Jens Heydel

Hey you Acura People !!!! Hope all is well in the USA. Most of you do not know me but for those who do greetings from Germany !! I saw an Acura the other day and thought I might say hello here.

Best wishes from Dresden, Germany,

Jens Heydel (formerly of PAA in NJ)

Crazy Bimmer

Whoa, blast from the past. No idea you moved to Germany!

Hope all is well with you!

Scrib

Jens Heydel

@ Crazy Acura,Well actually I moved back home something like 6 years ago but no matter I see you drive one of Bavarias finest ... wow cool I see those things here on the Autobahn daily (driven at V-Max goes without saying).

@ Scrib yoooohoooooo !!

Wow this website brings back some great memories !!



Jens

Crazy Bimmer

Many of us went to the BMW side.

I was in Germany two years ago picking up my car. Im so jealous of all the roads and even the drivers there. I want to do it again!

Although I wasnt happy with the petrol prices over there. Yikes.

Sly Raskal

iTrader: (1)

Are you the same Jens that I bought something from on Audizine????

charliemike

Wow ... That's been a while!

Shoofin

Hey Jens, very long time! Hope all is well!

Jens Heydel

@ Sly Raskal ... no sorry was not me I was never onboard with Audizine (first time I eard of it today actually)h

@ Crazy Acura, I can only imagine that which we have everyday here (unlimited Autobahn and 100 Km/H land routes) are the dream of many but with our prices for fuel and the ever present police photographic teams we do need to watch out likely even more than you in the USA (they are strict here)

So many of you went the Bavarian way ??? that is certainly interesting to hear what brought that on?? I would have thought that one Japanese luxury machine would lead to another.

Jens

Jens Heydel

@ Charliemike Helloooooooo :-)

Jens

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Holy crap... total blast from the past. Hey Jens... how the heck are ya?!??!


Yeah, a lot of us went German. I drive a Toyota SUV but my wife's last 3 cars are an A4, A6, and currently an E350. We haven't had an Acura in the family for over 6 years!

Jens Heydel

Hey Shoofin !! Hello Juniorbean !! so all of you came over the the Germans after all(we thank you for the business by the way ) but seriously I stopped working the car biz when I left the USA, I now work for GSK Biologicals. But it is interesting to hear that many of you went the German car way. I live here now and one thing I promised myself is that under NO circumstance am I sending money to Japan so instead we will be supporting the Italian economy, now I just have to convince my dear GF that a Fiat is a good idea LOL.

It has been so long already since I left the USA but it still is great to visit here online and see so many familiar names, I hope all of you are doing well and your cars are treating you well!!

Best to all, Jens

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

^ Great to hear from you as well! Happy to hear things are going well on the other side of the pond!

You'll notice here in Car Talk a lot of us original members are no longer Acura owners... but we're still here!!

JnC

iTrader: (12)

Was it this Acura that you saw?

https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-photograph-gallery-96/tl-germany-812962/

Jens Heydel

As long as the people can still be found Juniorbean that is what matters to me the Acura ... well no idea really what they sell these days.

JnC that car in the pic is registered in Schweinfurt where the US bases are located. It was not the car I saw, the one I saw was an MDX registered in Switserland in the Canton Basel Land (BL). Acuras are as rare here as cars can get they never tried selling them here and in fact your TSX is our Honda Accord LOL !!

Catching up with all of you ought to be great fun, I no longer work on cars but we can talk about them here right??? :-)

Jens

dallison

I don't know you but

Jens Heydel

Hey Dallison ... ok I do not know you either but so no worries and greetings to you from Germany.

Jens

tmnhs81

NSXNEXT

iTrader: (2)

Hey Jens. Long time no see.
Miss the good old days at the Park Ave Acura meets.

Jens Heydel

WOW NSXNEXT !! yeah those meets were alot of fun (and work LOL) but I think we kind of were the first to try it in that scope. I lost track of Wayne Gruen after I left the USA, I heard he left PAA but no one seems to know where he went after that. He initiated those meets and we were all completely surprised at the turnouts. No one had dared think it would work at all.

tmnhas how r u :-)

Jens

synth19

+1! Welcome back.... I remember in the old days if Jens didn't give his seal of approval... the thread was worthless!!!

Jens Heydel

Synth19 LOL no way come on that is not really true LOL ... I had an opinion and I spoke it out (wanted or unwanted at times) but thanks for the welcome back or is it welcome home ??? truth be told I had a ton of fun here and I can see it still is. Glad to see you are still here.

Jens

Moog-Type-S

"The" Jens from the old Acura-CL.com days!!!

Jens Heydel

Hello Moog :-) yup it's me thought I might check in here say hello and see who is still aboard here... judging from the list of cars I'd guess you jumped ship to German engineering as well :-) Glad to see ya!!

Jens

Jens Heydel

Hello Moog :-) yup it's me thought I might check in here say hello and see who is still aboard here... judging from the list of cars I'd guess you jumped ship to German engineering as well :-) Glad to see ya!!

Jens

neuronbob

Wow, Jens is back. Another OG Acura-CL/TL.com member! You predate me by a little bit. I also remember when Park Avenue Acura was the dealer to beat in the forum almost ten years ago now.

Wilkommen and you are most welcome in Car Talk.

<--------went American instead of German like these other guys. U-S-A!

Jens Heydel

Hey Neuronbob ... great to read you here, Cadillac is another rarity here come to think of it the last one I saw was near Berlin about a year ago. Sharp ride and very much at home here. :-) PAA was at that time a very good dealer with a good reputation I think ... how it is today I have no idea, I personally got an e-mail from one of the service writers there about a year ago (Tom S.) but it did not reveal much.

Jens

Loseit

iTrader: (1)

woah! How are you?
See, i knew if we waited long enough everyone would come back.

BTW, Crazy is the one who made everyone go to the darkside

1StGenCL

Wow, crazy to see an OG back. I remember being jealous of all the PAA meets you guys had. Glad to hear things are going well

Jens Heydel

Hello hello 1stgenCL,Loseit nice to read you old schoolers again.
They say life is a circle and eventually you end up where you started and so the theory and so is the practice ... here we are again. Different cars different countries same great people. I recall when I was at PAA it was Wayne Gruen who clued me in on the then CL site which was running more or less alone. It was very interesting to be a part of it then when it started and now I see the site has changed dramatically and as I see it for the better. People still exchange valuable knowledge and good stories here. I am a member on a German Website dedicated to Fiat (Punto specifically) and also an Alfa Romeo site dedicated to all things Alfa. However I must honestly say that the German Fiat Site is more about very young people and the Alfa site is more about an older generation but very much a clique and difficult to really become accepted. When I joined the then CL site I was amazed at how quickly one was accepted and how open and friendly everyone was.
What also surprised me was the amount of not quite accurate information that was being circulated then. Wayne and I (and later on Peter Vandenberge) did what was possible to try to help people along with their car problems and also offer some services then not common from car dealers.
From what I can see here other dealers seem to have come aboard a bit and appear to no longer maintain the then prevalent attitude that stated more or less it you mod if it ain't warranty anymore. It was specifically this attitude that bothered me and Wayne and we did what we could within the Acura "system" to "look away" when modded cars came in with problems.
In the end I have to say that a large majority of the cars we saw where modded and when done in a proper and orderly fashion these mods never affected the cars in a serious way. Though we did "accept" a number of repairs under warranty that clearly were not, it was also understood that good customer service and the willingness to accept a given amount of "static" if you will gave us repeat customers which is what it was all about.
it was an honor to be able to get to know so many car enthusiasts so many of which were simply great people to get to know and talk to. The car shows showed this and though things have changed I hope that all of you have found dealers who adapted to this way of thinking. I look forward to readinf all of you here and who knows perhaps one day we will see each other here in Europe or there in the U.S.A. again. it certainly would be fun !!
Best wishes, Jens