TeaAholic1

Your house is really nice! And MB in America still ship new cars in 2016 with halogens?

LexBob2

I was recently shopping the new GLC and most of them in dealer inventory had halogens. A few had LED's but they were the minority at the time I was looking.

TeaAholic1

Really interesting how the US car market is. Mercedes doesn't sell a single car here that uses halogens anymore where I live...

dchar

Not just Mercedes, but BMW and Audi are guilty of selling cars with halogens. Mercedes even charges for keyless entry/start?! For the GLC, it cost $850 to get LED headlights and taillights, but you are also required to add the $1250 Premium 1 package. They include these things on a $40K+ car?!
Mercedes just likes to charge for everything they can...They don't even include LED headlights on their $60K+ GLS450.

But, most people don't get Mercedes for its value, more for that badge on the front.

LexBob2

I believe that all Audi models in the U'S' now come with xenons standard and LED's optional. I agree on the MB packages and options. I was going nuts trying to get close to what I wanted on a GLC and it was very difficult.

Futpurch

Went to an event run by a marketing firm and Lexus in February 2015

It was to test drive the NX around a track

at the time they GLK, Q5, and X3 as benchmark comparisons

they let us drive all of them

x1, q3, and some other subcompact SUVs are too small

x3,q5,nx,rdx,glc are a decent sized vehicle in a very competitive segment

Mr645

Mercedes and BMW have a different drive feel from the Japanese cars. Much better road feel, sharper response. Japanese cars have a much more isolated feel to them for the passengers. This is especially noticeable on their cars with sport packages or AMG models. Lexus is certainly doing some things right, just look at how they were able to capture a huge part of the luxury car market so quickly. They caught the Germans sleeping, delivering poor quality cars to customers with questionable and costly service. Mercedes and BMW also have a lot of options, both in packages and individual options so customers can select a car that has the features the want. Japanese brands typically offer each car with a few option packages. On a Benz you can order a package, or skip the package and order each specific feature in the package individually. Of course finding the exact car may not be so easy. A large dealer may have 80 C300s and no two identical. Porsche goes ever further, if the 16 colors offered on the Macan SUV don't appeal to you, you can send a color sample for them to match. You can choose from a wide variety of interior colors, stitching, and then choose dash colors, headliners etc. Try asking your Lexus dealer for a red NX200t F-sport, dark grey leather seats with red stitching, the upper dash panels in black and lower panel in red, red seatbelts.

TeaAholic1

That is really cheap!

In Australia, the GLS starts at $120-150K so...

Tom59

They compare what they can get to compare. Lots of times companies don't want direct comparisons unless they control the outcomes. Unless they control the option packages and handling packages too. Tires alone can change road feel and handling , sometimes drastically. NX in Motor Trend this month new models said they are "selling like hotcakes , and they are very good too"

You must include reliability. That's probably the main reason for me.

LexBob2

Even before this comparison test Car & Driver put the NX in the same segment as the vehicles tested here. Not really sure why, maybe they mentioned it when the NX was launched, but they seem to be the only publication doing it.