Repair-It

http://www.motortrend.com/news/honda-re ... A85746E084

When Honda has to drop Accord prices, you know the sedan market is really shrinking. Which is why Cadillac is having such a hard time. If you didn't enter this era with an established luxury brand, it is going to be very difficult to earn that reputation within this era. At least in terms of sedan products. Yes I turned this into a Cadillac discussion.

Also, Honda could be hurting because they don't do rental fleet sales. Either way, it's not a good sign that they're having to offer this kind of deal on a freshly redesigned Accord.

On the midsize sedan topic, I feel like the new Civic is probably as big and useful as the Accord was in the 90s. I'm wondering if a lot of prospective Honda sedan buyers are finding their needs are met by the Civic and if they need something bigger, they immediately jump to the Pilot.

I think that is probably true in general. More economy focused cars are doing alright. If you want family space, even something like a CR-V is probably more useful overall than an Accord, for a similar price. Or a RAV4 over a Camry.

When Honda has to drop Accord prices, you know the sedan market is really shrinking. Which is why Cadillac is having such a hard time. If you didn't enter this era with an established luxury brand, it is going to be very difficult to earn that reputation within this era. At least in terms of sedan products.

You mixed a couple things in here that don't necessarily need to go together. An Accord price alone should not be directly relatable to an entire luxury brand.

If you wanted to say sedans in general are doing poorly like the Accord in this example, so Cadillac's sedans are probably impacted by a lack of desire for sedans, ok.
It is Cadillac's fault that they have focused on sedans as they have lost popularity, and meanwhile ignored the Escalade as it brought in profits. It is Cadillac's fault their quality went to garbage and they lost their prestige. That has nothing to do with the Accord.


As for the actual Accord story, I think a few things may be happening.
1. The sedan market is dwindling to the crossover market.
2. The Accord has been over valued for a while as they are expensive to fix, and I believe they are not as reliable as they used to be.
3. Cars in general are too much money new.
4. There is a lot of competition in this segment. Hyundai and Kia for example were not competitors to Honda when Honda was in it's prime. GM was not great in Honda's prime. Ford was not great in the late 90's early 2000's (think Contour, and terribly ugly Taurus).
5. A lot of what made Honda popular is not really exciting now. What made Honda big was reliability and gas mileage. Those cars were way smaller than what they are today as Bob stated, and had like 90 HP. If you sold those cars in todays market, they would have to be like 10K new. Which by the way, is what they were when they were popular. Cheap. Turns out when cars cost actual money, people have higher standards.

What I'm saying is economy segments generally last longer than more expensive segments, because the buyers are looking for something practical and affordable. Look at the compact sedan segment vs the midsize. It is doing much better. Luxury buyers are fickle - sedans are out of fashion. If Honda can't sell the excellent Accord sedan because people don't want sedans, I don't see how Cadillac is going to make a huge come back with sedan products. That's all I was saying. I guess that means trucks or crossovers?

Maybe another point of evidence - the Continental seems like it was designed to make people turn and look at Lincoln for just long enough to release their Navigator. The Navigator is completely pulling the brand from a flagship perspective I think, not the Continental (a sedan based on a lame platform with a nice interior). Which means Ford was right to invest in trucks in the short term. I still think that is not a smart move long term though.