Sedans - Infiniti G35 vs. Acura 3.2 TL vs. Lexus IS300

The GPS on the Avalon use a hand held remote control, I'm not making that up they really use a hand held remote, it's the most dangerous thing I've ever seen in a car.

I assume you are aware that the Acura is a "front-dragger". I can't think of one performace car that is FWD - it's an oxymoron. As David said - there is a lot more to performance than HP.

If you can wait, Lexus will have the IS 350 GT in the fall of '05. Might be a good bet with all the good things that Lexus brings and the HP to match the others.

Since the straight six is the "natural" configuration for an engine with six holes, the only concern is that the new IS will be a V6. The Toyota M series engine was a wonderful piece of engineering and has so much low end grunt. I guess the IS 300 is the end of the line for it though.

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 09:00:15 -0500, "David Geesaman" removed the duct tape and proclaimed:

But my Acura dealer has fantastic coffee. Little individual pouches and all.

-- I put 2 and 2 together and got 22.

I don't understand why anyone would want a rear wheel drive car. FWD is much better in the snow than RWD and you don't have the transmission hump in the passenger compartment with FWD. Lot's of cars have gone back to RWD in the last year or two, would someone please explain why. Are the car companies figuring that global warming is going to eliminate snow.

Performance and balance. With a RWD car, the fronts are doing part of the work (steering) and the rears are doing part of the work (propulsion). With each segment doing what it's tuned to do best, you get a well balanced car (with respect to weight distribution, too, which is good) that performs well.

A race car, driving at the ragged edge of performance, needs to be set up this way.

That being said, does the average driver need that particular edge? No. Quite frankly, the average driver needs the edge that front wheel drive gives him: pretty much guaranteed understeer and a bunch of weight on the drive wheels, for traction in a wide range of circumstances. That's what will serve the average driver well, by doing more to keep him out of trouble.

But the above-average driver, and by that I mean someone who is trained and experienced in driving and car control, maybe someone who spends time on the track, may strongly prefer a RWD road car.

Why Front-Wheel Drive Sucks And why rear-wheel drive is coming back.

That depends on whether you have anything of value--like a house--that you wouldn't want to lose in a lawsuit. I have $500,000/$1,000,000 bodily injury plus a $3,000,000 umbrella policy and am thinking of increasing it. Not because I have $3,000,000 someone could come and get, but because if a judgement exceeded $3,000,000 then they could come and get what I do have and at my age (69) it's too late to start over.

Ten years without an accident is nothing, by the way.

My wife has never had an accident (except being hit from behind at stop signals) in the 30 years she has been driving. It's been a couple years longer for me, but I had two in my first years.

Mike

Okay, you win. ;)

If the Acura TL was rear-wheel or perhaps all-wheel drive, it would be in my garage. The fact that it is FWD, is the reason I didn't buy it. I had it on two over-night test drives, and tried to convince myself into it, but I much prefer the feel of a RWD car. I like the new RL, but for close to $20K more than the TL, and similar passenger space, it's not as much of a value as I thought it would be. I do love the AWD, extra horsepower, and the interior, but it needs to be larger in the interior for the extra $20K.

Randy

I've always wondered about people who get hit from behind. I knew a guy in HS that was rear-ended 5 times, twice at the same intersection. never his fault. But he just seemed to have this magnet.

now a neighbor's kid has the same prob. Has a nice vintage 1960's car and that thing has been rear ended 4 times now at a stoplight. All times, he was sitting at a red light and bam!

Weird.

Assuming the kid isn't making sudden stops, it could be that those center brake lights are a hazard for cars that *don't* have them. The approaching driver expects to see the center brake light and doesn't notice the tail lights--besides which, the brake lights on 60s cars were generally smaller and less bright than on today's cars.

Also, some cars just seem to attract trouble. In the 1960s I had a VW Beetle and people were always hitting the rear fenders. I'd leave my car in a parking lot and return to find the fender dented. It seemed that people weren't able to judge where the fender was. It wasn't just my car: I noticed a lot of other Beetles with dented rear fenders.

On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 19:47:16 GMT, "John Varela" removed the duct tape and proclaimed:

Today's drivers are also less bright.

-- I put 2 and 2 together and got 22.

I would say that over 75 % of rearend collisions are caused by or greatly contributed to the person in front stopping too fast. Whe I stop, I keep a good distance in front of me & look in my rear view mirror to avoid being rearended. Almost was coming home from work. I was watching the guy approach me & I moved slightly to the right & saw him suddenly veer to the left.

If I wasn't driving defensively then, I would've had my 6 month old TL smashed up.

Not true, it's mostly inattention of the person behind you that causes rearend. I was waiting at a light to change from Red to Green and the guy jumped the gun and hit me. Another one was when a tractor trailor in traffic said he didn't see my car because the sun was too bright, although I saw him talking on his CB when he hit me and thereafter when I came out of the car. He wasn't even inclined to come out and check to see if I'm ok. Too bad for non at fault accidents we have here in Ontario, I would have sued him big time.

I test drove the RL -- and that handles like a dream!! Lexus is ok, but the tranny issues are pissing me off.

Some are, but there is no such thing as "stopping too fast" under traffic laws. I have only been rear-ended once; I was sitting at the red light for some time. The guy in the rental car admitted he just wasn't paying attention. My wife was paused at a 4-way stop the last time she was hit. A drunk never even touched the brakes, according to witnesses. But it seems most of the ones I see (mainly after the fact) are in the middle of the road, when traffic slowed but the last guy didn't.

Following too closely certainly contributes to the toll. You can see it on the freeway, when a chain of fools slows a little bit at the front and the lack of reaction time builds it to a panic stop before it gets to the back.

Mike

On 12/17/2004 10:14 AM US(ET), Michael Pardee took fingers to keys, and typed the following:

Here's another one. Two cars stopped at a stop sign waiting for a gap in traffic to pull out. Both are looking down the road for the gap and estimating how fast to pull out when there is a gap coming up. The first guy starts to pull out. The second guy looks down the road to see if there is enough of a gap so he too can fit in, and seeing that it will be OK, starts to pull out. "Bang" The first guy had second thoughts and stopped. I was the second guy in that scenario.