Luxury Lounge

lexusguy

Certainly that would be in keeping (with rare exceptions) with the quest for weight reduction previously mentioned.

Yep. The nice thing is that the R8 isn't a one-off like the BMW Z8 or the Porsche Carrera GT. It's staying in the lineup, and will get even better.

dewey

An Initial quality survey from BMW and many BMW dealership surveys after that were undertaken after I bought my BMW 335i and BMW 530xi touring for my wife.

Funny thing is I stopped getting these surveys after the nth problem with my BMW 335i while my wife still gets surveyed on the services on her older but more reliable BMW.

Apparently it seems that those BMW surveys are only undertaken when a car is non-problematical. When the problems are apparent those surveyors will avoid you like the Bubonic Plague.

What's the point of these BMW surveys then if they are filtered towards only getting compliments?

dewey

You mean, there is a chance you might be wrong about your doom and gloom scenario

I was pessimistically wrong these past 365 days.
Unfortunately I was not pessimistic enough about the economy or my BMW 335i. :sick:

dewey

Yes spring fever has hit me so hard I mistakenly wrote an Audi A5 Avant when I really meant a A6 Avant.

My two run flat winter tires are worn out. Fortunately it is spring and I will not have to ever replace them since I will be selling my BMW 335i by next winter.

tagman

That's right. To be unveiled at the 2009 New York Auto Show on April 8, 2009.

Is this Acura's answer to the BMW X6? Or is it better? Or perhaps even worse?

Hmmmm.

link title

TM

reality2

Consider the Q5 then.

lexusguy

Yes spring fever has hit me so hard I mistakenly wrote an Audi A5 Avant when I really meant a A6 Avant.

I was wondering if there was some kind of super secret A5 Avant "shooting brake" project I hadn't heard about. Guess not.

lexusguy

Is this Acura's answer to the BMW X6? Or is it better? Or perhaps even worse?

I remember seeing early sketches about that car awhile ago, but forgot about it because I have so little interest in Acura overall. For whatever reason Acura thinks they need to go after the X6 with some kind of dumb tallboy sedan. The one interesting thing about it is that it may debut Acura's V8 engine, or not. I'm not sure if they decided to kill that. Expect it to look something like this, but much uglier. This rendering is entirely too well proportioned and reasonable looking to be a modern Acura.




It seems like the interior is basically a copy/paste from the MDX:

dewey

the new 5 series will also be available

Thanks but no thanks.

dewey

The market for a SUV with coupe-like pretensions is only big enough for one BMW X6. I dont know if the market is big enough to fit a second one from Acura.

plan_man

The market for a SUV with coupe-like pretensions is only big enough for one BMW X6.

If that!

Segment I franky never understood. Reminds me of a redneck Vega 4x4 (in spirit, not execution of course).

Timing seems strange too, IMO. As SUV sales recede and crossovers become more car-like with every new intro (Toyota's Venza comes immediately to mind), new elevated models seem grossly out of touch with growing trends.

plan_man

of this new car purchase: I've effectively doubled my rubber costs. And I'm serious about my rubber purchases, I am!

Apparently for the TTS, Audi uses Continental, Michelin and/or Pirelli, depending on wheels and availability. All good in their own right, but I've consistently had better results with Goodyear F1 GS-D3s. One of the joys of being where I am in CA is that I run summer tires year round without issues.

A lookup on Tire Rack shows my old size at $154 rear and $163 front (not sure how that pricing works, but there you are), and my new size at $273. True I wasn't able to rotate at all with the staggered set, whereas I'll be able to do a front/rear swap now, but I understand from acquaintances with Quattro experience that tire wear may be a bit faster with AWD.

You pay to play, of course!

jlbl

Appealing in many ways.




No door for the escort, or the driver?


Watch out the rear wheels!



She was called the "Women's Car" of her Epoque. Citroën 5cv Type 5, 1922. 500 units-a-day produced in 1925. An excessive luxuria by then (redundant, isn't it?)

Regards,
Jose

skarie

Driving the Panamera
Hey guys you may want to see this.
link title

tagman

Hey guys you may want to see this.

Skarie, Thanks for posting. Man, that sure was a boring drive... especially for a Porsche.

TM

lexusguy

Skarie, Thanks for posting. Man, that sure was a boring drive... especially for a Porsche.

I still think the Panamera's interior is horrible. The only thing I like about the car is they got Burmester to do the sound system. Their stuff is incredible.

dewey

One run flat tire Bridgestone Ponzetta 18 " will cost me $550 Cdn ($440 US$).

Also my two winter RFT Bridgestone tires 17" needs to be replaced which would cost about another $1100. And this is only after 21K miles of driving.

About $1650 for three tires. Yes you got to pay to play

dewey

This women's car is exactly how a Lexus RX450h would have looked like in 1922.

dewey

This whole luxury lounge of ours is based on a notion that was introduced by GM a century ago:

The auto industry is geared up to sell you a new car every four or five years -- a legacy of General Motors Corp.'s realization early last century that cars could be marketed as status symbols and fashion accessories. That insight helped GM end the reign of Henry Ford's utilitarian and durable Model T, and turbocharged America's post-World War II consumer culture.

But now all of a sudden the Ford Model T notion is making a comeback:

Now, rattled by economic hard times, many Americans are heading back Henry Ford's way. It's not because they want cars that are black and drab. It's because they want vehicles that will last, and that promises to be a powerful force in the auto industry's painful shakeout.

If the above trend continues the car companies that will be worst hit will be the German ones. Longetivity of today's German models may not make economic sense if they get riddled with complex and expensive malfunctions.

The 83 MB 300D is the model of the future and not the new 2010 MB E Class.

link title

plan_man

Dewey, personally I'd dump the RFTs at the first available opportunity. I haven't found any plus to RFTs, and it is entirely irksome that Bavarian purchasing agents rely on them so heavily for OE.

Stash a can of sealant and a 12v mini compressor in a suitable nook, and enjoy a real driving experience... :shades:

I routinely get somewhere around 20K out of a set now. Will be interesting to see what happanes to that number, if anything, when the new toy is in play.

Should be Thursday.

sanjaysdca

Might be an anti "Luxury Lounge"

Thought some of you might be interested..

link title

plan_man

I'm just not sure what to say!

Go Tata?

jlbl

This women's car is exactly how a Lexus RX450h would have looked like in 1922

LOL! Look at the pedals: they needed strong legs.

And in contrast look at the tiny accelerator pedal of this Citroen 11b of 1954 (more pics in My CarSpace Albums):





Regards,
Jose

anthonyp

Hi Jose`

I read where Spain was beginning to feel the effects of the slowdown, and wanted to report to you first hand what I observed with my own eyes here in the USA

First - on the six hundred mile drive to Miami from S.Carolina down I95, the highway was very busy particularly around communities, and as I stayed one night along the way--for fun-- that area was more busy than three years ago, and the resturant, although a slightly lowere priced menu, was quite busy..

Second -In Miami business was brisk although not at last years level...The resturants were substantully cheaper, and getting by, but not as well as they need to survive...Real estate is the big problem everywhere, but everything else is perking along

Third

Here in Charleston tourism is doing very well, although they say not...There are just as many tourists as ever, and that goes for Savannah Ga. also...Again it is all real estate that is the monster problem

In Conclusion

I do not think we will have a depression overall, but the house prices have a ways to decline, and everywhere there are just pages and pages of properties ten million or around that area that are for sale....I don`t see where the money will come from to support those types of prices...As for the other areas of the economy here, things are prosperous, but not so prosperous that you have tow wait for a particular service for a very long time....... .Tony

rockshocka1

Tony,

You make it back to Chaz? Wonderful weather for the people, horrible for cars. This past weekend, washed the car, cleaned the wheels, stood up & had a fresh layer of pollen! :-(

All I accomplished was clean wheels & a pollen stained street gutter!

anthonyp

Hi Phil

Sounds like the car is still commanding attention--that`s good...Unfortunately my drive is under the outer most branches of a huge `pecan` tree, and the migrating birds are still here...Covered is droppings....They just squirt of easily with the hose though...Tony

lexusguy

I have to say, while it looks very close to the Insight on the outside, the inside of the new Prius is a lot better than I expected, more Camry to the Insight's Fit.




2010 Prius review

tagman

I have to say, while it looks very close to the Insight on the outside, the inside of the new Prius is a lot better than I expected, more Camry to the Insight's Fit.

Agree. I posted to that effect recently.

But, it's fair to consider that the Insight is less expensive.

However, as is typical with Honda/Acura... it really doesn't matter how much the price tag is... it's still going to have too much cheap plastic in the interior anyway.

TM

tagman

Len,

I just read this...

Oil prices faded Wednesday as a government report showed U.S. crude inventories rising to levels last seen in 1993.

Benchmark crude for May delivery fell $1.21 to settle at $52.77 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, one day after closing at a high for the year.

Crude in storage last week rose 3.3 million barrels, according to the Energy Information Administration, much more than what was expected by analysts.

That puts crude inventory levels at a 16-year high!

TM

skarie

Comparison: 2010 Honda Insight vs 2010 Toyota Prius
link title
These cars are lot more diffrent than i had thought.

jlbl

Hi, Tony,

I apologize for my late reply. I've been busy recovering working time "lost" last week because of my going to my closer favorite ski resort in Cauterets, France. Excellent north face snow, good wether, few skiers and snow surfers. Fabulous days. Yet I must work harder after. But it's wonderful my job allow me to schedule my work (up to a limit). Wether forecast announces more snow for this weekend up from 2500 feet high!

As for the crisis over here, this has been twelve positive sessions in a row in the stock market — is this a trend or rather… an accident? I still believe the latter.

One good thing is mortgage prices are ridiculously low these days (mortgages interests vary yearly in Spain in close accordance with the European Bank official money price). Thus people having to repay mortgages are alleviated to a point. Bad thing is banks are getting nice borrows from the Gov. on the one hand but in turn they are not lending much money to particulars.

Real state activity is really low. I can say it first hand, having tried to sell a property for six months now whilst down scaling its price to a ridiculous bottom and still waiting for a real buyer. Many workers have lost their job because of this real state crisis. My daughter is a young architect and, though still making her living reasonably well as compared to other colleagues, she tells me she has reduced her income by 5%. But she tells me also she has to work much harder than before to present winner projects to both private and institutional promoters.

The crisis is deep too as regards automobile manufacturing and other related industries and machine-tools industries, which are many on this side of the Country. Seat, Opel, Renault, Citroen, Nissan and MB, all have negotiated with the Unions to introduce partial time work to keep with low demand and loses without giving up jobs.

All this has built a pessimistic feeling and therefore many have restrained their spending. Or so say touristic-resort professionals, like those of Cauterets (to where many northern Spaniards usually go for skiing and mountaning, in addition to the French) and local shop keepers and restaurers. But, as you, I still see highways plenty of cars on the weekends and good eaters going to the restaurants (almost?) as usual.

(BTW, there is a not lux but good food quality restaurant in Barcelona that in order to attract clients has introduced an odd paying habit. A choice of dishes is offered everyday as usual but there are not written prices on the menu. The client pays at the end of the meal whatever he/she considers reasonable, putting cash inside an envelope that he/she glues personally. The restaurant owners claim they are making a good profit at the end of the day. This surely works as if you allows an adult student to qualify him/herself at the end of an exam: the student usually is much harder a judge on his/her work than the teacher is.)

Regards,
Jose

dewey

In fact I misquoted the mileage of my tires since up to now I drove 7K miles during winter and 14K miles during summer. I was told that all my tires are worn and will soon need replacing.

That means winter and summer tires without the rims will cost me about $5K with taxes. And that $5K amount just covers 21K worth of miles.

I am not going to replace all my tires now since I am selling my car soon and I mean REAL SOON.

Already my stability control lights are flashing after my car was fixed and ready to go last week. Last week it turned out the module malfunction and now it has malfunctioned again and my car drives horribly again. The rear door interior moulding is loosef. I lost other mouldings which I cant find now because I dont know when they fell off.

dewey

I disagree with those rankings.

The Prius is superior in every sense of the word. The Three thousand dollar likely price difference should not be the sole reason for picking the Insight? Heck I spent $3200 just on RFT snow tires with rims.

IMO the 3K $ on a Prius is money well spent.

dewey

The Insight interior looks like a hodge podge of a mess.

dewey

Maybe, but the Insight is certainly too cramped for me. If a rear seat passenger in a Honda Insight has claustiphobia then that person will need immediate medical assistance and at least ten years of psychotherapy to recover from his Insight experience.

circlew

The oil market is very unreliable, IMHO. The price of RBOB is the highest form of fixing of any other derivative. They really control this to the upside religiously in any market, it seems.

I am perplexed that the usage levels are on the decline and the price keeps rising for gasoline.

Jan. U.S. Vehicle Miles Decline Sharply

We are down to 2003 levels of Vehicle miles traveled in the U.S.. The average in 2003 rose to a peak of $1.75/gal. Interesting in that it is marginally higher now but predicted to go to $2.25/gal. by the summer.

Regards,
OW

lexusguy

That's the MotorTrend MO, the best car in the test usually loses. It's why I quit reading MT long ago. Honda deserves some credit for the Insight's price (though wasn't it originally supposed to cost closer to $18K, rather than 20?), but the Prius is by far the greater technical achievement, and I agree, it's worth the extra cost.

cyclone4

Tag,

I will stick with my convictions of a week or two ago. We have seen THE low in the stock market, we will not have hyper inflation (some inflation of course), the dollar is not going to the crapper, and gold is not going to $3,000. Even if eventually (years down the road) we go to a world-wide currency, that does not mean it's the end of the world for the U.S. There would simply be a conversion from the $ to the new currency.

You can call my outlook Nirvana but this is the way I strongly feel. I think that even Dewey will start to get a more optimistic in the near future :surprise: .

ljflx

Tag,

I see prices falling right back to the low 40's. Oil glut, loads of spare production capacity and low demand. Hardly a recipe for rising oil prices unless you plan on storing it for a long time to come. While RBOB is up from 80 cents to $1.49, here in NJ I'm still paying $1.99-2.07 for 93 octane, just 20 cents above the low points, so the stations are unable to pass on the RBOB price increases and that is probably why refinery utilization is down so much. Traders are looking at refinery utilization without looking at what's really happening at the pump. I travel through some of the most heavily congested roads in the NY/NJ area and I haven't hit a tie-up in months and my buddy at the station a mile from me recently told me his pump sales are now lower than ever. I'm thinking those RBOB prices are being manipulated unless NY/NJ is in a void that the rest of the US isn't.

Charlie, agree. I'm looking for a 1,000+ number on the S&P and 10,000+ on the Dow by year end and I think the 666 and 6,500 were once in a life-time buy-ins. I think we'll trade range from there though because I think the consumer is still in save mode thru next year,

cyclone4

While RBOB is up from 80 cents to $1.49, here in NJ I'm still paying $1.99-2.07 for 93 octane, just 20 cents above the low points, so the stations are unable to pass on the RBOB price increases and that is probably why refinery utilization is down so much.

Charlie, agree, I'm lookinh for a 1,000+ on the S&P and 10,000+ on the Dow by year end and I think the 666 and 6,500 were once in a life-time buy-ins. I think we'll trade range from there though because I think the consumer is still in save mode thru next year,

Len,

NJ is not alone in this scenario, but here in IA the price differential between the lows and now is more like 40-45 cents. I agree with you that the stock market is not going straight up by any means. 1,000 on the S & P and 10,000 on the Dow definitely seem like good resistance levels for this year.

dewey

Jose and Tony,

Spain shares something with the USA and to a lesser degree Canada and that is a relatively high percentage of home ownership versus renting:

A decade ago Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick in Britain argued that excessive home-ownership kills jobs. He observed that, in Europe, nations with high rates of home-ownership, such as Spain, had much higher unemployment rates than those where more people rented, such as Switzerland. He found this effect was stronger than tax rates or employment law.

If there are few homes to rent, he argued, jobless youngsters living with their parents find it harder to move out and get work. Immobile workers become stuck in jobs for which they are ill-suited, which is inefficient: it raises prices, reduces incomes and makes some jobs uneconomic. Areas with high home-ownership often have a strong “not-in-my-backyard” ethos, with residents objecting to new development. Homeowners commute farther than renters, which causes congestion and makes getting to work more time-consuming and costly for everyone. Mr Oswald urged governments to stop subsidising home-ownership. Few listened.

Some cannot sell their homes at all. Others could, but don’t want to take a big loss on an investment they thought was safe as houses. Either way, they are stuck. If a good job comes up in another town, they cannot take it.

THE ECONOMIST

dewey

Charlie,

you maybe right. Maybe it is possible to borrow yourself out of a debt crisis with substantially more debt.

If that is the case then yes you are 100 percent correct.

But here's the problem: Once lenders(China, Sovereign funds, pension funds) know that trillions of new Government debts and possibly even a few more trillions beyond that will be issued then they will begin to lose interest real fast especially when they know that these new debts may cause far more unpredictable instability. Both the US Treasury and the UK are now faced with this problem.

News from today March 25, 2009

US government bonds retreated after a record $34bn auction of five-year Treasuries attracted only tepid demand and highlighted concerns about a flood of forthcoming supply.

The market’s concerns were exacerbated by a failed auction of 40-year bonds in the UK.

FINANCIAL TIMES

tagman

Len,
I'm still bottom fishing, but I don't see the Dow above an 8500-9500 range this year. There are still stocks that should roll doubles, though.
My business is way up in the last 45 days... doubled!!... except for my clients related to the auto industry... that sector continues to be sluggish... no surprise really.
TM

dewey

Tagman, Charlie and Len:

The Delphi Oracle at the Temple of Apollo predicts that the Dow will be at 5023.69 by the end of 2009.

I dont know the unknowable unknowns out there in this very crazy and unpredictable world we live in so I will accept the Oracle's prediction and in addition I will accept all three of your predictions. (Rumsfeld-speak for "who knows")

ljflx

Dewey,

Here's my problem with all the low valuations out there and I've even seen one at 3250 for the dow and 325 for the S&P. Plus I love seeing the prediction extremes, reminds me of the hopeless predictions of $400 oil last year at this time. They always happen at the end of a cycle. The lows are all based on a stalled or failed banking system caused by a sustained writedowns of bank assets in a circular mark to market condition.These same predictions need to find an outlet for $4 trillion of sidelined money (right now) plus all the money that comes out of the market to go down to the low levels they forecast. So most of them also push gold to unheard of levels (many are at 2500, some are at 3500) with no fundamental support at all. Last year at this time there was a total disconnect of fundamentals and oil prices. We actually had rising inventories and rapidly decreasing demand while sick speculation took oil to $147 (with predictions of demand outstripping supply, while a glut was forming in the real world) in the biggest momentum trading since Nasdaq 5,000. Now you have these low Dow/S&P predictions which are predicated on phenomenal bank writedowns freezing up the system. One analysis I read that supported another Dow prediction under 4000 was predicated on having bank loan assets written down to levels that were represntative of 40% of book. That is crazy as performing loans are nearly at 80%. So we again have a prediction (just like oil at $400, and the Nasdaq 10,000 forecasts back in 2000) that is in total disconnect with reality and if accounting rules require asset writedowns to 40% when the are performing at 80% then someone should get rid of FASB in a hurry.. I'm always a fundamentals and cash flow guy and ultimately fundamentals always win. That's why I'm so against writing down asset values on performing loans. It makes no sense. I'm all for mark to market but it has to be based in realism, not based on an illiquid market which the rule itself propogates, or in the other extreme allows unlimited borrowing. The rule taken literally, takes the position that everyone will be selling their homes/assets at the same time because it values everything on the latest sale. Reality and the rule are at a disconnect. It's a good rule for individual companies that try to cheat the system (Enron, Worldcom etc) with over-valued assets inflating P&L's but it doesn't work on whole markets where a high majority of the assets are performing well, Right now we have the opposite of Enron. Enron had great profits and no cash flow. Banks have great cash flow and no profits.

I have seen a lot of momentum trading in my life and the longer it goes on the more it tricks people. So I can't entirely rule out the low market predictions. but IMO if they happen then you'll see a market move back up at 2X or 3X of the low in no time just like oil dropped to 1/3rd of it's value in no time.

tagman

Dewey...
Tornados also happen and are not very predictable, except to see a possibility. But even so, the norm is a tendency towards stability. In spite of the market's extremes, it ultimately finds stability more often.
TM

jlbl

I share 90% your opinion. Propiedad inmobiliaria frequently means not only house but also owner immobility. As a consequence people try to grow up, work and die just in the small corner they were born. IMO this impoverish life. I have lived for extended periods in various places across Spain, the UK, France and Germany. I feel this has given me an opportunity to better understand human beings and national peculiarities in addition to improve my working abilities.

The remaining 10% on which I don't exactly disagree but just feel uncomfortable, is said in this quote of a commentary to The Economist article to which you referred in your post: "From London to Los Angeles, there are no affordable rentals. In many cases it was cheaper to Buy than to Rent, especially when the Tax benefits are taken into account. Even as housing prices are falling in California, Rents are still going up. More than ever before, we need Rent Control." People started to buy their own houses in Spain when rentals got free. I know there is no fair middle point in this. It is one of the many things just going from one end to the other in an endless cycle.

Meanwhile, my parent's old house still waits for a buyer; I've got tired of a late row of problematic tenants.

Regards,
Jose

bmlexus

Sorry to interrupt, but I come to this website to keep my mind away from all the crisis and all.

But when I come here, I see this forum has been converted to a business review forum.

tagman

IMVHO, what you call the "business review", as it relates to fuel prices, the economic outlook, and the financial condition of the auto industry as a whole, as well as specific companies is as relevant as it can get... and more during these unique times in our history than ever. I disagree with your motive to come here in order to "keep your mind away" from reality.

Next thing you know, you will complain that Jose has enlightened us from time to time with his terrific and interesting cultural insights... or that you don't like Laurasdada's posts which wonderfully illuminate a bit about life in New England... and on and on. From a personal perspective, I think those are the kinds of things that has made this forum so incredibly special.

TM

plan_man

From a personal perspective, I think those are the kinds of things that has made this forum so incredibly special.

All true as gospel!

Still, a car post in every five or so would be kinda nice...