neuronbob

Yes, Mike.

Must spend more hours on AZ.

neuronbob

I just took care of that. It's one thing having mrdeeno insulting people, I have spoken to him via PM. On the other hand, posts like the one tatu made above will absolutely NOT be tolerated here in RL, or in fact anyplace on AZ.

It's too bad, because it's always nice having people here who are interested in mods.

This thread was a great one until the posts from today. I wish I could erase them, but as a rule I don't like censorship.

Play nice, please....

csmeance

I think Ron A can help with the clean-up of the thread, he does alot in the blackmarket but the posts on the comparisons were very well and in depth, and surely they were better than the ones in some magizines. in all honesty, the RL and m35X are almost the same car specs wise and should be compared. In my opinion, RL vs. m35x or m45x in comfort, I would choose the RL anyday.

shepsan

csmeance. "In my opinion, RL vs. m35x or m45x in comfort, I would choose the RL anyday" . . . So would I.

F23A4

When I turn in my Accord @ lease end, hopefully the next gen RL will be in showrooms.....at which time, maybe I could pick up an even deeper discounted current gen RL.

IMHO (and in my neck of the woods), the Infiniti M is a VERY common sight but, the RL is not....and that is where the RL scores some points in my book. That said, it is time for a test drive of all of the above.

dwest1023

This thread needs to be closed.

miner

I have to add that when I was visitng friends in IL, they had a M35x. This car was a few thousand more thna my '06 RL. I truly feel that the RL was a much better value, not just a smidgen better. The engine on the M35x was loud, road noise was loud, Nav voice recognition was a joke. It did have an analogue clock though.

neuronbob

The RL's engine can get a little clackety about 5500 rpm in stock form, too, though.

What I like about the M35x/Nissan Fuga most are the low-end torque (relative to the RL) and the styling, especially with those 19" wheels.

However, the RL (to me) outhandles the M35x. That, and the availability of A-Spec (among other things), eventually led me to the RL.

Just for $hits and giggles, I went through a 25 mph, descending radius off ramp this morning at a bit over 40 mph on my way to the office. (DISCLAIMER: THE OFF-RAMP WAS CLEAR OF OTHER CARS, AND DRY. NO HUMANS OR LOWER LIFEFORMS WERE INJURED.) The RL stuck like glue, though near the end of the curve, I could feel just a touch of understeer. Try THAT in an M35x. I had the SH-AWD display on and I actually got two bars on the outside rear wheel, and no bars on the other rear wheel.

I love my RL.

Hagrinas

The loudness and quality of engine sounds is something that engineers spend a lot of time on. The M has a throaty sound that says "power" to some people. It's an attribute or a deterrent depending on your preference.

As for the navigation system, there are tremendous differences between the two. The M's has the advantage that is says the names of virtually any street, instead of just certain ones. But that's one of the very few advantages.

The voice that is used for street names is completely different from the one used for the rest of the statements. It reminds me of form letters from the days of typewriters. Things just don't match up.

Setting the navigation using menus can be frustrating on the RL in cases where it makes a stupid decision for you, such as starting the list with a restaurant 3000 miles away. Yes, these things can be changed, but it's still too easy to end up with a bad route or list. The M isn't any better in coming up with meaningful lists, and they both have POI data that is far from accurate. But the method of choosing from different routes is more logical on the M.

The RL works nicely with voice prompts. If something can be set by using the controls, it can be set with similar voice commands. The M's command set does not match the commands on the screens used manually, and some basic things can't be done with voice.

The M decides that some actions are not safe to do when driving. I don't see any pattern of logic, and some simple things such as scrolling down are disallowed when the car is moving. Adding a "next" command that a user could say to scroll a list does not seem incredibly dangerous to me. In fact, it's more dangerous looking at the screen hundreds of times, while scrolling the map sideways, all because the navigator would not let me pick from a list.

Acura does not limit things to when the vehicle is standing still. But if they did, their engineers would have gotten it right. The RL feels like a team effort. The M feels like the effort of a bunch of teams working on different parts. Infiniti has an intelligent system to determine how much power, if any, to use with the passenger air bag. Or to put it another way, they know if there's an adult in the passenger's seat who could set the navigator, instead of them locking it out.

The Acura's address book works like an address book. The M's is pathetic. If you set a destination in the M, it saves the street name. So if you are driving your daughter to 2543 Integra Street, then when you get there, it will say "arriving at destination." But it will not say what the destination is. And it's saved as "Integra street" so you can't even look up the house number. So if your daughter read you the address when you got in the car, you won't know what house it is when you get there. And if your wife decides to pick up your daughter later, and uses the previous destination to find the place, she'll have no clue when she gets there.

The point of a paper address book is so that if you have a person's name, you can find the person's address. If you wrote down just the address, it would become useless. Not only would you have no way of knowing how to find Bob's Fish Hut, unless you knew what street it was on (in which case you probably don't need the navigator) But it's even worse when it saves the street name with no house number. A list of street names is not an address book.

If you save the McDonald's on Main Street, and Main Street is 20 miles long, and you also sometimes go to Yaks are Us on Main Street, then saving either of them under the name "Main Street" is pointless. If you changed the name from "Main Street" to "Tony's house" then that would be better the next time you wanted to find Tony's house. But if you didn't know what Tony's house looked like, then having the house number on the screen would be nice. And it you ever wanted to go to any of those places, I doubt that your impulse would be to check the navigator to see how to get to Main Street.

The M's navigator also seems to lose track of the road way too much and shows you off to one side somewhere.

The M is pretty straightforward if you want to give it an address. It gives you a series of prompts, so you don't have to keep pressing buttons. It will ask you what state, city, street, and number all in succession and give you tones before each one. But it won't let you spell the name of a POI, or give you a way of looking one up in its database using voice.

The bottom line is that there are after market navigators for a few hundred dollars that beat the pants off the one in the M, except of course for integration with the dashboard and phone system. The Acura's is generally pretty nice, especially if you are used to it. It's also easy to get used to it. But if you use it rarely, it's likely that you will forget some things.

The RL's navigator is much better overall, and by a wide margin. The M does not come close. But in some ways, especially if you don't count integration with other features, a cheap Garmin is a lot easier to learn to use in a few minutes, and get you where you want to go very well. But if you count integration, the RL wins.

Mike_TX

Having owned an M45 and an RL, I can generally agree with most of your comments above. But a few puzzle me.

For instance, you say the RL pronounces the names of only certain streets. If you have the voice guidance set to "Maximum", the RL's VR system says all streets where turns are prompted. I see no difference between that and the way the M handed it.

You also say the method for choosing from different routes is more logical in the M. Hmmmm. I guess it's kinda like your engine sounds comment ... some like it and some don't. I personally struggled with the Infiniti nav's "logic" for the whole year and a half I owned my M45. I had come from a series of Garmin nav's and I simply couldn't get the hang of the Infiniti logic. IMO, that was because their logic was so damned illogical. LOL.

And it always seemed like it took 'way too many steps to do anything with the M's nav. It didn't take any notice of where you were, so every time you wanted to set a destination, you had to start all over telling it the state, the city, the street, the number, your mother's maiden name, etc. The Acura nav first assumes you want to go somewhere in the city and state where you are at the time. If that's the case, you've already killed two of the birds before you start. And if it's not the same city, it at least assumes the same state. Again, kudos to Acura.

Then, of course, there's the MASSIVE Achilles heel of the Infiniti nav - the fact you have to know the EXACT name of the street. If you don't know that it's "N.E. Main" instead of just "Main", or "Oak Blvd." instead of "Oak Street", or "Phenton" instead of "Fenton", you're screwed. It will just drop you like a rock with the message "Address not found". No list of optional choices, no attempts to find the right one, no nothing. So, if someone directs you to the tire store "down on Elm", you'd better make sure it's not S. Elm, or Elm Place or Elm Way or Elm Tree. Otherwise, you'll be running on the rim.

You do end up by saying the RL's nav is superior, and I wholeheartedly agree.

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GoHawks

The Gen IV nav in our Land Cruiser is the EXACT same way. It's maddening.

miner

I will admit that I did like the M's bird's eye view on the Nav. One other item that distrubed me about the M was the burl wood trim - in my friend's M35x it looked like it was 'dry'. It did not appeared to be laquered at all.

mrdeeno

the birds eye view is a gimmick...can't tell anything from it, it just looks cool.

As for the wood, it's a matte finish, so it isn't supposed to look laquered. I'm not a fan of it, but it looks more "real" than the laquered wood out on the market in every other car.

Mike_TX

Glory be. I thought I was the only one who considered it a gimmick.

If you think about it, it reduces the amount of map space displayed (since it bends the map over the horizon). Therefore, less map is shown, and what IS shown is distorted to the point that upcoming street names are obliterated and it's impossible to judge distances.

I turned off the bird view in my M after only a week or so, since the plan view (flat map) showed SO much more info.

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Hagrinas

The Acura's navigator occasionally says things like "continue to follow -- the road" rather than saying an explicit street name. Sometimes my RL says the name of the street, especially numbered highways, but there are plenty of streets where it tells me where to turn but does not mention the street name explicitly. It could be a geographical thing, or it may be that the many Spanish street names around here are not in the database, or it could be that there are more numbered and lettered streets where you are. Regardless, it's not a big deal and does not affect navigation. Likewise, the funny sounding M version might seem absurd to my ears, but it doesn't keep me from getting anywhere. It's a point for comparison, but I would not rule out either because of those issues. I also own a Garmin, and had the choice of getting one with explicit mentions of street names, but opted for different features that were more meaningful to me.

As for setting the voice guidance to maximum, that's another advantage of the RL. It lets you set things to a sensible degree depending on your taste. The M's prompt levels don't do it for me.


As far as routes, when I tell the M to find a route for me, it shows me a map with different colored lines indicating my route options, such as shortest, quickest, or minimize freeways, and a quick visual tells me whether the route will take me over the toll bridge, or half way around the bay.

As for the overall logic, I agree that it's frustrating. I've figured out ways to cheat, such as giving the name of a nearby street if I remember one, and then since it shows the number range on the screen, when it prompts for a house number, I make one up in the middle. All that assumes that I'm familiar with the destination, but am going from an unfamiliar start location. But a sensible alternative, such as allowing for a voice equivalent of searching the POI data by spelling things, is strikingly absent from the M.

As far as way too many steps, the RL is more logical. It's nice to be able to start with a street name, and have it figure if it's in the adjoining town or give me sensible choices. The M lets me tell it "destination street address, previous city/state/whatever" or something like that. I can't remember the commands since they are less intuitive, but if I'm in the middle of California, and there's not another state for hundreds of miles, it might as well start off by asking me what country my destination is in. Since the screen and voice prompts list "destination street address" as one of your choices, it's not obvious that there are additional options for the command. I didn't remember any of that from reading the rather poor user manual, but I did come across some of this months later when I looked something up.

The manual is another work of stupidity. It tells you little that would not be obvious from looking at the menu choices. And when you do find what you are looking for, it does nothing to provide the extra detail that got you to check the manual in the first place.

For example, the navigator screen will change from day to night mode, and you can change the sensitivity. Unlike the RL, the M does not put the lights on in the rain, and you need to move the headlights from auto to on, and then remember that later, which sort of defeats the purpose of automatic headlights. And the navigation screen might not be lit appropriately. If you try to get the headlights to come on earlier, the sensitivity setting should do that, but what does that mean?

According to the manual, the sensitivity setting adjusts the sensitivity. Do I need a manual to tell me that? If I make it more sensitive, does that mean that it will sense light sooner, so I should make it less sensitive to go on when it is cloudy? When it's cloudy, there's less light to sense, so more sensitive should make it notice light sooner, thus keeping my lights off. Does it mean that it makes it more sensitive to differences in light level, thus making it more sensitive does the opposite? If the light level drops when it is cloudy, but is nowhere near the change I get at night, then a system that's more sensitive to changing levels is what I want. So less sensitive to light, and more sensitive to changes is what I want. But how do I tell the navigator that?

The whole manual states nothing but the obvious, and leaves out anything that needs explaining. What do the window switches do? They control the windows! Wow! It's great to have a manual to tell me that. What does the navigator do when I select settings? It shows me the settings options. I could have selected that option on the navigator to see what the options are, or I could look in the manual, and see a picture of the next screen, with more statements of the obvious.

SpicyMikey

Yep, the RL has real wood on the dash board. However, the small wedge on the doors is actually plastic. I can't tell the difference between the two, so what's the reason for using real wood and adding cost?

The only way someone would know the dash is real wood is if you point it out to them. "Did you know the dash is real wood?" Big deal.

Rob144

I like the swath of real wood on the RL's dashboard, and I like that its real. The wood takes on different hues and the graining changes in different light. I was able to tell that the side trim was plood as soon as I spotted the cutout lines for the seat memory switches that are used on RHD models. Now all I see is plastic wood. Pretty good plood, though.

I also like the wood in the M. It is unique, obviously real, has a nice grain to it, and compliments the interior quite nicely -- all without being the usual "look at me, I'm burlwood". Plus the stuff on the doors is real, too.

Rob144

SpicyMikey

I honestly can't tell the difference. My friend at Acura had to point out to me that the door accents were plastic. It truly all looked the same to me. Maybe my eyes are going

Mike_TX

Again, all excellent points.

By the way, the RL's nav will also show all three alternative routes in different colors, all overlaid on the same map just like the M. I'm not in front of it now, but I think it's a menu option called "Show Routes".

The adoption of RL-style navigation in the Honda Accord has most of us believing the next-gen RL will have a vastly improved nav system. Already the best, but it will get even better.

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GoHawks

You can set the RL to turn on lights in the rain? Is this in the MID settings?

SpicyMikey

No. They just go on when it gets dark. I suppose if it rains hard enough, then, it would get dark enough for them to kick on.

That rain feature would be a good one though. Never thought about that one

kenny5

Personally I would not care if it is real wood or plood. A gold plated one, even if it is only 14k, will make me happy

larrynimmo

all I can say is that I am once again glad I bought the non-tech RL. I think I would really be ticked if i paid an extra 4k and only got partial real wood. I assume the piece of wood under the stereo unit is fake as well?

dwboston

Actually I think that piece is real and not "plood". The reason I know that is because that piece got scratched on my old 05 RL and I looked into replacing it. It's not available as a part by itself - it comes as part of the dash area wood package. And calling the wood "real" is kind of funny anyway since it's so heavily lacquered that it may as well be plastic.

Whether the dash/door accents were real wood or not had zero impact on my decision to buy the model that I did. And not everyone paid $4k over the base model for the Tech version.

SpicyMikey

A salesman at my acura dealership told me it was plastic. Only the dash piece was wood. I guess he has no reason to lie. If he said it WAS wood I'd be more inclined to think he wasn't being truthful.

Regardless, I could care less and it's not the reason I purchased this car. I can't tell the difference anyway

Hagrinas

I could have sworn that there was a setting so that they go on when the wipers are put on, but I checked the manual and I was wrong. Even my old minivan has that feature, and I was wondering why they left it out, but I'm assuming that it's a patent issue and they did not think it was worth paying royalties for it.

But I'd still say that Acura has the edge here. Their sensitivity explanation is clear, and I think the settings work better in real life. I was not able to get my M to turn on the lights in the rain no matter which way I set the sensitivity.

Another thing is that the Acura has an indicator to tell you when the lights are on. The M does not. But you can tell on the M because the navigator goes dark when the headlights are on. On the Acura, the navigator goes by the level of light outside, so if I turn the headlights on during the rain, the navigator does not go dark inappropriately. So that must be what I was thinking about.

You can override the day/night mode on the M to avoid the problem, but you create another problem: You have no clue when the headlights are on. You don't need to turn them on if they are already on. And you can't tell if it's dark enough for them to have gone on automatically. I'd rather leave the lights on auto, and with the Acura, at least I know the whole story, and can tell when I need to switch them.

Another thing about the RL is that it has daytime running lamps, so even if I forget the lights in the rain, it's less risky. The M has DRL only in Canada, and assuming they do something similar to Acura, meaning they reuse existing lamps for DRL, then they have to go out of their way not to have them for the US version, because they have to program it different ways for different countries, and make sure that the delivery channels do not get crossed. And they don't save a penny by doing so, and there is no real advantage to the consumer.

Given my previous statements about the engineers, it's probably that they designed it first without DRL. Then another (Canadian) group had to add the feature for Canada, and did just that. Instead of changing it so that it works the same for everybody, they did something stupid, which was to modify their car for their market. But they may have had no say in the issue for models that were outside of Canada. And if the firmware can be reloaded, there's probably no way of getting it.

One other thing that bugs me about the M is the keyless entry. Both cars let you do the same types of things, with the edge going to the RL in terms of the touch handle (unless you are washing the car, in which case it loses out) and both let you keep the fob in your pocket. Both keep you from locking the car with the handles when a door is open, and both let you lock the door with the inside door switch, so you don't have to stand by the car and wait for the passengers to get out. But Infiniti decided that in the latter case, it would not lock the fuel door. So if I want to lock everything up, I either wait there with my hand on the handle, or take the fob out of my pocket, which defeats the purpose of the keyless design.

I don't want to stand there waiting, especially if I need to get something out of the trunk, or buy tickets while people are catching up, or telling the restaurant to put my name on the list, etc. And I don't want to dig through my pocket, which has three fobs in it, especially when they told me I won't have to do that.