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2025 Toyota Crown Signia Hybrid, 2022 Ram 2500 Laramie 6.4 Hemi, 2007 Mazda MX-5 Miata PRHT
Timing matters!
Will pick up on 1/4, very excited but concerned about gas mileage (60 miles round trip into city).
Happy New Year to All.
2025 Toyota Crown Signia Hybrid, 2022 Ram 2500 Laramie 6.4 Hemi, 2007 Mazda MX-5 Miata PRHT
Looks like turn signal lights will go into the side mirrors.">
Kind of answered your own question.....
I just bought a TL. I looked at the Passat but thought the ergos weren't right and the styling was very bland. The Passat was more money, got worse gas mileage, insurance is higher, and the resale value wasn't as certain.
I'd recommend the Acura. Good luck & Happy New Year!
I'm sure the 2007 will get some changes as usual the last 2 years.
I like the mirrors in the photo, but I expected more dramatic changes like completely new headlights and taillights for the 2007 instead of those super-mild differences.
When the last TL was updated, you could tell a 2002 from a 2001 very easily due to the new headlights and a few other very visible updates.
There is simply no comparison between the two cars.
I would not touch the new Passat with a ten foot pole.
There is always the slight issue that not paying for music is illegal and that you risk prosecution.
http://www.informedforlife.org/
Click on the risk order link.
The TL gets an overall score of 62 while the Passat gets 72 which is significantly worse.
The TL is the one you want to be in in the event of a serious accident.
Nothing beats the ELS 5.1 surround-sound DTS system of the TL.
Check the audioworld.com review of the ELS system. It beats everything including the LOGIC7 of the BMW and Mercedes and the BOSE system in the Cadillac CTS as well as the highly acclaimed system in the Lexus, the Mark Levinson.
The TL rules, the others follow!
Comprehensive in some sense but definitely NOT the whole story. ANY safety ratings which do not consider braking and handling--that is, *active* safety, or the vehicle's ability to avoid an accident in the first place--don't tell the whole story.
What you want to know is, if I drive this car, how likely is it that I'm injured? Crash test ratings tell you something about the probability of injury given a crash, but to get the probability of injury, you also need to know the odds of a crash in the first place. Obviously the driver is a critical component of this, but the vehicle matters a great deal, too. An alert driver has a far better chance of avoiding an accident in a good-handling and fast-braking car than in some lumbering hulk. The provided ratings don't take that into account. For example, there's no way a cow like the Uplander is actually safer than the incredibly nimble RX-8.
That said, I wouldn't dispute that the TL is a very safe car. 60-0 braking in 123 feet and 0.87g on the skidpad (R&T numbers) are very good. But I highly doubt the Nissan Quest is actually safer than the TL (as per the informedforlife ratings) because the TL driver can avoid things the Quest driver has no hope of getting out of.
(On a side note, those "comprehensive" ratings include weighting for the crash results for rear passengers. If you never have rear passengers, why on earth should that get any weight in the final rating?)
Oh, sorry, we now return you to your regularly-scheduled discussion of the TL vs. the Passat. Is the Passat even "average" in reliability these days?
The cow (Uplander) is more likely to live after being hit than the cat (RX8). SQUISH :sick:
I don't buy your line of safety reasoning.
These dedicated discussions are not the right place for this extended debate.
Thanks.
I got the 06 non-navi auto TL with end of year savings. My lease on my 03 Accord EXV6 was up. I was between the new 06 Accord V6 or the TL. The Accord V6 is a great car too, but the TL has those little extras that made the difference for me. After test driving it, I got hooked on the TL. The tire pressure monitor was a nice addition to the 06 line-up.
This car rocks! :shades:
While it may be the case that you're more likely to avoid injury when you have an accident in the Uplander (though not by much--the Uplander doesn't actually have stellar crash ratings), you're much less likely to get into an accident in the first place when driving the RX-8.
Some 30-35% of auto fatalities come from SINGLE-VEHICLE accidents. It's *not* just about collisions.
Blind drivers.
I've had endless fun with this little joke. I had to explain it to my wife and she felt rather foolish. She tells the story to other people, though. Occasionally, I'll speak into the watch when we're in the house, "what time is dinner?".
Give it a try and see how many people you can fool. It's too easy with kids.
Pinot44
The TSX was updated for 2006.
Honda's in trouble with the Accord. Sales were off 30% in December. How can the company that built the awesome looking Civic have a problem on their hands with Accord? New Camry and Altima coming out, and Sonata nipping at all of em's heels. C'mon Honda. Kick it up.
I would think the newer TLs ('04 and later) have more highly tuned engines with higher compression ratios. The negative effects of regular gas would be more pronounced.
This may be an apples to oranges comparison.
IMO, that is a VERY BAD "general" rule. My Acura and Porsche service managers agree. Almost all high performance engines have an knock sensor that will adjust the timing to compensate for low octane gas. By the time you hear a ping, you have so overstressed the adjustments that they are no longer able to compensate. That's unlikely to occur in the US where regular is still 87-88 octane. BUT, you can be robbing the engine of peak performance and efficiency long before you ever hear a ping.
There seems to be some disagreement - even among experts - as to whether consistently running a high performance, high compression engine on lower octane fuel has more serious long term consequences than loss of fuel efficiency or performance. I've read some reports that the constant forced timing adjustments can lead to more serious engine problems, carbon build up, etc. I've seen other reports that put that probablity as relatively low. But I haven't seen a legitimate credible report that states absolutely no long term problems from "under-octaning" a high performance engine.
Anecdotal evidence that "I'm doing fine at 115k miles" is, in my opinion, like the guy who eats a pound of bacon every morning claiming it's OK because he hasn't had a heart attack. Yet. Maybe never will. But that doesn't make it a healthy practice.
P.S. I get 29-30+ mpg out of my 2004 TL at 70-75+ mph on the highway. And it is considerably more powerful/quicker than the 99 TL. I suspect it would suffer more noticable drops in efficiency and performance on regular.
Women -- very good. Cars -- not so good, but getting better! :P
Anybody out there who's reasonably large and owns this car? Just how big/small is it in the real world? I realize people are tall in different ways etc., but I'd like to know if I should keep the car on my short list or not. The driver room is really the only hesitation I have on this at the moment (I know, I should just go "try it on", but I would hate to get there and "not fit!"). Also, does anyone know what kind of pricing to expect on a TL in the late spring time frame? Will they typically sell around invoice at that time of year (current year models)? I see that people sometimes get good deals now but I hate negotiating so if near-invoice is more common at that time that would up the TL's chances as well.
Appreciate any info!
The new 06 seats have a very short bottom cushion similar to what you usually see in Toyotas. I sat in some of the 05 Acuras, and they still have the longer seats. With the shorter seats you feel like your sitting closer to the seat edge.
The new seats are very stiff and not as soft as those in the 05 TSX or RL. This may address the complaints people had about the leather getting wrinkled but now its at the sacrifice of comfort.
The 2006 TL now uses fixed head rests. We have a 04-05 TL here at work and it has the 05 RL style head rests.
If there haven't been many changes in the 06, I would recommend checking out the 05 models. Something to consider.
I haven't checked out an '06.
'21 Dark Blue/Black Audi A7 PHEV (mine); '22 White/Beige BMW X3 (hers); '20 Estoril Blue/Oyster BMW M240xi 'Vert (Ours, read: hers in 'vert weather; mine during Nor'easters...)
Overall, the Avalon and 300 might be bigger. When they started Avalon was a bench up-sized Camry and the 300 was a mid-size like the TL. Both may now be bigger than their original size.
What I would look closely at is the footwell space and the dead pedal position. They seem to have a big real world affect on comfortable real space. Manufacturer's measurements don't always seem comparable in my experience.
The new TL also has improved shoulder space.
Being tall what you also should test is entry and exit, although the doors are good size and open wide, you might have to duck more than you find comfortable to get inside.
Also for reference, my wife has a cousin who bought a(now defunct) Acura CL partly because it's 2-door configuration worked better with his 6 foot 350 pound size.than his other options.
Over all I think you shouldn't delist the TL until you try it for size.
With my commute, my whole salary would go to the gas companies in one of those things. Definitely cars only for now... and one that can handle a lot of mileage without falling apart or losing *all* it's value.