scotthendersonfan

LMAO! Thanks for that laugh.

Because the Malibu, Impala and other cars in it's segment are all non-appliances that are simply overflowing with "soul" right?

1.) Accord - Fugly exterior but overall, it's a great car and the interior design still looks fresh after all these years. 2.) Altima - Not sure about reliability from new factory. But it looks to be a winner. 3.) Camry - After all the armchair Schumacher's are done pushing the limits of handling on interstate on-ramps, they'll realise that the Camry drives just fine for most people's driving purposes. Everything else is just uninformed internet forum "blah blah". 4.) Mazda 6 - I'm a huge fan of the Mazda 3. I'd love to get the MazdaSpeed 6 but the regular 6 is a pretty nice car as well. 5.) Aura - I haven't driven one, but it looks spectacular on the outside. The interior looks somewhat cheap (even with Moroccan leather) but I think it's a great car that offers a lot of features at a great price-point. 6.) Legacy - Nice sporty family car. Subaru safety is unmatched. I like the Passat a great deal but the rest of the cars are take it or leave it. They're neither class leaders, nor are they sweeping the bottom. But personally, I wouldn't really pay $$ to buy one. For my money, I want the most car per dollar spent. Quick notes - Sonata offers great value for the money and the new Hyundai cars are very high quality. But I still wouldn't get one thanks to terrible resale value. The Fusion and Imapala are not bad cars. I've driven both and they're not too bad. But like I mentioned earlier, there's nothing there that makes me want to buy one over the top 6. The Ford fusion drives really well but I strongly dislike the interior. The design is fine but the materials, plastics, corporate radio etc. just remind me of Ford cheapness. Galant looks good on paper but no one's buying one and I'm guessing there's a reason, so I'm staying away. I wouldn't mind the G6 but I prefer some of the other cars. Malibu is too ugly for me to even consider. Lucerne is a great car but it's out of my price range for this segment. What would I buy personally? Accord, Camry, Altima or Aura.

I've never heard of this SUV. It looks good though, both inside and outside.

Acura and Lexus (especially Acura) have been offering this for some time now. And if I'm not mistaken, some Cadillac models have this option available too.

GM just doesn't get it, does it? Those $1000 navigation units sell for a reason. Onstar won't cut it unless it's sold to a market that doesn't know much about other navigation products out there and might be impressed with this offering. By the way, Onstar is very inaccurate. On my last job, I was working on project in Alexandria, LA. My friend wanted to show me how Onstar Nav. worked and so we tried to get directions to Walmart. It was completely off. Even when we can within half a mile of walmart at an intersection and could see it from our truck, it gave us more wrong directions!

Take a look at fleet sale %

It doesn't look bad but it doesn't look too great either. The design is a little too evolutionary and looks kinda dated and boring.

More Acura TL from the side than BMW.

Plug-in's are cool if you're in the city or using it for similar short commutes. Otherwise, you want the car to be self sufficient.

Toyota has the LATCH system on the rear seats already where you should be keeping your kids in the first place.

C'mon, style is subjective. I think it looks really nice and elegant and you can't risk alienating it's typical buyer market with too radical designs. As far as visual appeal, this car is quite big when you stand next to it and that presence counts for something. In either case, what I think really doesn't matter because I can't afford one.

Acura sales are dropping because it's typical buyers have moved on to the new Lexus cars.

It's not a regular transmission. The gears don't necessarily go in sequence. It can skip gears during acceleration or decceleration. So for instance, you can go from 1st to 3rd to 7th depending on load and throttle input. With any other brand, I'd say yes, 8 gears is just more stuff to break. But Lexus has managed to stay on top of the quality charts for years now even while piling on the technology. So it'll probably work just like it's supposed to for the life of the car.

Ok, you're crazy. Just kidding. Seriously speaking though, you can reduce almost any car today to combinations of design features from other existing cars. There's only so much that you can do to maintain a unique identity without compromising structural integrity or aerodynamic efficiency. To me, it's a very elegant design on a very large car, albeit, a tad on the bland side. But it offers typical Lexus features - extreme attention to detail, precision and of course, technology overload.

Just to clear things up, only the LS600hL will have the new Dual Stage CVT transmission that drives all four wheels (AWD). The other LS models will have the 8-speed automatic transmission.

Here's the Mercedes S550 review by Top Gear. Has me drooling all over my keyboard every time. I simply love this car. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZD8STpUpCo

Yes, but everyone has to start somewhere. At least they did their homework right from the very beginning and didn't call it "Kia"!

If I had the money, I'd go for the S class myself. I'm crazy about the new Mercedes S550/600! I absolutely love those cars. The exterior design took a while to grow on me but now I really like it. However the Lexus offers bulletproof reliability even with all this extremely complex technology, and that's one area where the Germans have had trouble in the past. Plus the new Lexus LS cars are nothing to sneeze at. They're absolutely fantastic vehicles and are class leading in every way, including technology.

LS460L Park Assist feature that parallel parks the car for you Some additional pictures of the rear seats in dark grey (from photoshoot, not this car)

LEXUS LS600hL