Mercedes-Benz is currently trying to recapture the number one position in global luxury sales, but a quality problem on its home turf in Germany seems to be undermining confidence in the brand. Autobild reports that the M272 V6 and M273 V8 engines used a sintered steel timing chain gear made of various materials starting in 2004, but switched to conventional steel in 2006, eliminating the problem with gear wear. The problem: nobody seems to know how many vehicles built between 2004 and 2006 are affected. Mercedes claims, based on secret internal defect tracking, that one percent, or about 1,500 vehicles, are affected. If you have a vehicle with one of these engines built between 04 and 06 and your check engine light comes on, Mercedes encourages you to visit your M-B dealer rather than an independent shop, as Mercedes is offering free repairs to affected customers. And as Autobild’s Matthias Mötsch argues, when your motto is “the best or nothing,” the only answer to a situation like this is to fix 100% of the defects for free.
NHTSA has denied the niche supercar maker Pagani a waiver for advanced airbag requirements for its new Huayra, possibly forcing the Italian firm to delay US sales until 2015. According to the Federal Register[PDF], Pagani
estimated that if the requested exemption were granted, it would sell 35 to 45 vehicles per year, 6 to 12 vehicles of which would be sold in the United States…. [Pagani] submitted projections estimating that if the petition for exemption is denied and no vehicles are sold in the United States, the company would make an estimated €5,398,000 in net income during the period of 2011 through 2014, compared to €8,613,000 in net income during the same period if an exemption were granted. The company asserted that the difference in gross revenue between granting and denying the exemption is approximately €34,000,000, and the financial records indicate a difference in projected net income of approximately €3,215,000.
GM China and its joint ventures sold 173,398 vehicles in China during the month of July, “as Shanghai GM and GM’s Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac brands all set sales records for the month,” GM’s press release says. Nonetheless, GM’s China sales in July were down 1.8 percent from the same month last year. Now how did that happen? Why should you care? Why should anybody care? (Read More…)
For most Americans, the term “small car” typically refers to a C-segment sedan like the Honda Civic or Ford Focus, cars that now qualify as midsizers in many key metrics. Subcompact, or B-segment cars are generally considered the smallest of the small, as their name implies… but ask an American to describe a car smaller than a subcompact, and they’ll likely look at you quizzically before hesitantly suggesting “Smart car?” Yes, the A-Segment, known in Europe as the “City Car” or Microcar” class, is such a rarity in the US that it’s basically synonymous with the one car “competing” in it (Fiat’s 500 hasn’t quite broken into the public consciousness yet).
But, with Chevy execs confirming once and for all that the on-again-off-again (for the US) Chevy Spark (a.k.a. Daewoo Matiz Creative) will in fact be sold in the US (likely as a 2013 model) early next year, the American A-segment is about to get a whole lot of attention. But the question is this: does the fact that America’s first new A-segment car in a decade is a Chevy help or hurt the segment’s chances (consider that previous US A-segment cars like the 500 and Smart are positioned as premium offerings)? Is this car, with its 80 HP/82 lb-ft, 1.2 liter engine a pioneering game-changer that will introduce America to a whole new world of tiny cars, or is it just CAFE compliance fodder? One thing is for certain: everyone from Hyundai to Ford (which have the i10 and Ka waiting in the wings) is going to be watching the Spark with great interest.
For the first minute and ten seconds or so of this video, you might be thinking “so what, it’s just an SUV with quad pipes?” After the 1:10 mark, though, when the development mule for the new Mercedes ML63 AMG starts flying around the track, you may just begin to wonder if the laws of physics are being bent. There’s something a little distressing about watching a 5,000+ lb ute tucking through tight corners, as if the car guy’s traditional fetish for light weight were suddenly revealed to be some kind of cruel joke. But perhaps what’s really bothering me is that I know I’ll never see one of these things driven this way, unless some famous football player commits a heinous crime of some kind and leads cops on a modern, high-speed update of OJ Simpson’s infamous chase. In which case, I’d say this might just be the vehicle to have.
Here comes a possible explanation for yesterday’s Wild-Ass Rumor Of The Day: Toyota says that “a jointly-developed RAV4 electric vehicle will be built at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, Inc. (TMMC) in Woodstock, Ontario beginning in 2012.” Now what about that billion dollar deal? (Read More…)
Companies that operate red light cameras and speed cameras are facing increasing opposition across the country. In response, the firms have adopted a strategy of suing cities that have second thoughts about continuing to use cameras in their community. They have also been going after their own customers to collect as much revenue as possible.
On December 1, Redflex filed suit against Tempe, Arizona in Maricopa county Superior Court claiming the city owed $1.3 million in per-ticket fees for each driver mailed a photo ticket who decided to go to traffic school. The city claims it only collected $1.8 million in revenue from the program, mostly because last year’s payment rate was just 31 percent. Drivers realize in increasing numbers that tickets in the state can be ignored unless they are properly served. (Read More…)
Yes, GM kept making Cutlasses with 442 badging long after the end of the muscle car era. Between 1970 and 1978, the 442 lost about 400 pounds of curb weight and (at least) 205 horsepower; the top 442 engine in ’78 was a 160-horse Chevy 305 V8.
I will be moving to Poland with my wife and baby son in July. We will need a car, and trying to calculate value is tough for me, knowing very little about the Polish market.
I don’t know how much we intend on driving, but probably the occasional couple hundred mile trip on the weekend. I would like to keep my purchase price below 5,000 dollars and have something that is easy to fix where I can maybe take it to the guy down the street who operates out of his house’s garage, and not be too afraid of the guy not being able to get parts, not having too many special tools, etc.
The other aspect of European cars is the use of natural gas. It looks like “lpg” is big in Poland as many of the cars I checked out on allegro.pl have the natural gas option. Does this add to the complexity of maintenance? Will this provide more value per mile than a diesel engine?
The car has to be relatively safe, and a wagon with the room would fit our style as a growing family. There seem to be a lot of 10+ year old German cars that can be had pretty cheaply (allegro.pl). So far I like the Mercedes and BMW wagons from the early nineties. But something tells me that a 5 year old Honda Jazz would be a much smarter choice even if it might cost more upfront.
As far as manufacturer PR reps are concerned, there’s nothing worse than an automotive media outlet that’s willing to criticize a car. But when the unthinkable does happen and, say… I don’t know, Consumer Reports fails to recommend a new Civic, at least there will always be another publication that backs up your opinion. And, in the midst of unprecedented C-segment competition, Honda’s Executive VP for sales John Mendel trotted out this very approach recently. In an email to dealers that was obtained by the LA Times, Mendel wrote
Sometimes you disagree even with those for whom you have the greatest respect. And it seems as if that is what has occurred with the Consumer Reports review of the 2012 Honda Civic LX. We fundamentally disagree with their suggestion that Civic doesn’t rank among their recommended small cars…
Among many other very positive reviews of the Civic lineup, Motor Trend magazine recently tested eight compact cars, including Civic. The respected auto enthusiast magazine -– which knows a thing or two about ride and handling –- ranked Civic second among eight compact cars in the comparison drive. Many would be thrilled with this result. However, we disagree with Motor Trend as well –- we think there is no better compact car than Civic.
Luckily Motor Trend’s staff empathizes… they wish they could have given all the cars first place! And what about Car & Driver giving the Civic second place in its comparison… of two? In all seriousness though, Honda needs to check itself for signs of bunker mentality. Yes, Mendel’s responsibility is sales not product development, but creating an insular world where critical opinions are ignored and feedback is cherry-picked for the rosiest possible picture is bad for the long-term culture of an automaker.
Compare this approach to that taken by Honda Europe. It’s previous generation of Europe-only Civic (FK/FN) was widely criticized in the press for its poor-riding torsion beam rear suspension, lack of refinement and dynamic failings. With a new Civic coming to Frankfurt, Honda Europe is making it clear (by releasing the video shown above) that it is addressing those criticisms head-on, promising a “two-generation improvement” in ride quality. That’s the Honda that became a global player: responding to criticism, not burying its head in the sand.
From the “sidelines” of the MBS conference in Traverse City Michigan, Wards Auto reports that Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne is not keen on giving the UAW a board seat. UAW President Bob King has been pushing for VW Works Council-style representation on the Chrysler board, but as Marchionne explains
The best intervention that the unions or labor or organized labor can bring to the party is a support for the choice of the right leader to lead the organization… I understand Bob. I understand what he’s saying (but) we have to be very careful that we don’t exaggerate the value of co-determination
Co-determination gives rise to two decision-making bodies. The executive board makes decisions. And the unions sit on supervisory boards, one of which is the choice of the CEO. The most fundamental and difficult decision that a board makes is the choice of a CEO. If you make the right choice, issues with labor unions will not arise
Considering the UAW VEBA trust fund is the single minority shareholder in his company, Marchionne is admirably and typically frank in dismissing his union boss’s ambition. And since Marchionne doesn’t intend on retiring before 2015, his answer might as well have been “why do you need a board seat, when you have me?” But there’s another aspect to his argument that reveals that Bob King might have already doomed the union’s chances at a board seat.
I am sitting in a parking garage in a throng of torpid auto-journalists, nearly all of whom are wearing the same glazed expression of terminal information overload. On-screen, molecules of fuel and air are doing a complicated little computer-animated dance, as narrated by Susumi Niinai, program manager at Mazda’s powertrain development division. His English, while Japanese-accented, is better than, y’know, mine, but the concepts he’s explaining approach the limit of comprehensibility to the lay-person. Mind you, it’s a pretty nice parking garage.
Some of you, like me, may have been hearing all the rumblings about Mazda’s new SKYACTIV technologies and been wondering whether it’s going to turn out to be a series of technological breakthroughs or, alternatively, a load of complete cobblers thought up by some Zoom-Zoom marketing guru.
Good news everyone! It’s the former. Bad news everyone! I have to try to explain it to you. And I borderline don’t understand it myself. Here goes…
Last night I sold a car. Not just any other vehicle but the ‘family’ vehicle. A 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid that I purchased three years ago for $6500. For 50,300 miles it proved to be a perfect fit for a family of four. My wife loved it. But with used car prices outperforming in a three year period what the Dow couldn’t attain in ten I decided to cash it in. The price three years and 50k later? $6450.
I wasn’t smart when I got that price last night. I was lucky.
God bless the internet: nothing escapes its notice. Autosavant is a relatively small blog, operated as a labor of love by a bunch of passionate car guys who take time off from their “real jobs” to review cars, comment on auto news and, in this case, catch companies making sloppy mistakes in their advertising. Autosavant’s Editor-in-Chief, occasional TTAC commenter and all-round nice guy Chris Haak did just that with a new Chrysler 300 ad in Automobile Magazine, finding that the Wieden + Kennedy spot shows a 300 displaying 7.9 MPG on its trip computer. Haak writes
Now take a look at the closeup of just the dash below. From the angle of the tach needle, it’s clear that the car is idling (and in reality, had probably been doing so for quite some time during the photo shoot). On the right side, you’ll see the fuel gauge, which is a small circular inset at the bottom of the speedometer. It’s shown at a bad angle in the photo, but it appears to be marking somewhere above three quarters of a tank of gas. Then look at the DIC between the gauges. The trip computer is clearly displaying the fuel economy, and it’s showing a 7.9 MPG average, and a DTE of 60 miles…
Of course the car was idling for a while to get such poor mileage It’s just that it’s kind of a shame that the agency that did such a great job with the “Imported from Detroit” Super Bowl commercial for the 200 could have easily figured out a way to display something other than an embarrassingly low average fuel economy number on the display, or at the very least, photoshop a “1″ or “2″ in front of the 7 so that it showed 17.9 or 27.9.
You know what rated at about 7.9 MPG? A Bugatti Veyron on the EPA’s city cycle. Usually we take issue with advertisements that stretch the truth, but as Haak points out, in this case a lie would have been more accurate.
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