Reply to What makes a lixury car so much better than reg cars

Forum Index » Cars and Transportation

Reply to "What makes a lixury car so much better than reg cars"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You can't just lump all luxury cars together. A mercedes, bmw, or audi (on average - not all models) are going to handle better than a toyota, honda or ford. They have better engines, brakes, and more extensive options that make them not only more comfortable but also safer (again, not always but on average).

OP you sound like my parents. They literally do not understand the difference between my mom's Toyota Sienna and my wife's Audi SQ5. If I drive my mom's van like my wife's SUV, the thing just about flips over around every turn or slides off the road. The same is true of my dad's Honda accord, which isn't even an SUV. I have to be really careful watching my speed around curves in those cars to avoid literally killing myself and the passengers. A couple of close calls I have had to slam on brakes which on our Audi and Porsche would have safely and predictably brought the cars to a halt. On my parents honda and toyota I have experienced not only SKIDDING down the road on the crappy tires and brakes, but nearly losing control of steering because they are just so badly made.

In addition, when I have rented standard Ford and Toyota cars, I find that they become unwieldy at high speeds. A couple of times their steering wheels begin vibrating at speeds over 75mph. They're just not well engineered or intended to be pushed hard.

So, on top of the interiors feeling way nicer and the cars generally being faster and more exciting, there are significantly poorer quality of engineering and technology in non-luxury cars that make for bad driving and dangerous situations. People who have only owned these crappy cars don't understand this because they think it's normal to have to brake 50 feet earlier, watch your speed around a normal curve, etc. It's not normal - it's just because your car sucks[/quote]

I would just add that if you spent your whole life driving a Toyota Camry or a Honda Oddyssey, you likely will never notice the difference if you test drive a BMW or Audi. Why? Because you will drive it like you always have and like your crummy car required you to - no more than 70mph, no more than 25mph around exit ramps, braking 300ft before the car in front of you, etc. etc. It's like asking, "what so good about the expensive bikes they use at tour de france" and then buying one to go joyriding on your cul-de-sac and concluding, "Wow, this is barely different from my Huffy."[/quote]

While I generally agree with you about many things, I think you're somewhat missing the point, too.  I'm on my third BMW (including an X7) and have put 100k+ miles on a pair of Toyotas (including a Sienna) and, pre-COVID, drove rental cars for work once or twice a month.  I think the luxury cars are better engineered for on-road driving performance.  My BMWs could accelerate harder (although the V8 in my 4Runner was a powerful engine), brake faster, and handle better than non-luxury cars.  But if you aren't pushing the envelope on driving, you may not really miss that performance all that much.  And I've put a lot of miles on Toyotas without doing much more than regularly scheduled maintenance and replacing the consumables (brakes, tires, etc).   They're engineered to run as many miles as possible without breaking and to be relatively cheap to fix when they do.  Meanwhile, one of my leased BMWs experienced a serious transmission problem less than 5000 miles in (covered by warranty and anecdotal, obviously).  I wouldn't count on my X7 to go 100k miles without any major repairs like my Toyotas did.  Some other items, like ride comfort, can be a function of your tires and tire pressure as anything the car is doing.

The fit and finish on the luxury cars is better.  The surfaces are softer - more leather and wood than plastic, knobs and buttons that feel nice, seats with nicer leather that are more supportive.  The features game is a mixed bag.  You get a lot of stuff in a $45,000 minivan, but those features may not be what you want in a car if you aren't hauling lots of kids.

What's significant, I think, is figuring out which features are most important to you and finding cars that have those features without a bunch of ones you don't want.  I've discovered that I hate steering assist (when a car re-directs you into your lane if it thinks you are drifting) because I'm usually trying to drive near the edge of a lane on purpose.  I love ventilated seats but don't care about a heated steering wheel.  I don't use any automatic parking features.  I don't open sun/moon roofs but love rear window shades.  I frequently use wireless charging for my phone.  And, most important, I drive with just my right hand with my elbow resting on something much of the time.  If that right armrest is in the wrong place, I'll never be comfortable in the car.

For my next car, I'm going back to a non-luxury car.  I've decided the price difference isn't worth it for me.  But I can certainly see why it may be for others.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics