Is There Such Thing As A Lexury Car Anymore?

wicked677 · October 15, 2012

Apologies for the spelling error - I am on shift and tired

Once upon a time having air conditioning, automatic windows were considered luxury. Nowadays these features are standard. I notice that many new cars have a sat nav, leather seats and the usual jazz. Is the only thing luxury about cars nowadays the actual badge? I find it really hard to see how a new Lexus IS is more luxury than say a Ford Mondeo.

I am seeing luxury considered more a limousine thing aka Rolls Royce and cars that people wouldn't necessarily drive themselves. This has always been the case of course, but when sales people try and sell me an idea that a car with the same features as a KIA as luxury, I find it tough to get my head around!

It would be interesting to hear everybody's opinions!

Edited October 15, 2012 by wicked677

ChrisIS200SportTTE · October 15, 2012

Have you driven a Kia? Electric windows and A/C do not make a luxury car.

For me it's the drive and ride quality and I'll tell you my 11 year old IS200 is smoother, quieter and more refined than my next door neighbours 62 plate Kia! :)

mikeyv · October 15, 2012

Another point worth considering is the reliability of the luxury items.

My mate had a "luxury" Renault - it was a nightmare, particularly the electrics, everytime I passed his house he had the thing in bits.

Strangely enough he traded it in for a Kia, which looked a nice motor to me, and had no problems, but he found a real bore to drive, so traded within a year.

There's no pleasing some people.

noby76 · October 15, 2012

Yeh the things which used to set apart 'Luxury cars' of past was the electric windows, sun roof, all leather seats, cruise control, traction control, alloy wheels, sat nav, trip computers etc... but like you said even a small KIA hatch has all those features now as standard or optional. so the gap between a then 'luxury' car and a non Luxury car has really shrinked. My previous car which was a 99 ford Cougar V6 had all leathers, all electrics, traction control, trip computer, mpg computer(funny enough my 02 IS300 doesnt even have this). AC, 6 CD changer, H7 light bulbs V6 engine, which all could be classified as Luxury and drove really smooth too.

So I guess todays Luxury will be the badge even saying that most Honda Accords and VW's I have rode in felt better than the 2011 E class merc cdi i rode in munich(taxi) and my mates 330Ci BMW. which I think was down to Luxury car manufactures i.e (Merc, bmw, audi,) even Lexus going for a more harder suspension setting so the cars can handle on the limit. so the word 'Luxury' will now mean the badge and cars engineering but saying that, even mordern day KIA's have the reputation of being well engineered and more reliable than say a BMW of today hence you dont see many KIA's broken down on the road side.

matt-c · October 15, 2012

For example, today I was working on an '06 Mondeo ST - it's just as, if not more, loaded than my IS; HID, Recaro leather, sat-nav, CD, MP3, A/C, blah blah blah. Cost (new) isn't far off each other too (neither is second hand price for that matter). Lovely car, and drives nice, but you can tell instantly the IS is more refined; it's quieter, smoother - but yet handles nicer, and just, well, nicer (for want of a better word). Then you get build quality; Ford have really stepped up their game in recent years, but fit and finish is still not on par (IMO) with the more noted "Luxury" brands of Lexus, BMW, Audi, Merc, etc. Don't get me wrong, they are nicely built, but listen to the door shutting, or the dash/door switches on a Ford (anal I know, but to me that's what separates marques). Then you get the "drive noises" that nearly all cars develop over time; the buzzes, the rattles, the squeaks. Now I'm not saying my car is as fresh as the day it was made, but 10 years and 85k later, it's STILL silent during a drive. And I do mean silent - I cannot hear a single rattle, buzz, squeak, from the interior of that car when driving it. However the ST, at 6 years old and only 40k, makes a fair bit of interior noise, if you listen for it. My friends Golf (2003, 70k) makes a HELL of a lot of rattles from the dash (unusual for a Golf, I must admit)

It's the little things, at least to me, that separate the classes on cars. For others it's badges. Horses for courses. I don't see a Range Rover being anymore prestigious "just because" it's a Range Rover. But, and I really do like the Mondeo ST, those little things are what made me glad I got an IS over an ST...