The ZDX name is cursed because ZDX is a train wreck of a model name.

 

So, what I'd like to see is all the analysis on here that goes on when Stellantis pulls their plug on a product, and read how Honda simply doesn't understand their market, or it was not such a good product. But I suppose since it's a Honda/Acura vehicle, it'll simply be dismissed because it was called a ZDX.

 

That is a fair observation.

I didn't expand on Honda simply because I am not as familiar with them as I am with Stellantis. Having said that, Honda does not have a well-established pattern for canceling vehicles like Stellantis.

 

The Honda Prologue is all over the place here. i think it's the same car.

 

Yes, according to AI, Prologue and ZDX are built on the same vehicle; a GM platform.

I also see a fair number of Honda Prologues driving around here.

 

PS> Stellantis just added this as a new article to their RSS feed, promising the Ram 1500 REV as their first pure electric in North America and bragging about Dare Forward 2030. The release batted .000.

Stellantis Media - Stellantis Invests More Than $406 Million in Three Michigan Facilities to Execute Multi-energy Strategy

Stellantis announces it is investing more than $406 million in three Michigan facilities to support its multi-energy strategy and confirmed that the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP) will be the company’s first U.S. plant to build a fully electric vehicle.

media.stellantisnorthamerica.com

 

Honestly?
I think Honda needs to figure out WHO and WHAT they want Acura "to be."

I looked at some Acuras a few years back.
They were nice. Peppy, and drove well.
But I wasn't getting a feeling for who or what this brand was.

 

Honestly?
I think Honda needs to figure out WHO and WHAT they want Acura "to be."

I looked at some Acuras a few years back.
They were nice. Peppy, and drove well.
But I wasn't getting a feeling for who or what this brand was.

Honda plus leather
its generally been hondas with lux cues and more power

 

The ZDX name is cursed because ZDX is a train wreck of a model name.

Not a great year for the ZD's

ZDT’s Amusement Park

www.zdtamusement.com

So, what I'd like to see is all the analysis on here that goes on when Stellantis pulls their plug on a product, and read how Honda simply doesn't understand their market, or it was not such a good product. But I suppose since it's a Honda/Acura vehicle, it'll simply be dismissed because it was called a ZDX.

Price for what you're getting. Its a broader Acura issue, but since you can get it Cadillac flavored, I suspect that's what people are opting for.

The Honda Prologue is all over the place here. i think it's the same car.

Yes

 

Honestly?
I think Honda needs to figure out WHO and WHAT they want Acura "to be."

I looked at some Acuras a few years back.
They were nice. Peppy, and drove well.
But I wasn't getting a feeling for who or what this brand was.

Honda plus leather
its generally been hondas with lux cues and more power

Yes, this has been an ongoing issue for Acura for several decades now.

When I was at GfK (2010-2017), I worked very closely with American Honda to attempt to figure out what to do with Acura.

My two pesos is that when it comes to Acura, Honda speaks from both ends of its mouth: on the one hand, American Honda (the sales and marketing arm) wants Acura to compete head-on against prestigious brands like Lexus, Mercedes, BMW, Audi; on the other, when it comes to actually developing and building the vehicles that would compete head-on against more prestigious rivals, time and time again Honda Motor (the engineering and manufacturing arm) simply refuses to do it --no V8, no RWD, no this, no that. The end result is that Acura remains stuck being Honda+

 

This makes a lot of sense to me, thanks.

 

PS - Honda has a small core group of models (Civic, Accord, CR-V, Pilot) that represent the bulk of its business, and a "secondary" group of models whose role primarily is to stop existing customer from defecting to the competition (Ridgeline, Odyssey, Passport, Prologue, the entire Acura lineup).

In this strategy, the role of the core group of vehicles is to bring the large volumes that pay for everything, and to underpin every product in the portfolio; the role of the secondary group is incremental sales (usually at a higher profit), and customer retention.

This strategy has worked very well for Honda over the years; it enables them to produce a good range of vehicles with a very small number of architectures and, more importantly, gives them a ton of manufacturing flexibility. But it also relegates Acura to this dead-end, second-fiddle role, from which it cannot escape.

 

That also explains why Toyota has so many cars that barely sell.

That was supposedly Ram's strategy when they brought over ProMaster and PMCity.

 

Watching Acura ads makes it clear that Honda does not know what Acura is or what they want it to be.
Given that, it's no surprise the ZDX faced difficulties.

 

I think Aldo summarized the issue 100%.

Honda's strategy is to have a small number of intensively developed, popular, profitable vehicles and a large number of more marginal cars that exist so people don't have to go to another automaker. Just like Ram getting commercial vans not because they would be profitable, but because they thought they could sell more Ram pickups that way and have 100% capture of some fleets - Ford gets a lot of one-stop-shopping sales. (But Ford figured out how to treat fleets, too.) That's probably why GM kept some of its less popular vehicles going, too. I'm pretty sure Toyota follows the same philosophy. So Acura... is a sort of tangent that they won't spend the money and time on, to make worthwhile. It's also going to be hard to give up when most people remember the Integra as “the Acura.”

 

I think Aldo summarized the issue 100%.

Honda's strategy is to have a small number of intensively developed, popular, profitable vehicles and a large number of more marginal cars that exist so people don't have to go to another automaker. Just like Ram getting commercial vans not because they would be profitable, but because they thought they could sell more Ram pickups that way and have 100% capture of some fleets - Ford gets a lot of one-stop-shopping sales. (But Ford figured out how to treat fleets, too.) That's probably why GM kept some of its less popular vehicles going, too. I'm pretty sure Toyota follows the same philosophy. So Acura... is a sort of tangent that they won't spend the money and time on, to make worthwhile. It's also going to be hard to give up when most people remember the Integra as “the Acura.”

Indeed.

Having said that, Honda does make sure its "peripheral" models remain profitable. It does this by sharing tons of components, engines, drivetrains and production facilities. For instance, Honda can adjust production of Ridgeline vs Odyssey vs Passport vs MDX vs Pilot and, if needed, even run them all on one single assembly line, depending on shifts in consumer demand.

This philosophy, though, relegates the entire Acura portfolio to a "peripheral" product line.

 

That would make sense, and provide a hefty price difference.

 

Prologue is also quite handsome and cleanly styled.

 

Dare I say it looks a bit like the Journey? Especially from the back.

 

It looks great, and is a refreshing change from the usual grossly overstyled or generic crossovers. Better than the GM version.

 

I’ve heard about a lot of issues with these cars and if I had to guess, Honda might have ended it because putting their badge on a GM product was probably hurting Honda’s reputation for quality and reliability.

 

So, basically a repeat of when Honda slapped its badge on Isuzu Rodeos...

Honda must view these partnerships as stop-gap measures.

 

Remember the Honda del Sol? I think it was one of the least reliable cars of its day. Honda Odyssey? For something like an entire decade, it burned through transmissions like a 1990 Caravan with UltraDrive. Somehow Chrysler fixed those problems (Iacocca getting shouty and Chris Theodore leading repairs) quite rapidly, but Chrysler ended up with the bad rep and Honda skated by because it's Japanese.

I think other Honda owners probably give the Prologue way more scrutiny because it's a GM underneath.

Also, I can never forget that the FWD Chevy Nova had WAY more problems in Consumer Reports than the identical save for intake manifold and stereo Toyota Corolla, made on the same assembly line. And in case you were wondering, the Nova had the Japanese version of the intake.

 

Honda Odyssey? For something like an entire decade, it burned through transmissions like a 1990 Caravan with UltraDrive. Somehow Chrysler fixed those problems (Iacocca getting shouty and Chris Theodore leading repairs) quite rapidly, but Chrysler ended up with the bad rep and Honda skated by because it's Japanese.

Indeed. Back in '03 we had a '00 T&C Ltd AWD. We never had a transmission issue with the T&C in the time we had it. My neighbor down the street had a '00 Odyssey. He was immensely outspoken about Honda quality and dissed Chrysler. When his Ody hit 50K the transmission needed replacement - covered by the warranty. When it failed again at just over 100K (out of warranty), he was pissed that Honda wouldn't cover it and wanted $5,000 to replace the transmission. At that point he was done with Honda, though he still had an Accord with a 5-speed manual.

In the meantime, our T&C was running fine. He stopped promoting Honda quality. He eventually switched to Subaru. He's on his 2nd one - the first one died from a deer hit.

 

I always loved how the press constantly praised Honda vans, and yet their transmissions were junk.

 

My favorite remains Consumer Reports.
Year after year of bashing Chrysler minivans and everything else because Ultradrive.
One year in the annual auto issue, a tiny box shows up, "What's the worst transmission we ever saw? Ford's four-speed! Here's how awful it was." Yet they still ranked Taurus #1 after that transmission showed up... and the car ranked #1 was entirely arbitrary; they rated cars (by their own admission) based on how close they were to their model car, which for years was the Taurus.

 

In theory, they use feedback from buyers. One problem they've had, after years of lambasting certain [cough] brands, is that they get very few buyers from those brands, so they dropped the minimum required number of surveys.

They had an issue with different brands of the same car (e.g. Dodge and Plymouth) getting different reliability so they merged them.

There's a lot of questionable stuff at CR after Champion showed up. I'm not in touch with them right now to see if they're still going along those paths, but I do have (somewhere) a cease and desist order from them which a friendly lawyer told me was nonsense I could ignore.