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In regard to the suspected "plant" of a negative review, there will always be people who make it a mission to be that way. Being a gadfly brings them perverse pleasure and satisfaction that they can "stick it" to someone. Ignore them.
VDA method involves placing standard sized blocks into the trunk and total trunk space is determined based off that. Honda uses VDA method.
SAE has its own standard where you could put x volume of (something like sand) material into the trunk and that x volume becomes the trunk volume.
VDA method returns lower cubic footage since smaller nooks and crannies go unaccounted for. In an example (where I learnt about these two methods), Ford was mentioned as using VDA to spec cargo space for one of its vehicles in Europe. Using VDA method, the van had about 12.5 cu ft of space compared to about 14 cu ft returned by SAE method.
As others have stated, the best comparos in this regard are with the Audi 6 V6 and BMW 530 (except for AWD) and perhaps a few others that have been mentioned. Comparing "down market" to the TL or the Infinitis that have been mentioned also don't seem to be accurate comparisons. They are all great cars but in somewhat different price ranges and type categories.
I acknowledged that what he did was unethical (if he did not own an RL but posted in the Consumer Review area as an owner). However, the opinions he expressed can still be valid.
More important, several of the issues I raised I consider to be important drawbacks for the RL. Trunk, backseat space, acceleration (and Accord like or awkward rear end styling) are issues from my perspective. Fuel economy is really average compared to Mercedes E-320 or TL. Others comparing the backseat and trunk to a BMW 530 are also missing the point in my view. Even the new 5 series has important drawbacks in those areas and especially in reliability. I don't understand why the $50,000 cars are not really better than the $35,000 cars.
2) Also Has any current owner taken a trip where "way points" are used? How well does that work. For example: Say I want to go to Memphis from Chicago - - the best way is to cruse over to 57 and head south, but us CHI guys know that getting to 57 from the northwest side will cost lots of time, the answer is to take 55 to Bloomingtom and then crossover to 57 and proceed south. So you would set navigation destination to Memphis with a way point of bloomington in hopes of forcing navagation to route you down 55.
Anyone tried that type of programming???
Also I hear the Sony phones work best with bluetooth, anyone using one?? I have a T637.
Arrival date for me is Fri the 19th.
I will post Friday night my experiences and yes, I did pay MSRP and bought a few accessories like trunk mat, all weather floor mats, locking lugs (yes I am nuts) and mud flaps (i love em.... but no naked women on them or the next truck stop)...
Thanks all.
LIY
Current U. S. price before freight charges is
$ 48,930. Add 20 % exchange brings the it to
$ 58,716. Add 6.1 % duty brings the total to
$ 62,298. This creates a difference of about
$ 7,200. between the two cars which do have slight differences in equipment.
The U. S. model includes Onstar and XM radio.
The Canadian model includes vented front seats and headlight washers.
These two different cars probably equalize the values for each car.
Acura does charge too much in Canadian funds for the car in Canada but it is not as much as stated in this forum.
There is a 6.1 % duty on all imported cars not manufactured in the NAFTA ZONE.
Dealers do not set the price of these cars as they are set by head office with a mandate to sell at full MSRP to protect the price point of the car.
Beware...the color looks quite a bit different at night under lights than during the day.
It would have probably increased the cost, but how much...and would it have made any difference on a $50,000 car.
Is it too much to wish that Acura may add the cooled seats during this model year?
First impressions: A much firmer ride than the E320. Driver's compartment has much more of a "cockpit" feel than the E320.
The passenger side front seat needs to have a memory and also needs to have a height adjustment. This is a fairly big flaw in my opinion.
So far, I love the car. The navigation system is easy to use even without reading the book (which I still have to do). Love the XM satellite radio, so much to choose from!!
Car heating system is very quiet when it is running. I don't even hear it, just feel this wonderful warmth wafting over me. Very nice!
So, those are a few first impressions.
Lynnminny
But I do like the chirp/beep to confirm locking/unlocking. Horn blast is no good, but a chirp or beep is cool.
Among prime competitors, Nissan Fuga (AKA Infiniti M35/M45) finished third with 246 votes. The new Audi A6 was towards the bottom with 76 votes.
Most Advanced Technology award went to the Legend as well.
Yes, it was posted here before. SH-AWD did win a lot of votes for Legend. However, Fuga out sold Legend 3:1 in Japan for the past month (10/14 to 11/14). VW Jetta got the 2nd, edging out Fuga by 1 vote.
It seems like my RL needs a reboot. Am I stuck with taking this to the dealer to get it fixed? I unfortunately don't have a Nav system manual so if there is something there I'd appreciate any suggestions. Yes, I've read the other posts. This has nothing to do w/ the icons being hidden :-)
Also, has anybody done a head-to-head of the RL and the new A6? I'm interested in your thoughts if so. I'm torn between the two...while sportier looking (IMHO), the A6 3.2 seemed sluggish off the line, whereas the RL was much quicker, and the RL is almost certain to be more reliable, but my family has been Audi-only for nearly 20 years! I did find that SH-AWD blew Quattro, which has a tendency to oversteer, away.
MSRP plus destination charge in the US is $49,470 US. MSRP plus destination in Cda is $70,700 Cdn. Using a $1 Cdn = $0.83 exch rate to equivalize the two results in a $11,098 Cdn or $9,211 US difference. I made this comparison quite a while ago on this board using a lower exch rate but the Cdn $ keeps on rising in value.
But for all intents and purposes this is a completely academic comparison since we are talking about two completely seperate markets for new vehicles since there is no free flow of new or nearly new vehicles taking place between the two markets to balance out pricing.
Valuebuyer you seem quite distressed by this but would you rather have been paying significantly more for your vehicles for the last decade with the value of the Cdn$ well below the $0.70 level??? Gbabaluk's post in the M35/45 board which provides rationale from Honda is completely realistic - they will definitely look at market characterisitics including category demand, competitive pricing and other factors before setting their price - if it was your business wouldn't you? In all liklihood Honda has probably hedged their foreign exchange exposure anyway and is unlikely to be profiting from pure exchange rate differences. They also probably set their price for this vehicle over a year ago when the exchange rate was significantly different.
They have however decided to price the RL at a relatively higher price point in the category. To this point it appears they are getting it as the RL appears to be in hot demand in Cda and going for MSRP. How long will it last? Will new competitive offerings ultimately change it? The market will decide - especially a value driven mkt such as this one.
Any idea which set of wheels get the snow chains?
Legend went on sale 09/01. Fuga went on sale 10/14. Legend is priced at 5.25m yen. Fuga has many models with 250GT between 3.4m - 3.6m yen and 350GT between 4.2m - 4.9m yen. (1 US$ ~ 110 yen)
With Legend at one price and higher price point, it is no surprising that Fuga out-sold it.
BTW, if you read Honda Japanese website, Honda Legend does have options to be available in March/2005 (lane keeping, for one). Not sure about their availability in the US.
Can you read Japanese?
I'm surprised that the top of the line Fuga is cheaper than the RL. Hopefully, that'll be the case for the M35 AWD as well.
This will lower the difference based on your calculations to $ 7,715. not $ 11,098.
Other than these two things, the car is great!
Thanks for any info.
This essentially puts Honda Legend in the Japanese market to cover a price range of 5.25m Yen (base) to 6.91m Yen (fully loaded). Honda Inspire is designed for a lower price range class, and it goes up to 4.3m Yen at the moment. With possible addition of SH-AWD, Inspire's loaded price would be closer to base price on the Legend.
Suggest doing a search here using "navtraffic" as it will turn up prior posts on this issue. I had two earlier ones at #4617 and #4686 which may or may not be relevant to you. In short it could be a loose connection at the XM box in your trunk or you need the box replaced as I did. Best of luck.
If it is truly automatic, it should not come back on when the car is started unless the ambient lighting is below the threshold level. Otherwise, it really just have auto-off lights, the same as in the TL, MDX, and Accord.
You can turn it off and on. I believe it's under audio set up.