the home theatre but a loaner would be great even if you bring your car in for a simple oil change and free access to internet while you are waiting. That is one of the reason why one of my buddy last yr bought a BMW 3series just the fact they had 3yr free maintanence. 3yrs can save you anywhere btw $1500-$3000 easy. Hope Acura is listening and do something about it!!!!

 

my acura dealership looks JUST like my old honda dealership. its decent, but its no better than the honda dealer. i think you are completely right on this issue. if acura is supposed to be the upscale honda, then they should surely match their immediate competition, namely lexus, and infiniti, and have flashy showrooms, and sales/service people who actually speak the local language fluently i.e. ENGLISH (i live in vancouver, it sucks). lexus dealers are top notch, acura needs major work. i could understand if they had shit showrooms, but flawless transmissions (TL), then i could justify where they're spending all their cash (on engineering, and R&D), but their showrooms suck, and their transmissions suck. that sucks. i think a see a G35 Coupe in my future.

 

My Acura dealership has a fridge full of beverages, Starbucks coffee, chips, candy bars, muffins, internet conections, TV and plush leather seating. They also provide service loaners. Everyone there from the office personnel to the service techs are concerned with your comfort.

 

Hey guys...all the window candy comes with a price...it's basically a repair shop guys...if you want Starbucks, home theater etc.....someone has to pay for it....YOU!!!!.....you're going to get ripped when you start paying for service. I've noticed it in my area....Boby Rahal has a very nice shop with all the goodies...but they are a total ripoff when it comes to service and anything that they can make a buck on...beware!!!! Personally, I'd rather go to a clean shop that has good mechanics and doesn't have leather sofa's, starbucks coffee, and a big screen TV.....I have all that stuff at home so I certainly don't need it at a freaking car garage.








Edit by MOD rets: MOVE TO CARS & BIKES

 

I read from a carconnection.com article that when Toyota was launching Lexus, they hand picked which dealerships were going to turn into Lexus dealerships from the get go. So I assume some of those Toyota dealerships were already close to, if not the same, as what Toyota had in mind for coddling their new Lexus customers. As such, there are more Acura dealerships than Lexus dealerships nationwide. A matter of quality over quantity, I guess, but a good move on Toyota's part. At least it standardizes what the Lexus experience should be like, vs. Acura and some of its rogue dealerships.

 

Actually Acura has been working hard to bring all their dealers up to luxury standards. For example the Madison dealership (Zimbrick) used to be part of a regular VW outlet. About a year or so ago they opened a whole separate dealership next to the old one with all the bells and whistles. This transformation will take a while.

 

For the peeps in TO. I used to go to TerraceGate Acura...boy that placed sucked. Now I go to ACURA EAST in AJAX...woohoo...what a difference!

I haven't been to any other Acura Dealers in GTA, so I can't comment on the rest.

 

Funny you mention them. I went there initially to buy a TL 2 years ago, and the certified used one they showed me this idiot there named Derek was trying to tell me it never was in an accident. Well, I had my insruance run the VIN, and they said it was in 2 of them..which is funny cuz I even asked the guy how come the headlights are both different colors? (Obviously one was replaced due to damage) and I also noticed the paint on the one side with the newer bulb was a few shades brighter...he tried to tell me that it is because all HID equipped cars have one pink one and one white one because the driver's side can't be as bright to prevent blinding people...well I know that the leveling has to do with that, not whether or not there is a new bulb or not. To top it off, I was still gonna get it anyway, it was 22k which was good for what I thought then...except for one big noticeable tear on the dashboard...looked like someone took a knife and gouged a hole in the leather on the passneger side. Well I fill out the paperwork and everything, get everything ready with my insurance to pick up the car, and he says I can't drive it home because the guy who does leather owrk only comes in on tuesdays (the next day) and he can't let the car leave the lot like that. Well I get to the dealership the next day, and the leather is still not fixed, and he tries to tell me that I have to get my insurance guy to go visit the dealership so he can check it out. At this point i am very wary of them...turns out he gives me a dealer tag to go and bring it to my insurance guy, but as soon as i get there for my appoiontment, the guy calls me and says he needs it back because the plate for his car is on what WAS to be mine...so after giving me the runaround for 2 weeks...I decided to NOT go with ardmore acura. I prefer it when the salesmen KNOW the product they are selling and does not lie to me about any of the information expecially since I had paid everything in cash and was sitting around waiting...ardmore acura can kiss my ass. I get my TL serviced at West Chester Acura now. Even though Ardmore acura is 5 minutes from me, I don't mind driving the 40 minutes to west chester because not only do they give me a loaner, they tell me when there IS a problem instead of trying to con me...they go out of their way to find if there is any warranty work they can do for me, they give me coffee, soda, they have a TV and a internet cafe...ardmore acura blows...my

 

My Lexus dealer has the drinks, high speed internet connections and a 50" plasma tv but no free maintenance. I would rather have the free maintenance.

 

That easy $1500-$3000 is easily with in the vehicle price, no dealer or corporate company would pay that much out of their pocket for every new vehicle sold. And i do agree w/ some other members that dealers try to get every buck out of you to service the nice ammenities