Toyota: Why cant Toyota or Honda make a car that drives just like a BMW?

If you want a BMW why not just buy one?

Jack

"elmo" <com> wrote in message
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The CAN make a copy of the 3 Series if they wanted to.

What you have to understand it that automakers design and build to a
perceived customer and an expected set of demands that customer might have.
They seem to think that a BMW customer is some sort of anamoly that has a
unique set of demands, or something. They seem to think that what they are
building has broader appeal in the market place. If they build a car like a
BMW, and it appeals to 5% of the buyers, or they build a car like the Camry
that appeals to 40%, which do you think they will build?

There are complexities that go along with the decision to build like BMW
builds, but they seem to think that people will rather spend 22,000 and get
close to what they really want than spend 32,000 to actually get it. Of
course, now that you and I have a BMW in our garage, we appreciate the value
of the extra 10 grand. ;-)



"elmo" <com> wrote in message
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They could make one, but remember - BMWs are not really any
more reliable than GMs. Good, but not great.

All that performance comes at a price, afterall. A bit
lighter weight here, a bit higher revving engine there...
Unless you want to get a Mercedes AMG model, and pay upwards
of 50K, then you "settle" for a AMG lite(aka BMW for $15K less).

They could make a very good BMW clone but to achieve a truly comparable car
(suspension, electronics etc), their cost would be very close to that of a
BMW.

"elmo" <com> wrote in message
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From: elmo (com)
Subject: Why cant Toyota or Honda make a car that drives just like a
BMW?
This is the only article in this thread
View: Original Format
Newsgroups: alt.autos.bmw, alt.autos.lexus, alt.autos.toyota,
rec.autos.makers.honda
Date: 2003-09-10 11:58:35 PST

It is difference in engineering and production cost, my friend. The
way BMW manufactures their cars is substantially different from great
Japanese companies namely, Toyota and Honda. If Toyota starts putting
technology in a Corolla that is more or less the same that is found
BMW, it would end up costing the customer after the profit margin
almost the same as a BMW 3 series. Now, that does not necessarily mean
that the reliability of German cars is better than Japanese. Far from
that. Nevertheless, the fit, finish and quality of all the components
used in the car ( BMW uses laser etching to even out the body for that
perfect finishing) is what separates the German cars from the rest of
the flock. Although, the compact car division is getting so
competitive the new models (2004 Corolla, for instance. I have driven
four Corolla models my dad's 1982/83 in my mid teens about 8 years
ago, 1995, 1999 and now my own new 2004 Corolla Sport) is a massive
improvement over the predecessor models. No one could have predicted
the quality and cutting edge technology I expect the same with the
next Honda Civic as well and who knows one day they will have cars in
compact category that can stand next to a BMW or Audi 1.8T.

Best wishes,

Faisal A Sheikh



"elmo" <com> wrote in message news:<lvK7b.604$news.verio.net>... 

 

I've read (nope, can't quote the source at present but am pretty sure about
this) a car mag comparison test that put the Infinite G35 above the 3-series
BMW. Also, the latest Automobile magazine test (October '03) of $30k sport
sedans ranks the Acura TSX #1, followed by the 325i, followed by the G35. So
one answer to your question is that you can make the argument that the Japanese
automakers are already making cars competitive with the 3-series.

Also, regarding Honda in particular, to exactly copy the 3-series they'd have
to get into rear-wheel drive, which isn't what they do. Since they already
have lots of models where they can easily sell every car they make (Odyssey,
CR-V, Pilot are examples), why make that gigantic investment to compete (with a
rear-drive product) in a limited market that's already kinda crowded?

Finally, why copy the BMW engine? Speaking as an '02 325i owner and having
owned two Maximas, I'd say that if you want to copy an engine go with the
Nissan V-6. Performance and smoothness is great! (I'm not saying that the
Maxima is in general competitive with the 325i, I'm just talking about the
engine.) Also, take a look at gas mileage: the Nissan delivers 260 hp while
getting 20 mpg city, while the BMW also gets 20 mpg city so it uses the same
amount of fuel to put out 184 hp. (G35 also puts out 260 hp while getting 20
mpg city.) So, the Japanese are giving their customers a much better power/mpg
mix than BMW. So why copy the BMW engine?

Regards,

Tom in PA

Falling asleep through elmo's post...
 

Don't think they need to. They are trying to with that Lexus, but they
make thier money with bread and butter cars like Corollas and the new
trucks.

--
"If you can't change a tire, you're not allowed to have a beard. It's the
most basic part of a car: If you don't know that much about a car, you
really shouldn't be driving, should you?" - Jimmy Kimmel
http://www.cafeshops.com/creexul.2534632
Owner of Henry Cotter, apparently not the first,
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-
8&q=author:manofhour%40webtv.net+

"FaisalCorollaS" <com> wrote in message
news:google.com... 

But you are comparing a corolla and a 3er. What i'm saying is, when Lexus
decided to build a "3 series killer" which is the IS and came short (based
on opinion ofcourse) of making a car which is as fun to drive as the
3er...i'm sure Lexus engineers realized that the IS was no 3er killer when
they had the prototype, it was a good alternative to it because of the
cheaper price and higher reliability, but I'm sure that they were not
focusing on building a car that is 2nd in the fun to drive category (the
reason people buy BMWs) and first in quality and value. Why didn't they
just do a mechanical copy of the 3er to start of with and then beat BMW by
offering the car w/ a lower price and higher quality (which they can easily
do w/ more efficient production)? And I don't buy the argument that BMW
uses higher quality components Vs. Toyota, infact its quite the opposite.
How many electrical problems do people exp. w/ Mercedes and BMW's Vs.
Toyota, Im sure the problem rate w/ BMW components (mostly made by Bosch) is
much higher then a toyota (mostly made by denso). Anyone making an argument
that BMW employees a higher quality standard (including in production)
compared to Lexus has to be smoking some real good shit.