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!