rev up your engines Lexus vs. Acura
which one's better the first Lexus was 1989 it was the LS
400 the v8 engine, and it had a rather bizarre beginning, in 1985 Japanese ray
the house in Laguna California and yes in this case truth is stranger than
fiction, they were actually studying American to see what cars do rich
Americans want to drive, and they decided it was a v8 rear-wheel drive car,
now 1989 they brought in this ls 400 and by 1991 Lexus was the most sold
imported luxury cars in the United States, only took them two years, they
obviously figured something out there now they were still called Toyotas in
Japan, it's just a marketing ploy in the United States they figured Americans aren't
going to spend that kind of money for a Toyota so they're still toyotas but we'll
call them Lexuses in the United States now Honda actually beat Toyota to the
punch, 1986 they sold the Acura Legend in the United States, it was their version
of a luxury car, they didn't sell Acura's in Japan they still called them Hondas,
they realized hey the Americans they think that Honda are lower end cars and
you're not gonna pay a whole bunch of money for them, so they just changed the
name of their luxury division, unlike say the history of Cadillac, which originally
was its own company Cadillac, eventually GM bought them and now their just fancy GM's
which aren't such great vehicles in the long run but the Japanese just made the
whole thing up, so Acura they stand alone as the first company to make a true
Japanese American luxury car and truthfully when you compare an Acura
Legend to the previous Honda's that were little puddle jumper type cars, they were
very luxurious cars, I had a lot of customers back then buy Acura legends, and
one of my customers was the first one in Houston to buy one,
they loved that car, now both the acuras and lexuses are pretty well
made cars, but they really come from different philosophy of car design, so
depending which one you want to buy is gonna depend on what do you want in a
car, for example a lot of people say a true luxury car has to be rear-wheel
drive like the Lexus, Honda doesn't make rear-wheel drive cars, they make
front-wheel drive cars they're experts at that, they make all-wheel drive too,
but they don't make just plain-old rear-wheel drive cars, while lexus was
going for elite status cars, smooth rides Acura was more towards handling and
brute speed, to give you a modern-day example the Lexus UX 200, it's a
relatively slow vehicle it goes 0 to 60 miles an hour in 8.9 seconds, a 2017
chrysler pacifica minivan it's faster that that in a zero to 60, and of course the
two of them are battling back and forth especially in the SUV market that's a
big market where a lot of vehicles are sold, but it still pretty much stands true
to form, that if you want a more luxurious SUV get a lexus, if you want
one that's a little more zippy, handles a little better, you can get an Acura, but
you have to realize there's a caveat to that, the acura suvs especially
the ones that are all-wheel-drive they've had a lot of problems with their
automatic transmissions, I've had more than one customer with one have the
automatic transmission go out on an Acura SUV with the big 6-cylinder engine,
cost them $8-9,000 to have the transmission done over, and I
have never ever had a Lexus customer with any of their vehicles ever have an
automatic transmission actually go out where they had to have it rebuilt to
replace, and I have customers that have lexuses that have 350 thousand miles on them,
a safer bet in the long run it's really
the Lexus, where Honda being more of an engine company, even today they make more
internal combustion engine each year than any company in the world, have
perfected a lot of engine designs for speed, and they did the suspension to
handle that speed, Acura and Lexus are just made up names its Honda and Toyota
and Toyota it's got legendary long life, where Honda they're known as being
really well-built cars too, but they're more slanted on the performance angle
and one thing that you have to realize for both Acura and Lexus is, their part
can be very expensive, switches on the door for the power windows the master
switches that cost over $400 on those things, and due to the limited production
of a lot of luxury cars, there often isn't that big of an aftermarket so in
that case I told the customer hey either go to a junkyard and pray that one is
okay, or you gotta buy it at the dealer because nobody else makes that
master switch, and in the olden days the original legends those had rubber
timing belts but those v6 engines were interference engines, so if that rubber
timing belt broke the Pistons hit the valves and goodbye engine, now only a handful
of the older lexuses had interference engines with rubber timing belts
most of those were non-interference engines, and today in most cases it
doesn't really even matter anymore, because almost all of the engines have
gone back to the better design of a metal timing chain instead of the rubber
timing belt, if you really want to go back in history even before my time
they had timing gears in engines, where there are actual gears connecting the
crankshaft to the camshaft, so you didn't have to have anything that was flopping
around eventually from wear and breaking, but it just costs too much money to make
timing gears and they do tend to be noisier too, a lot of the big trucks had them
and they didn't care about noise, in cars people don't
accept the vibration and the noise of gears running the engine, so now they've
gone back to timing chains which is a good design, you make a good chain and change the
oil, a lot of times those things gonna last three four hundred thousand miles
if they're made right, and when it comes to the modern electronic conveniences
that a lot of people seem to want, both the acuras and lexus are just loaded
with those things, so my conclusion is this, if you want a true luxury car that
rides really well and still has good acceleration, get yourself a Lexus if you
value your money over time especially if you plan on keeping it for
years and years and years like cheapskate Scotty, my wife's is 18
years old, it still runs pretty much like it did today it was made, I would really
say the Acuras I really sports sedans versus luxury cars, and if you're
thinking about getting an SUV, SUVs are SUVs they're based on a truck chassis
really, so they're not technically luxury cars, but if you want a more luxurious
one get a lexus, if you want one that's a bit zippier, a little tighter handling,
but it won't take bumps quite as well as a Lexus will, get yourself an Acura, but if
you're like Scotty and smart get yourself a used one, because they're
extremely expensive new and you never know what kind of a deal you might find
later down the line, especially as many older people like luxury cars, they don't
put many miles on them, and when they finally can't drive anymore, you might
get a really good deal at an estate sale so if you never want to miss another one
of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell!
