Someone wrote to ask why, when I found so many problems with the Equus, I ended up buying one. Since I have been outspoken in my criticisms, I thought I would share my reasoning with others who might be interested (feel free to skip this post if it sounds like it would not appeal to you).
Here's why I bought the car:
FIrst and foremost, Ed Voyles made me a very aggressive offer that allowed me to upgrade from the 2009 Genesis to the 2011 Equus for even less than the maximum price I was willing to pay--thousands less than I was initially quoted. Revised trade-in, generous and competitive discount, 10yr/100k bumper to bumper platinum warranty included. Suddenly I could get the Ultimate for just about than what I was first led to believe I would be paying for the Signature.
Now, about my criticisms:
The rear seat is still a disaster for anyone my height. My wife, however, is 5'2" tall, and she said it was fine for her. Since my wife's health issues make comfortable seating FOR HER a prime factor in my car decision, I was very pleased that she found both the front and rear passenger seats very comfortable. The only thing she would have preferred to have was lumbar support for the front passenger seat. The Lexus included that, but the seat itself was less comfortable than the Equus seat, she said.
The iPod interface only gets a B-, but the iPod controls on the Lexus and/or Acura would not rate higher than that as far as I was concerned. I'd give the iPod controls on the BMW a B+ and on the Infiniti an A-... but the Infiniti had its own set of issues that ruled it out of the running from the very beginning.
Every car other than the Equus had streaming A2DP bluetooth audio, but another member's posts elsewhere in this forum offered me a way to create a streaming bluebooth interface if I wished--and the dealer was willing to throw in a standard audio plug that would let me plug-input Pandora from my iPhone to the stereo system. Sure, it's a wired input and not a wireless, but it works. So while this is one of the most glaring omissions on the tech side of the Equus, I was given TWO workarounds.
The absence of auto door closers was a disappointment, but neither the Acura nor the Infiniti had them, either.
The audio system is still superior to any others. I LOVE the ELS system that Elliott Scheiner has designed for Acura, but the RL doesn't use that system--it uses a Bose system instead. (And Acura has another problem--they cripple their DVD players so that they will play DVD-Audio and DTS discs, but won't play the sound from standard DVDs, which is the only way I can get a lot of recent releases in surround audio.) The Infiniti has a great surround design (upward-firing speakers mounted on the top of the driver and passenger seats to create rear channel surround), but the speakers seem more subdued than they should be. The Mark Levinson system for Lexus is on par with the Lexicon in my 2009 Genesis (no surprise, since they're both Harman-Kardon divisions), but the richer bass on the Equus gave it the edge in audio fidelity.
Neither Acura nor Infiniti offered HD radio, as I recall; I'm not positive if BMW offered it as a standard, an optional add-on, or not at all.
As I wrote in the original post, "Coolbox is very compact; I suspect it would hold a six-pack of canned beverages, but didn't have anything with me to test it out."
Nav system seems very similar to the Genesis--I haven't had time to play with it much, but the address entry system seems to be a weak point, although not insurmountable. So long as I enter addresses before leaving and don't try to do it on the fly, it'll work. Right now, though, I just use my iPhone or iPad-3G for nav-on-the-fly guidance.
And as I said, once I drove the Equus, I was much more sold on the car. It had a responsiveness and a road feel that was missing from the Lexus entirely. The Infiniti was slightly more aggressive in its responsiveness, but ultimately a bit more sluggish. The BMW--well, the turbo system glitched on me during the test drive, much to the salesperson's embarrassment. That left me worried that it might do that again when I really needed acceleration power. (And I still feel the BMW 5 series was underpowered.) Acura's engine is responsive and reliable, but I never found the RL to be as fun to drive as the Acura MDX, which I also own. (We had an RL from 2006 to 2008.) Don't let initial reports of under-acceleration deceive you--this car is plenty peppy and responsive!
The black paint is very attractive and I have no orange-peel issues at all. I find the fit and finish to be on par with the Lexus that I test-drove, and my wife felt that it surpassed the Lexus. The cooled seats were more effective on the Equus than on the Lexus.
All in all, I got an Equus with full service for 5 years, full warranty for 10 years (including the bumper-to-bumper extended warranty), for thousands less than list price. I ended up getting full KBB trade-in value on my low-mileage Genesis as well. (I think it probably helps that I've bought 13 vehicles from various Ed Voyles dealerships over the years; they know that I'm the kind of customer who will return if I'm treated well. And new cars are a weakness of mine, I guess--Susan and I have averaged a new car every 2 years for the past 30 years.)
There are improvements coming in the next generation of Equus--but I have an early adopter mentality, I guess. I also got the sort of deal that made it worth going for this vehicle right now.
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