Can someone explain to me how Acura is outselling Audi in America?

CarReviewBMW · 03-25-2014, 02:04 PM

Acura in 2011-123k
2012-156k
2013-165k

Audi in 2011-117k
2012-139k
2013-158k

I thought that a big part of the reason could be that Audi is overall more expensive, but I did my research and it turned out that Audi's Bread and Butter(A4) is actually cheaper than Acura's Bread and Butter TL/MDX.

Red Bread · 03-25-2014, 02:23 PM

Median price. The A4 may be slightly cheaper than the TL, but Acuras come with nearly no available options and you can add about 50% to the base price of many Audii. Further, the MDX and RLX are the only Acuras over $40k, while the A3 and A4 (and A5 before destination, in a non metallic color) are the only Audii available under $40k. A fully loaded RLX is $63,830, Audi offers twelve cars with base prices over that price.

KingOfJericho · 03-25-2014, 02:33 PM

Half of this country has no use for AWD.

Just look at any Audi forum, most of the membership is from Chicago and New England while BMW forums are heavily concentrated in SoCal and alike.

CarReviewBMW · 03-25-2014, 02:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Bread

Median price. The A4 may be slightly cheaper than the TL, but Acuras come with nearly no available options and you can add about 50% to the base price of many Audii. Further, the MDX and RLX are the only Acuras over $40k, while the A3 and A4 (and A5 before destination, in a non metallic color) are the only Audii available under $40k. A fully loaded RLX is $63,830, Audi offers twelve cars with base prices over that price.

But none of that matters because the vast majority of people only buy Audi A4'S/Q5'S. You can easily get Audi A4'S out the door for 40k-42k(after tax and fees).

Audi A4/Q5 are Audi's volume sellers.
Acura's Volume sellers are the RDX/MDX right now and the TL is the third car.

Volume Seller vs Volume Seller.

Audi's A4/Q5 after tax and fees are around 40-48k.

Acura's MDX after tax and fees will go out the door for around 50k.

Acura's MDX is still outselling the A4 and Q5.

All those 'super expensive' Audi's that's out there? Nobody buys that.
The biggest sellers are A4/Q5 and they are very close in price to Acura's TL/RDX/MDX.
Which means that if you have the money for a MDX, you can easily get a Q5.
If you have the money for a TL, the odds are you can probably get an A4.

Efthreeoh · 03-25-2014, 02:43 PM

Acuras are Hondas Audis are not. Simple.

ybbiz34 · 03-25-2014, 02:45 PM

Because leasing is becoming more popular than ever in the US and Audi is notorious for terrible leasing programs.

For example, Audi asks M3/C63 lease prices for leases on S4s.

Case in point: A CA I know at the local Audi dealership used to work for BMW. When I was looking at the S4 (due to the lack of an RS4 in the States this go around), I told him I was getting better deals/offers on new E92 M3s and new C63s.

He flat told me to go for one of the other cars because the leases on S4s were outrageous.

CarReviewBMW · 03-25-2014, 02:51 PM

I just find this interesting because after reading all the negative comments regarding Acura and the amazing comments regarding Audi. I thought Acura was literally dying out there in the sales world and losing money. I thought Audi was cracking 200,000+ Units easily.

Turns out Acura is right where they should be as a lower tier 2 luxury brand and Audi is actually far from where they should be as a tier 1 luxury brand.

I think there is a huge difference between the online opinions of fanboys and the people with 40,000-50,000 dollars to spend on cars out in the real world.

Never_Enough · 03-25-2014, 03:17 PM

More people can afford the cheaper cars.

Digital.James · 03-25-2014, 04:53 PM

As much as we would like to think we are the majority, car enthusiasts make up probably less then 5% of all the car buyers in the country. Most people view cars as transportation and not a hobby/lifestyle choice. The same reason why the Camry and Accord battle it out for best seller. People want reliable, economical, and for the most part simple cars. Honda and Toyota still have far better reputations for reliability and economy to the uninformed. Even the non-stopping debacle hasn't hurt Toyotas reputation at all. Hondas are still considered to be the most economical cars even though some of their cars like previous generation MDXs and Pilot suck on gas milage.

rcl · 03-25-2014, 05:01 PM

Audi's have a HORRIBLE reputation for being unreliable and expensive to maintain, more so than BMW and MB cars. Just hearing so much bad about Audi's have turned me off of even wanting to test drive an A5 when I was shopping for my current 328i coupe.

Alpine435i · 03-25-2014, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Digital.James

Honda and Toyota still have far better reputations for reliability and economy to the uninformed.

Agreed. They have a far better reputation for reliability to the informed, too.

TheBingoBalls · 03-25-2014, 05:16 PM

Is that really an argument though? Why can BMW and Mercedes easily outsell Audi (both overall and volume sellers) especially when the media have been constantly praising how Audi is this new and fresh luxury and offer better value? Price has little or nothing to do with it but instead it's more of a perception thing where people would either spend money and get a BMW/Mercedes or settle with known and reliable, Acura.

hellrotm · 03-25-2014, 05:22 PM

Audi is currently the number luxury brand in the world. Ahead of BMW and Benz.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...car-sales.html

They are making moves, be patient.