bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

$100 or $200 a month is peanuts when talking about flagship luxury cars. for a 3 year lease $100 a mo. is only $3600... over 3 years - big deal.

SW17LS

I don't agree, you have to draw the line somewhere. If $200 was nothing why would anybody lease a G90? $200 is the difference between my LS460 and a 740. The difference between a 740 and an S550. You can always say "it's another $100 or $200".

My ES was $70 less than my GS. My LS is $250 more than my GS was. At the times that I leased those cars I drew a line there and that was what I wanted to spend. You can always spend "just $100 or $200 more a month"

blacksc400

iTrader: (4)

That's what I did when I lease mine, I can lease a 5.0 for 1k, but when I see the M, it's just 500 more, of course I went for the beast
i love power and bragging right.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

when i leased our gl550, it's expensive and considerably more than the gl450. but did it anyway and never looked back, and most definitely zero regret.

going from gl550 to gl63 was a whole different story though and that's just a bit much

blacksc400

iTrader: (4)

I am going back and re-read our msg from last time, since my wife is asking me to get her a GLS. For her I might just get a 450 since she doesn't care about HP, hell she thinks her Sedona is plenty fast (it's a torture for me to drive )

AJT123

I'd personally take less options on a 750 vs a loaded 740. I don't care what society says, a V8 (or V12) defines a luxury car. I still just can't accept a 4 cylinder E-Class, when two generations ago the E550 had 382 naturally aspirated horsepower (and a 4.8s 0-60 time).

RNM GS3

Not sure where your getting this info.

I have not seen even one new BMW 7series that is not a 750i.
There is a ton of them in my neighborhood and all over NYC.

Getting a 6cyl flagship is like buying a 4cyl Mustang.

SW17LS

It only makes sense. The cheaper models are always going to sell better. A seat of the pants "I see only 750s" in a high value market like NYC isn't really representative of the population. I can tell you that here dealers have like 7-8 740s on the lot, maybe 1 or 2 750s. All are marked down 13-15%. Why would the dealer stock more of what sells least? If the 750s were in more demand why do they have the same markdown?

If they didn't sell 6 cyl flagships they wouldn't make them. If there was no market Mercedes, already the sales leader, would not be bringing a 6 cyl S Class to the market. If they couldn't sell 6 cyl flagships Lexus wouldn't have gone to a TTV6 in the LS. I would bet you that If we did see a breakdown of 7 Series sales or XJ sales or A8 sales, most are 6cyl.

Like it or not times are changing. Lots of people are buying 4cyl E300s, Volvo is doing really well with their new cars which are all 4 cyl.

For me the reason I buy a flagship car is it's big, really nice inside, rides great and very refined/quiet, smooth and it's big and imposing on the outside. As long as the engine is smooth and power is enough to really scoot it along effortlessly, that's what I want. The 740 is just as smooth and feels as quick as my V8 LS460, as does the TTV6 G90, as does the 6 XJ.

I was upset about the LS500 until I realized, if I bought anything else I wasn't likely to upgrade to the V8 anyways.