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But none of the cars you mentioned are as fun to drive as the Passat (in my opinion). As Automobile Magazine said:
"The Bug may have been bought by more exterminators looking for a cute way to advertise their particular brand of insect genocide, but it was the Passat that made you reconsider that Mercedes-Benz C-class you always thought you wanted."
Where are the stats about the Korean cars being more reliable? Can you post a link?
"Residual value performance has long been considered the best way to analyze the health of an automotive manufacturer's vehicles," said John Blair, CEO of ALG. He added that the awards will "provide consumers and industry professionals with a clear set of vehicle depreciation benchmarks and provide a yardstick for automotive brands to measure themselves."
According to the ALG, its Residual Value Awards honor "those vehicles in each segment predicted to retain the highest percentage of their original price." In other words, these are the cars that will be worth the most in three or four years, when most leases will end. In addition to naming specific cars for awards, ALG also gave awards to two manufacturers. Volkswagen of America won the "Industry Brand Residual Value Award" and Mercedes-Benz USA won the "Luxury Brand Residual Value Award."
The other ALG Residual Value Award winners were as follows:
Compact Car: Mini Cooper
Midsize Car: Volkswagen Passat
Near Luxury Car: BMW 3 Series
Luxury Car: Mercedes-Benz CLK-Class
Minivan: Honda Odyssey
Sub Compact SUV: Honda CR-V
Compact SUV: Acura MDX
Fullsize SUV: Toyota Sequoia
Compact Truck: Toyota Tacoma
Fullsize Truck: Toyota Tundra
Everything I've read says that the Passat depreciates less than anything in it's class. A smart investment!
However there are several folks here who need to listen up.
We are here to discuss the vehicles, NOT each other and the gratuitous slaps at other posters are not welcome, not appropriate and do NOTHING to bolster the postion you are trying to make.
So could we please calm down and get back to a *rational* comparison of these vehicles?
Trust me... Your first born is not being held hostage to the world being convinced that YOUR opinion is the quote CORRECT endquote opinion above all others.
Capiche??
(hmm, is that how you spell that? :-))
Moving along now...
I have to call a halt to this one for the moment.
We'll be back.
This is just a matter of logistics. Some of you have been posting as though you are oblivious to the rules of our community. Besides offending at least 75% of the readers, there simply is not enough time in the day for me to attend to the rest of my obligations AND continue to clean up messes here.
Any questions, please email me.
Please feel free to resume discussing these three vehicles. Keep in mind that civil and respectful messages are requirements for you to maintain your Town Hall privileges.
Discussing each other is not acceptable.
Pat, Host
Accord : 56784 units
Camrys : 55348
Passats: 8648
This trend tells me that the battle is still between the 2 best mainstream sedan.
www.autosite.com/editoria/asmr/svsedan.asp
"Lyons quashed another rumor that the mid-sized car would be sold as fleet only. Since at least 1997, about half of Taurus sales have been fleet.
"There is no plan whatsoever to make this car solely fleet," he said, adding that the company plans to maintain the 50-50 mix of retail and fleet sales."
http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:o1TZJUcLbGoC:www.thecarconnection.com/index.asp%3Farticle%3D4518+taurus+50%25+fleet+sales&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
"Chevy's share of the passenger car market has slipped to 9.94 percent in 2001, including rental and commercial fleet sales, compared with Toyota's 9.63 percent share and Honda's 9.13-percent share, with almost no fleet sales in that mix."
http://www.europeanhonda.demon.nl/best_selling_car_1998(2).htm
http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:FpeOYaljnzQC:www.autopacific.com/press/010203I.html+honda+2%25+fleet+sales&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
""January for many companies is packed with fleet sales, but Honda doesn't do fleet sales,'' Hall said. "If companies (buying fleet cars) think times are getting tough, they'll hold back . . . and that makes things look better for Honda.''"
http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:tu_qaZ_u6rEC:www.autopacific.com/press/001214I.html+camry+10%25+fleet+sales&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
"Toyota's growth also has come with a limited amount of fleet sales or customer cash incentives. Toyota fleet sales, while they occasionally spike, rarely climb into the double-digit percentage range. And although Toyota is known for its model year-end sales with aggressive financing rates, the automaker has rarely resorted to cash-back tactics."
Just let me know if you need any more back-up.
Are the sales numbers for the US only, or are they worldwide sales?
IMO... the majority of the population prefer (think it's BETTER) the Accord.
By the way Anon rules.
Some perspectives are in order: 1) European traders have historically dealt with China long before other major economic powers have. 2) As any manufacturer likes to do, VW squeezed the most out of its old models selling them in a market where there's little competition. In China, it made sense to sell the old-tech VW Fox.
How it's a factor in this thread: VW's China sales contribute almost nothing to comparison shoppers of Passat/Accord/Camry/Altima except to think that VW's income from China (and this could be tremendous in the near future) can fund R & D and after-sales support for current and future Passats and other 1st world VW models.
PS VW has also been selling the current A6 in China with a 1.8 T engine !
More is not necessarily better or the Ford Trucks would be the best vehicles in the US, and some might argue that they are...
leif: More sales does not always mean better. But when you can achieve high sales with one of the shorter warrantys in the business, hardly any incentives (especially nothing like 0.0% for 5+ years or $2500-$3000 cash back), and not be the cheapest car out there, that says alot for your product.
The F-Series sales include how many different models? F150, F250, F350, SVT, Harley Davidson, regular cab, extended cab, supercrew, sportside, flareside, duallie, V6, V8, Turbo Diesels, short bed, medium bed, long bed, XL, XLT, and Lariat. The Accord comes in 4 cylinder DX, LX, EX or V6 LX and EX. Only options are leather and your choice of transmission in the 4 cylinder models. Trucks are also heavily sold as company vehicles and many of the higher series are sold to places like Lowes. If you compare models that do NOT sell to fleets the Accord is the top-selling car in America.
Ford Trucks:437,515
Honda Accord:399,213
source:motortrend jan 2003
I'd say that's a real stretch. The six cylinder Passat won in CR, and where did you get the pecentages for 4cyl. vs 6 cyl.? If you total up all the reviews from all sources (and I'm not going to list them all again) the Passat and Accord are VERY close, there is no runaway winner. The Passat costs more because it offers more standard features and options. The Passat is close to the end of this generation (7 years old) while the Accord is all new. The only consistent trend is the Passat being at the top of most lists year after year.
A note of interest, I had my windows tinted on my Passat last week, and the shop said the Passats and some of the other German cars take slightly longer to tint because they are built so well. With all the tight seals and gaskets, it is more difficult to do. They didn't charge me any more, but he did say the Passats are definitely tighter and more precision than most cars.
I'm just the messenger telling you what this specialty shop said. They do thousands of cars per year. Don't shoot the messenger.
Why do you insist on saying the same things over and over? Both cars have come out on top, the latest being the Passat in CR. That's new information, and you always go back to past reviews which we've already covered. Let's just discuss new information and not rehash the same info over and over again. We could do that forever with no end in sight.
I'm not going to get into the trap of naming all the comparos and tests that Passat won vs. Accord. We've done that, been there.
They're both very good cars. Drive them and make your own choice.
"and why is it news to you that the far majority of both passats and accords are in four cylinder format?"
It's not news to me. I would like to know what the actual percentages are.
does anybody uderstand why the camry is still rated so high?
But I find that the Camry is roomier than the Accord, looks better than the Accord (My opinion) and in some ways I like the interior better than the Accord (SE model) but the Accord has better interior materials.
The tiptronic shifts quickly up and down, either automatically or when I want.
The car accelerates quickly both from standing as well as in the 60-80mph passing range. Does the latest Accord have more hp and accelerate perhaps 0.5 to 1s faster 0-60? Sure, but for most owners of family cars, that is not an issue. More of a problem is that both the Accord and Camry are not available as wagons.
- D
There was a big difference in the 30-60 acceleration of the Passat and Accord in that same comparison. The Accord was much slower. I don't have the magazine with me, but I think it was acceleration in 4th gear, and the Accord had a manual tranny while the Passat was Tiptronic.
Yes, I have heard others complain about somewhat slow shifts. It is an adaptive transmission, so it strongly depends on how you have (or someone else has) driven the car some time before. Some people go as far as to "chip" (change the computer of) the transmission.
On the other hand, I have never had a problem with slow shifts in mine. There is one highway exit where I almost always shift into tiptronic mode and downshift, and I would estimate the downshift usually takes on the order of 1/10 to 2/10 of a second. One gripe: the rpms must be below ~4000 in the new gear - else it does not shift. I think that is a bit conservative.
YMMV,
- D