Murilee loves to wax about the scourge of Miserable Econoboxes infesting our shores during the Malaise Era. Turns out, a few of them skipped daily commuter duty and went straight to the track instead.
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On the heels of a stop sale order and subsequent rush to reprint Monroney stickers with correct EPA fuel economy ratings, General Motors is working on a plan to compensate buyers of the 2016 Chevrolet Traverse, GMC Acadia and Buick Enclave.
Seeking to smooth any ruffled feathers, GM expects to announce a plan to dealers and customers within the next seven days, according to Automotive News.
That assurance isn’t enough to placate some owners of the full-size crossover, as GM was slapped with a prospective class-action lawsuit on Tuesday. (Read More…)
Two weeks ago, we told you of a potent four-cylinder engine under development by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Now there’s physical proof of the so-called “Hurricane” mill.
Spy photos obtained by TTAC show a cloaked Jeep Wrangler test mule with the hood up and a pile of evidence underneath. The positioning of the oil fill cap points to an inline engine, and air intake ducting routed over the cam cover points to a turbocharger — in this case, a high-mounted one.
Now, will the Hurricane make the nearly 300 horsepower as has been claimed? That’s a wait-and-see thing. (Read More…)
Production of the world’s most recognizable minivan might not end next year after all.
If a report published by the Windsor Star is correct, the Dodge Grand Caravan will see its lifespan extended until 2019, all thanks to delayed plans for a Chrysler Pacifica-based crossover.
The Star quotes John McCabe, president and CEO of AutoForecast Solutions, who claims Fiat Chrysler Automobiles got cold feet about building a new crossover at its Windsor assembly plant. (Read More…)
TTAC commentator claytori writes:
Hello Sajeev,
This email is about my 80-year-old mother-in-law Shirley, who is a sweetie and thinks I can fix anything. I hit the MIL jackpot.
Shirley owns a 2010 Lincoln MKZ 3.5 V6 with about 35,000 miles on it. About a year ago, the battery died on the Lincoln. CAA replaced it with another battery with a 13-month replacement warranty, on which less than 1 week remains.
Two weeks ago, the car wouldn’t start again, so I boosted it from my Saab 9-3, which sits beside the Lincoln in a heated garage. It started right away. As she doesn’t drive it more than about 3 miles at a time, I drove the car for a day to charge up the battery.
The battery was great for two days — then dead again.
If you missed your chance getting into a limited edition Ford GT supercar last week, your EcoBoost-powered dreams might not be over.
Dave Pericak, director of Global Ford Performance, recently told Autocar that the 600-plus horsepower heart of the GT could beat on — in other low-volume specialty models. (Read More…)
The arrival of a new Jeep Wrangler is always something to get excited about, and today we have the special treat of seeing the newest iteration of the off-roader before its official debut sometime next year.
Granted, this Wrangler prototype is still shrouded by camo, but seeing its new angles and dimensions is handy.
The UNIversal-MOtor-Gerät, better known as the Unimog, is a portal-axle-equipped toy for the super-wealthy — or that’s what most people think, thanks to it often pictured as a luxury camper van in the depths of the wild. But all over the world, Unimogs spend their lives doing the kind of work they were designed to do in construction, railroad, utilities, fire departments, agriculture, and non-combat military. Overland expeditions, ironically, were the one function for which they were not originally conceived.
The truth is that anyone can buy a used Unimog for a reasonable amount of money. In fact, my friend and 24 Hours of Lemons teammate Mike owns two. That’s right; my teammate owns not one, but two Unimogs! That blew my mind, because, seriously, how often do you even see a Unimog anywhere, never mind know a man who owns two?
Two concepts just revealed by Volvo shows where the brand’s 40 Series vehicles are headed.
The imaginatively-named Concept 40.1 and 40.2 were the centerpieces at today’s launch of Volvo’s global small car strategy. The growth-primed automaker plans to hit the premium small car market with a series of vehicles built around its Compact Modular Architecture.
Is there a Swede in your future?
From krill-hungry Lincolns to Predator-style Lexus grilles, the automotive market is littered with luxury crossovers like rocks covering the landscape of my home province of Newfoundland. With few exceptions, they’re all ponderous boxes offering the driving dynamics of tapioca pudding. Adding a sport package to these machines simply upgrades them to slightly warmer tapioca pudding. […]
After climbing to a five-year high in 2013, sales at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ Dodge brand fell 4 percent in calendar year 2014 and a further 10 percent in 2015.
So when TTAC columnist Bark M. tweeted a Dodge marketing tagline — “Fastest Growing American Performance Brand” — my confusion, doubt and skepticism were kindled.
Bark heard the tagline in a radio ad, which unfortunately isn’t Googleable. However, he swiftly supplied a link to this 2016 Dodge brochure in which the following claim is made: “The Dodge brand may have started from humble beginnings, but it is now the fastest-growing performance brand.[1]*”
Seriously? Let’s look into it. (Read More…)
Ford Motor Company probably wishes it had gone with a CVT.
After weathering years of complaints about the performance of its six-speed PowerShift dual clutch transmission, Australia just added to the misery with a class-action lawsuit, CarAdvice reports.
The suit, which alleges the transmissions are unsafe, concerns 2010–2014 Ford Fiesta and Focus models. (Read More…)
Though growth in the American new vehicle market slowed in the first-third of 2016, U.S. sales of SUVs and crossovers jumped 9 percent, a gain of 173,000 sales, year-over-year.
Matching the rate of expansion seen in calendar year 2015, the highest-volume year on record for the U.S. auto industry, was never going to be easy. It’s made all the more difficult by decreasing interest in the largest corner of the market: cars. Sales of passenger cars are down 5 percent so far this year, exacerbating a trend that was already set in stone a year ago.
Yet sales volume in Honda dealers is rising rapidly in the first four months of 2015. Honda just reported record April auto sales, not because of popular utilities such as the CR-V and Pilot, but because of cars. (Read More…)
He’s been with the company since the Plymouth Sapporo/Dodge Challenger era, but Mitsubishi president Tetsuro Aikawa’s tenure comes to an abrupt end in June.
Aikawa stepped down today after less than two years at the helm, the victim of his company’s ongoing fuel economy scandal, according to an announcement from the automaker. Ryugo Nakao, the company’s executive vice-president in charge of quality, is also out the door. (Read More…)
You can’t talk about the miserable econoboxes of the 1980s without talking about perhaps the most miserable of them all: the irresistibly cheap, irredeemably terrible, front-wheel-drive Subaru Justy (the all-wheel-drive Justy could be a lot of fun, of course).
You won’t see many of these cars today, but I was able to find this 28-year-old survivor in a Silicon Valley U-Wrench-It yard. (Read More…)
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