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the 2020 MDX better be effing magical otherwise we might as well close our doors.
Where are all the Production deliveries ??
- Thread starter thunderNSX
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If Acura wants to learn something they need to go back and compare their targeted audience metrics with their actual customers metrics.
That single analysis alone will tell you how screwed up their marketing, engineering, sales, and ultimately, corporate, abilities are.
That single analysis alone will tell you how screwed up their marketing, engineering, sales, and ultimately, corporate, abilities are.
We've had many MDX's over the years and you're right they're nothing special, but I will say they
are reliable appliances that have pretty good resale.
My Wife has a '17 tech SH-AWD - likes it.
My wife won't even touch an Acura. She chose BUICK, of all makes, over Acura. Of course, given the shambolic ZF9 tranny in my TLX, I may not be long for the brand (except NC1, I love it!) myself...*yuck*
The dealer gave me a new MDX as a loaner during the recall work. Had about 2000 miles on it. It worked, but nothing overly memorable, exciting, or objectionable. I guess it has electric steering? It had a weird feeling and the center dead spot felt very artificial. I’ve never been in one before and no clue if it was a base or maxed out version or the sticker price.
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So fastaussie is finally moved on, yet this thread has devolved now into Acura sucks as a whole? Nice.
This reminds me of an algorithm just born. Still trying to learn the world. Trying hard to make sense of all this data and still stumbling and failing.Acura's own training module said that supercar buyers want cars with no mileage.
Ok great. They also want to drive the car they're going to buy.
Acura dealers dont understand this buyer. Most will buy a car from out of state for the right deal.
My regional manager doesn't like it when I tell them that the market is soft on this car.
If you have a warm body willing to pay you money, take the deal. I had a guy willing to pay a few thousand over invoice and my GSM didnt take the deal. GSM said he can take that deal a few months from then. Buyer bought a huracan.
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buick makes a station wagon. :applause:
i have a sliver of hope that the transmission software from the 2019 MDX will trickle down to the older MDXs and TLXs, but i'm not optimistic. 2019 MDX drives noticeably different than the 2018.
2019 MDX is definitely what this generation of MDX should have been from the start. I agree that the 2020 MDX better do everything the RDX does and then some magic to boot. Hopefully they can actually start producing enough of both of them to keep up with demand. 5 months after RDX release and the only one I have on my lot is the demo. I'm stuck selling cars that are 1-2 months away from arriving. Everything is sold before it even comes off the trucks.
Wish they would put out an NSX that had that kind of buzz around it...
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Hey Master Tech.....All is not doom & gloom.
The new '19 orange color shows some creative thinking from Acura
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assuming a refresh comes in 2020/2021ish, that should be the most telling.
My Equus can pass people on a highway in a snap, sips low quality fuel, and gets far better gas mileage than my 2010 mdx. Which makes a ton of intake growl “nonsense, ”cannot get out of its own way, has horrific fuel economy, and takes premium unleaded fuel. Oh, also, the trunk holds more shit than the rear hatch in my MDX... Not sure why this model is still the bees knees at Acura.
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LOL I'm not a Buick fan at all. Six Acuras purchased/leased including my NA2. I'm simply cheering for Acura to allow the ZF9 to burn in Hell. It's awful and a rare fail for ZF.
just disappointed...
We find the Orange color statement a but funny because Orange cars is not a new things as BMW, Lambo, and Lambo has been doing this for a while!
Out of the list of these cars, the only real competitors here are the GTR and R8 in our eyes. We just don't see a AMG or Lexus customer cross-shopping the NSX as neither are real performance cars. Maybe in a real stretch the AMG might be....
October 2018 US Sales
NSX 18
Ford GT 8
R8 75
AMG-GT 79
GT-R 20
LC 500 140
Out of the list of these cars, the only real competitors here are the GTR and R8 in our eyes. We just don't see a AMG or Lexus customer cross-shopping the NSX as neither are real performance cars. Maybe in a real stretch the AMG might be....
October 2018 US Sales
NSX 18
Ford GT 8
R8 75
AMG-GT 79
GT-R 20
LC 500 140
I cross shopped the AMG GTR (clearly a competitor from a performance standpoint) and even my AMG GTS would be a consideration if I didnt already have it
I didnt even think about the Nissan (had the first distribution back in late 2008).
The lesser AMG GT models still have decent performance and the GTC's exceed the GTS's. As you stated Lexus never has or will come into play via this comparo.
This is a good point however you have to remember Lamborghini dealers in general do not have to deal with families shopping for a SUV with kids in tow. Granted not all kids are crazy but at a young age, it's impossible/unfair to expect them to not touch the cars.
Acura showrooms has to be people friendly to the 95% of the population so roping off the cars is really not a big deal in our eyes.
We are in Silicon Valley and attend many red carpet events for exotics. There are ropes sometimes which doesn't affect the car or dealer in our eyes. The problem is how does Acura separate true NSX shoppers from the regular tire kickers or just curious on-lookers? There is no easy solution here.
McLaren and Lamborghini does have very open test drive policies as long as they see you as as potential buyer. They have specific cars set aside for test drives so this is part of their marketing plan. We get called monthly to test drive the latest and greatest because they know we have a lot of exotic clients we can send their way. Ferarri is also ok with test drives but slightly more strict and selective.
End of the day is no dealer wants cars beat on and hope for a future sale 20 years later. Their goal is to sell cars so ultimately they will decide their own policies.
Perhaps what Acura should have done is sent cars to dealers to be demos, then subsidize the depreciation. Let people drive the snot out of them and then tell interested buyers that you have to order the car. You can't buy the demo. I thought that Acura had money for dealers who had used cars for demos and thus were depreciated??? Hindsight, of course , is 20/20! I also recall stories that Acura bullied dealers about taking a car or 2 early on or they wouldn't get any later??? I bought mine without driving one and had to rely on online video reviews...... It worked out for me.....
Slightly off topic yet interesting nonetheless, this may not be the case much longer. Lambo doesn't specify its US sales by model but their CEO said recently that sales of their Urus SUV (640hp) have been really good (surprisingly good actually) and that by the end of 2018 they will have made 1,000 Urus (for perspective Lambo sold 3,500 cars globally last year which was a record).
He also said that for 2019 more than 50% of their entire production is going to be the Urus SUV (he estimated over 2,500 units of Urus). Quite an indicator of how it's going at $200,000 a pop and since he mentioned that 70% of the buyers of the Urus so far have never owned a Lambo before and the majority are women, families have been strolling in plus I doubt they will rope off anything.
I still think at this price point for this vehicle supercar buyers are just not going to be as overlooking of this as you. Sales and posts in this thread have shown this to be playing some part of the whole sales dilemma. If you've ever felt rebuffed by a salesperson instead of fully welcomed to check something out, it's no surprise they went elsewhere where they could test drive them, and then ended up driving home in the competition.
The big picture here is not the issue of roping off cars, it's done everywhere from car shows to big events such as at CarWeek. The issue here is real buyers of exotic cars want to be pampered and treated lavishly. Acura has a problem here because they can't expect every car sales guy to do this to every customer who is coming in to buy the latest ILX for their kid. The question is how do you separate a legitimate NSX buyer from the others? The answer is you don't and thus here lies Acura's big dilemma.
When you are walking into a Lamborghini dealership, it's pretty clear what you will have to pay so every customer walking into the dealer is at the very least a potential customer who took time off from their day to make the specific trip over. You see the difference?
We do agree this is what makes an exotic dealer more enticing, the special VIP name treatment. At our local dealers there are quite a few exclusive invite only wine tasting, Hennessy or red carpet events that combine all the things we associate with high end. Put this together you and you have a great environment for the wealthy to spend their money and walk home with a super car. Acura does not have any of this except maybe at exclusive events like Quail at CarWeek. The 95% of the time it's just Acura dealers trying to sell their SUV's
I think acura was hoping for way more on line action/ordering.....I'm thinking they felt the car would sell itself.Now truth be told my local dealer did call me when they had a car and let me drive it.....but of course I am a well known to them...
The observations on Acura dealers and their typical foot traffic is noted and well known ... but after almost 2 yrs of sales they don't appear to be learning or adapting their strategy on how to identify the genuinely interested NSX buyer ...
Audi also sells a lot of SUV variants and caters to the family buyer with its mainstream range ...
I refer to my earlier point that IMO, Acura should have 'bought' someone from the Audi marketing team ahead of the NSX launch ... since its launch the R8 has undergone many revisions and model variants to build interest, desire and repeat business for its halo vehicle ...
A quick surf suggests USA 2018 sales volume is 757 R8 to 143 NSX ... thats approx 20% of the Audi sales volume ...
Out of interest, anyone know what the annual build capacity is for the NSX? Maybe they couldn't meet such volumes even if they could market it better?
Audi also sells a lot of SUV variants and caters to the family buyer with its mainstream range ...
I refer to my earlier point that IMO, Acura should have 'bought' someone from the Audi marketing team ahead of the NSX launch ... since its launch the R8 has undergone many revisions and model variants to build interest, desire and repeat business for its halo vehicle ...
A quick surf suggests USA 2018 sales volume is 757 R8 to 143 NSX ... thats approx 20% of the Audi sales volume ...
Out of interest, anyone know what the annual build capacity is for the NSX? Maybe they couldn't meet such volumes even if they could market it better?
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I spoke with the Specialist.
My sense is folks are disheartened about sales at 18 units after the mini refresh and information about what to next is not being shared internally.
The recent Jalopnik piece talked about 8-10 cars being built in a day. Think that day but not many days.
Regarding the recall, the fuel tank supplier is more like Sears than Rolex.
Many cars have already had their tanks replaced.
The time dealers are allotted for the repairs is low as the in house techs who developed the standards are the best of the best and race to do the sample job with high tech tools. Dealerships can justify more hours but it is like an addendum to an insurance claim process.
About 10 crashed cars have been rebuilt at the PMC.
The car is losing money so it is tough to justify any spend to promote or improve it.
Very clear that the refresh did not address the market asks.
My sense is folks are disheartened about sales at 18 units after the mini refresh and information about what to next is not being shared internally.
The recent Jalopnik piece talked about 8-10 cars being built in a day. Think that day but not many days.
Regarding the recall, the fuel tank supplier is more like Sears than Rolex.
Many cars have already had their tanks replaced.
The time dealers are allotted for the repairs is low as the in house techs who developed the standards are the best of the best and race to do the sample job with high tech tools. Dealerships can justify more hours but it is like an addendum to an insurance claim process.
About 10 crashed cars have been rebuilt at the PMC.
The car is losing money so it is tough to justify any spend to promote or improve it.
Very clear that the refresh did not address the market asks.
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