Corey_Straker

Acura RLX ( All Regions )

THIS LIST IS VALID January 7th, 2014 - March 3rd, 2014 AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE

Dealer Cash ( MONEY DEALERS CAN GO UNDER INVOICE, MONEY PAID BY ACURA TO DEALER FOR SELLING CAR )

2014 RLX Base: $3,000 +$0
2014 RLX Navi: $5,500 +$1,000
2014 RLX Tech/Krell: $5,750 +$750
2014 RLX Advanced: $6,500 +$1,000

Numbers marked in green are how much of an increase in $ from previous.

SPECIAL APR: (FOR QUALIFIED BUYERS, APPLIES TO ALL MODELS)

0.9% APR for 24-60mos

Special Lease Incentives ( You will need to use a lease calculator, I'm only providing the Money Factor. Leases are between 24 - 36 months, If you need the R/V simply ask. )

AP-A45: MF .00031
AP-A45Z: MF .00021

The difference between A45 and A45Z is which category of credit you fall into.
Preferred (A45): 709-660
Super Preferred (A45Z): 899-710

Malibu Flyer

With these new, larger incentives do you think the SH- SHawd Hybrid will be priced closer to $60K rather than the earlier speculation of $70K?

Colin -- any thoughts?

Edward'TLS

Thanks Corey, you're the only AZ member since all these years, related to Honda/Acura dealerships, who is willing to update us constantly with such useful incentive pricing info.

George Knighton

Dash it all! I want my extra $1,000.00 !

:-)

Thanks for keeping everybody updated.

These cars are turning into very nice buys. I paid a little over 52,000 for my RLX Advance.

If we're thinking that people can get one for a little over 51,000 then that is a really extraordinary buy.

If they think they don't need some of the Advance features or the very nice (but expensive) Krell audio, then an RLX Tech is suddenly a successful competitor for attention from people who were shopping for an upscale Honda Accord or Toyota Camry, never mind Cadillac and Lexus!

I hope they move these so that word gets around that they're really very nice cars.

Corey_Straker

Yes! I would expect it to to be about 5-7,000 more expensive than the standard one. Expect only a Tech Package and Advanced package and VERY limited availability, I was told only 3 a year per dealership. That they can only build 50 a month due to parts availability.

Mike_TX

Residual on a 2014 Navi? (36 and 24 months, if available)

.
.

sotiri

I was able to get mine fully loaded (in Nov) for just slightly less than $50k
Yes it was the advance package.
What I did was go to consumer reports and get the review of the car, for a few dollars more it gives you dealers near you that have best offers for the car.
There were three dealers with offers, one was $1000 less than the others putting the car just under 49K.
My dealer reluctantly matched that price (after trying to get me to bite at $57K) but I had to insist that I was going to that dealer to make the deal.
For some reason they thought I would pay the extra 1K, but when I got up from the chair, they came back and said deal.

Corey_Straker

14 RLX NAVI RV% (10K mi/yr): 53%
RV$: $27,477.85

Edward'TLS

Now, that's the way to artificially keep the price up for it's FLAGSHIP sedan - with very limited availability.

Corey_Straker

Yeah... Don't expect incentives for the AWD RLX, it's what a lot of customers have waited for, meaning it'll sell better than the current FWD RLX.

George Knighton

It might be in more demand, but I don't see how it'll "sell better" if they're not making more than the projected 650/year.

Yeah. That was 650. Not 6500.

That's about as rare as a 1997 ITR.

Is there any such think as a lease for people like me who drive, say, 25K miles/year? I've never even considered leasing because all the leases I have seen were for lightweight 10K/year or thereabouts.

neuronbob

^^^^
This. It'd be great to have an answer from either Corey or Colin about 15k or 20k mile leases.

I hope this car sells more than 650 a year....such that they'll have to expand production (pending component availability).

Edward'TLS

^^^^^

So that "650" unit number is just thrown in there to trick buyers !?

By deliberately manipulating the factory output, this is one damn clever trick to prevent the SH-SH-AWD RLX from flopping like the FWD RLX.

Corey_Straker

I hope it does too, these are just what were told by the district guy, this could defiantly be wrong, which I really hope it is.

I wouldn't say it's there to "trick buyers". It's there apparently due to initial supply availability. Kinda like every time a new iPhone launches. That's what I think at least.

With regards to the leasing... The highest Acura goes is 15K miles a year and you can prepay for additional miles.

getakey

50 a month would be a joke
why bother

neuronbob

Thanks. Now that I've gotten over the shock and awe of a good-looking TLX, I'm back to looking at the RLX again. I'll be asking more seriously here about leases when the Sport Hybrid is released.

Corey_Straker

It's a sweet car. I just did some of my Interactive Network training on the car and it's got some much needed improvements to it. I hope it drives as good as it's been hyped up.

Now the bigger question is will the hybrid turn into the 14 MDX advance where dealers were only marking them down $1000 to $1500 due to availability.

neuronbob

Depends on pricing. If I do this, I'm 100% leasing this time instead of buying.

George Knighton

I think the dealers are looking forward to market value added stickers. Not sure they'll get away with it but I think they'll try it before they give up on it.

I also think that with every dealer only getting one or two in the beginning, you're going to be hard placed not to find a car that doesn't already have things added to it, unless you already have a good relationship with Acura.

In other words, when you see your first RLX SH-AWD, it's already going to have mud guards, the side molding, leather protection, paint protection, stuff like that....more often than not.

George Knighton

But maybe you won't care about all that, since 0.9% financing would still apply.

:-)

neuronbob

^^^^
Or maybe they'll have lease specials after the "me first" crowd gets theirs. For example: on its face, the current $499 deal for 10k miles on the FWD with Tech is a screaming lease deal compared to what you would pay at MSRP. Of course, depends on other factors, but still quite reasonable starting point.

We'll see. I have lots of time to consider my options.

Corey_Straker

If they are a hot vehicle, there is nothing wrong for them asking for a bit more. It all comes to averages, change the "ME FIRST" people some more and then slowly give better deals as the initial rush is over. I know with us though, we don't like to load them up with 1-2K worth of goodies because it makes it harder to sell.


It really is quite an amazing deal. The fact that there is up to $6500 worth of incentives is CRAZY. That's so much money!

George Knighton

It's a hell of a lot of money to have to give people for what is basically such a nice car, that's for sure.

I wonder if they'll finally get enough RLX into people's hands for word to get out that it is, after all, a very nice car.

2009-2011 4G TL: Everybody hated them until the facelift, and now suddenly they weren't so bad and they have kept a high resale value. I only paid 39,000 for a 2010 TL 6-6 SH-AWD. When I take that 39,000 into consideration, I sold it for a very nice price.

Corey_Straker

It actually really annoys me how people bash on the RLX constantly. It's a SUPER nice car. Acura's weak point is advertising. If they advertised this thing like lexus does, and give that "you've arrived at the top" feel to customers, they would be so much more successful.

George Knighton

That might very well be.... I am not a big fan of Comedians in Cars, or of the RLX on a cloud, Mad Men Retro thing.

neuronbob

You don't know how many threads we hashed through in the 2G RL forum back in the day on EXACTLY this topic. Trust me, it was a frequent topic.

Here we go again.....

hondamore

Unfortunately, Acura will forever be linked to it's Honda roots and it is difficult to convince people they've "arrived at the top" by driving a "really nice Honda". Honda's reputation for reliability helps the Acura brand BUT Honda's reputation for building quality, reasonably priced cars for the masses badly hurts Acura's attempt at going upscale. The vehicles themselves are wonderful, but the pre-formed perception that an Acura is just a Honda with more bells and whistles has been difficult to shake and thus hurt sales among the status seeking luxury buyer.

Honda/Acura are not alone in this conundrum...VW tried to build an upscale car (the Phaeton I think it was called) but they couldn't sell it in volume because of VW's reputation as "the people's car". It shared a platform with a few Bentley models, but buyers only cared about the VW on the emblem and couldn't get their head's around a luxury VW. I don't think the Hyundai Equus is selling in great numbers for the same reasons.

I'm repeating myself here, but those of us who can get past the Honda roots and accept the Acura RLX for what it is, will get a great car and some exclusivity to go with it.

George Knighton

Around here, we called it Piech's Folly. :-)

Malibu Flyer

I don't buy this line of thinking. Why has Toyota been so successful with Lexus??
It seems to me that they have the same baggage as Honda/Acura yet Lexus has been accepted as luxury brand.

hondamore

Toyota did do a much better job initially of establishing Lexus as a luxury brand but remember they are a MUCH older/bigger company than Honda and as such could spend orders of magnitude more on marketing. That said, the GS still can't come close to the E-class or 5 series which are the same benchmarks that RLX haters make sales comparisons to.

wstr75

The intentional limited production of the hybrid RLX is Honda pragmatism strategy at work. IMHO it is not so much a case of denying potential buyers or supporting pricing for the hybrid but rather a means to keep the field trial (yes, field trial) to a manageable number as they evaluate the nuances sure to be seen. There is no doubt in my mind the hybrid SH-AWD is going to be a big production item on the MDX at some point in the future as car makers go to the mattresses in meeting fuel mileage standards. Honda wants to have a highly reliable MDX, TLX, RLX and NSX propulsion system and the 50 RLX vehicles per month are the test horses.

George Knighton

This is just one stupid old man's opinion, but I don't think that Lexus necessarily carry the same baggage [sic] as Acura.

For one thing, despite ongoing protests of advertising agencies and high level employees, Acura is basically a North American idea. It does not have the international provenance of Lexus, and I cannot imagine why Honda seem satisfied to keep it that way.

Toyota is also a bigger company than Honda, bigger by a good amount, and their marketing resources are greater. Toyota can turn around a campaign within three months, whereas Honda would continue to be saddled by the production costs associated with a bad campaign, saddled enough to limit the FRP of the new campaign.

That little hybrid Lexus reaches an audience that Acura does not address. And at the other end of things, Acura has no equivalent to the LS460. They don't even try to hit that high end of the market where you could produce a car well optioned for, say, $115K that would compare very favorably to cars costing $250K.

We don't go near that market. I wish that Acura would go that direction, but I'd turn blue and die holding my breath waiting for it. :-) No V8 is near production. It'd take two years even if they said right now to go with it. And even then they'd have to drag out that big double wishbone rear bias chassis again...and readdressing the passive safety all over again probably puts it two to three years away.

I don't see it happening without a huge reapportionment of resources.

Hmmm. I never thought of that. Most of us thought that they didn't get the contract for the batteries early enough.

But now that you mention it, all of this moving of cars around for the fitment of this and that...it hearkens back to 1996-1997 and how they were putting the Type R's together. Maybe you're right and they never intended to sell a lot of them.

neuronbob

Not so sure about this. I'm quite sure Honda would like to sell as many of these as they can produce. After all, this car is the spiritual successor of the RL and the Sport Hybrid form in particular is the one that is most likely to grab previous 2G RL owners.

OTOH, who knows, perhaps you're right.

hondamore

Limiting the number of AWD versions of the RLX for a short period of time might be a marketing play by Acura... if they create artificial shortages, they may be hoping to grow some "gotta have one" and "you're so lucky to get one" word of mouth that can lead to more sales later on. At the same time, limiting the numbers produced early on could maximize the price they get from each unit and avoid the inventory surplus discounts that arose with the FWD version.

When the first Lexus SC400 came out they were very hard to find (up here in Canada anyway) which lead to people clamoring to get one which eventually lead to a healthy price increase in year 2 and 3.

With the modest sales numbers of the FWD version, such a strategy could be dangerous for Acura as potential buyers may just walk away to other brands if the AWD version is unavailable.

CGTSX2004

iTrader: (1)

I think the biggest difference is that Lexus has brought completely different platforms to the US market than what Toyota sells.

Think about it, when you look at the Lexus line-up, most of the sedans do not share a platform aside from the Lexus ES and the Toyota Camry/Avalon. By the time the SUVs that are platform-shared with more mainstream Toyotas are introduced, the Lexus reputation was cemented.

With Acura and Honda, they started out with the differentiation. The Legend did not share a drivetrain with the more pedestrian Honda Accord of the time. Instead, it got a longitudinally mounted V6 derived from the NSX super car and had a very distinct body. However, as time progressed, Acura actually became closer to its parent company's cars and by the time the 2G TL was introduced, it was built on the same platform as the Accord. For cost reasons, this makes sense. However, unlike Audi and VW, which both have long histories of their own as independent automakers, Acura and Honda's history is too short for the buying public to overlook the similarities.

Add in the various marketing missteps and the design challenges of the last 5-7 years and it is not difficult to see why Acura continues to struggle against its peers. At the moment, I think most people see Acura as more akin to Volvo or the former Saab brand, which attracted a very loyal, but very niche market.

To truly rival Lexus, Honda needs to invest in separating the platforms used between Acura and Honda and allow much more time for people's thinking to change before attempting a convergence again.

Corey_Straker

I agree completely.

jhr3uva90

I also agree. However, is it worth it to Honda to make that type of investment, especially considering that they would have to "go it alone" if they did?

CGTSX2004

iTrader: (1)

That is a question that can only be answered based on the long-term strategy for the Acura brand.

If they are comfortable with their position as a niche brand like Volvo with occasional comparisons to the more mainstream luxury brands, then more power to them and no further investment is necessary. There will always be buyers who see the value in having a car with Honda reliability but a more upscale interior and perhaps a touch more driving excitement.

If they want to join the ranks of the tier 1 luxury brands, then they will need to convince their investors that the sacrifice in profitability is worth the long-term payoff to bring the brand up to par with the rest of the competition.

Honestly, if they can find the justification to sacrifice and continue to build the NSX, I see no reason why they cannot make a case to engineer that platform into a unique architecture that can spawn sedans and crossovers for the rest of their cars.

hondamore

We are all looking at Acura's plight from the standpoint of consumers and enthusiasts. If we look at Acura from the Honda Board of Directors perspective, they may be thrilled with where they are at. They sell well over a million Honda cars a year and that is their core business. The Acura brand is simply the icing on the cake and adds 150,000 or more units of higher profit margin cars and SUV's WITHOUT having to reinvent the wheel and create totally new platforms (except for the NSX which is a true Halo car to honour Honda's racing roots and provide marketing opportunity). Sure they would love to sell a million Acuras, but remember Honda is a young, small company (relative to other automotive giants like Toyota and GM) and huge risks, such as creating entirely new RWD platforms for Acura vehicles with the hope of boosting sales, could end up destroying the company. If they invest billions to produce a V8 powered RWD flagship and it just doesn't sell anyway because Skippy and Chip from the country club prefer their Bimmers and Benzes then the losses would cripple the core business.

If we look at Acuras as being Honda models, then they are doing exactly what they were designed to do - provide an upscale option to loyal Honda buyers who have moved up the social ladder. Acura's are built on Honda chassis and can share parts and assembly facilities with Honda products to keep the cost of adding these models to a minimum. Honda is making conservative decisions with Acura to minimize risk and slowly grow profits - it's not exciting for enthusiasts, but it is smart business.

Edit: sorry, I typed my reply before reading CGTSX2004's post - I guess I am saying that accepting being a niche market for loyal Honda buyers is just fine.

George Knighton

Well. If that's what they're trying to do, I guess they're doing well because I keep buying them. :-)