Mike writes:
Hi Sajeev,
I’ve enjoyed your columns. [That makes one of you! – SM]
The VW and Audi Forums are still abuzz with reports of VW mechatronic failures in the mid-2000s DSGs. Do you have any information as to whether the newer versions (they’re from a 6 to 7 speed DSG, I read) are any less failure prone than the earlier versions? (Read More…)
Ahead of its new Fortwo and Forfour models, Smart is releasing an advertisement destined to live only on the Internet.
The ad — titled “Swearing Kids” — is completely self-explanatory and accurate. It is wholly uncensored and mostly funny and full of naughty language that’s definitely Not Smart For Work.
Dubbed the “most famous Ferrari known to exist” by Mecum Auctions, the white “Miami Vice” Testarossa will hit the auction block August 13-15 in Monterey, California.
The amazingly entertaining history behind the car includes details about the Testarossa, which was repainted white, and its life after the hit ’80s show.
With just over 16,000 miles on the clock and a recent $8,000 engine-out service, a piece of American television history can be yours (probably for a lot of money).
Subaru has already sold as many cars in 2015 as they did in all of 2011, according to the company.
Last month, Subaru recorded its 16th-consecutive month of increasing sales, selling more than 44,000 cars in the U.S. The Forester and Outback were Subaru’s best-selling models.
In 2011, Subaru sold 266,989 cars according to the automaker. At the end of June 2015, they had already sold 272,418.
TTAC hit 1,000 subscribers on YouTube today and it’s all thanks to our man Alex L. Dykes, who single-handedly puts together some great videos, and to those of you who’ve chosen to show your support with clickvotes.
If you haven’t subscribed, why haven’t you subscribed yet? Don’t you want us to make videos? Come on, people. Do it for Alex. Do it for TTAC. Do it so we can justify doing more than one video a week.
Wealthy Russians are clamoring for Teslas that aren’t even available in their country, Bloomberg News is reporting.
Buyers are paying up to double for the electric vehicles, the story reports, which include freight and import fees of more than $60,000 for the cars.
“It doesn’t pollute nature and it’s super cheap and easy to use,” Herman Gref told Bloomberg News in an e-mail.
Super cheap is relative term — even in Russian we hope.
With the imminent spin-off of Ferrari, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles boss Sergio Marchionne may be looking for a cash cow to help keep lagging brands at FCA afloat.
A story by Automotive News on Wednesday wonders aloud if Maserati will replace Ferrari as FCA’s marquee brand with double-digit profit margins. Behind Marchionne’s plan to sell the world on Jeep and Alfa Romeo, he would need to sell the world on the idea that Maserati is an exclusive, luxury brand, the article says.
Of course, that may be tough to do considering Maserati has always had a reputation for being Ferrari’s nerdy suburban cousin.
Volkswagen’s Golf TDI traveled more than 8,200 miles around the lower 48 states on less than $300 of diesel in 16 days, the automaker said today.
The 16-day trip around the U.S. set a narrowly-defined world record for “lowest fuel consumption — 48 U.S. contiguous States non-hybrid car” by averaging 81.17 mpg in the Golf TDI. The car was driven by automotive journalist Wayne Gerdes and electronics engineer Bob Winger.
Quick math: If the duo averaged 15 hours of driving per day, the pair managed an average speed of 34.306 mph throughout the entire journey.
We just had a fight.
Scratch that. We were still having a fight. This was just the tense calm between volleys of verbal mortar fire. I won’t even tell you what we were fighting about. The subject was so stupid it would make my girlfriend and I both look like utter idiots — like those times when you shout at a character in a TV show to grow up and “just say you’re sorry already!”
Instead of doing what any rational human would do, I figured my only chance of peace was to escape the waves of relationship-drama ordnance. I grabbed the keys to this week’s Charger along with my vaporizer and fled the front line to regroup and regain my sanity.
Looking at all the full-size sedans available in America is certainly a case of “one of these things is not like the other.” Dodge’s latest iteration of the LX-platformed, rear-wheel drive sedan sticks out like a sore thumb covered in beer and barbecue sauce. The freshly facelifted, second-generation new Charger (it’s the seventh generation overall to use […]
Car buyers are tired of the dog and pony show that goes along with trying to negotiate for a new car and are quickly turning to car buying services like TrueCar as a way to get transparency into the pricing process.
While places like TrueCar will save you a little money compared to just walking in to a dealer off the street, they won’t get you the absolute best price and will do it at the cost of your privacy. TrueCar makes money by charging dealers $299 to $399 per lead once a customer that was referred from them makes a purchase. They gather data from various automotive data aggregators along with vehicle registration and tax sources and perform analysis on it in order to establish an average price paid.
One of the requirements for affiliated dealers is to give them access to their Dealership Management System (DMS) or to manually transmit vehicle sales data to a supported third-party vendor. A DMS is a management system that dealers use to manage customers and vehicles that contains information such as pricing for vehicles bought and sold along with customer details like names, addresses, and social security numbers.
When Maggie Dajani realized that the tire-pressure warning light was on in the van she’d rented to take six teenagers and their parents to a One Direction concert in El Paso, she took the van back to the rental company. A representative of the company, Star Limo, told her not to worry. She then continued to the concert. Shortly afterwards, the van blew two tires and rolled over. Several motorists helped drag the ten passengers out of the van, which was filling with smoke. The children went to the hospital with various injuries, and one of them reportedly received one hundred and fifty stitches as a result.
Now, the New Mexico Public Regulatory Commission has delivered a very, ahem, business-friendly verdict on the whole ordeal. Turns out that Star Limo is the beneficiary of a unique combination of regulatory conditions.
With the number of people collecting “mid-century” artifacts, the stuff of middle class American life in the 1950s and early 1960s, it shouldn’t come as a surprise there are folks who collect vintage travel trailers. Actually, if you’ve gone to enough car shows, it wouldn’t be a surprise at all as owners of cars of that vintage sometimes bring along period trailers and make their show displays more eye-catching (though I suspect some of those trailers are indeed trailer queens and are trailered, not towed, recursively, to car shows). In the corner of Cobo Hall’s basement at this year’s Detroit Autorama, someone set up their ’50s car with a period correct travel trailer. Two years ago, the Packard Proving Grounds’ annual summer car show had vintage trailers and RVs as a featured class. (Read More…)
Here at Down On the Junkyard HQ, we’re all about American automotive history. We’ve seen one of the last of the GM J-bodies, evidence of how Ronald Reagan saved Ford from recall-induced bankruptcy, and Shelby-ized French Chryslers. Today we’ll be looking at one of the many cars that didn’t save Oldsmobile, a final-year-of-production Olds Aurora that I spotted last week in a Denver-area yard. (Read More…)
Rally legend Tommi Mäkinen will lead Toyota Gazoo Racing’s World Rally Championship team when it begins competition in 2017, the automaker announced today. Mäkinen was announced as team principal, which will race a Yaris-based car, for the WRC team.
Toyota boss Akio Toyoda, who will be the team’s chairman, said the 51-year-old Mäkinen was an ideal fit for the team.
“Tommi has abundant experience and fresh ideas for vehicle development, both of which will be valuable assets to us. With Tommi behind us, Toyota will forge ahead with our return to the WRC and also our efforts to make ever better cars,” Toyoda said in a statement.
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