The parents of Anton Yelchin filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in a Los Angeles court yesterday, alleging that the automaker knew about the defective gear shift design in their son’s Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Yelchin, the actor who played Chekov in the Star Trek film franchise, died in late June after his vehicle, equipped with FCA’s maligned Monostable shift lever, rolled down his driveway and pinned him against a gate post. The 2015 Grand Cherokee was found in neutral, with the engine running. (Read More…)

After an attractive design, all-wheel-drive availability, a powerful V6 (and incentives) powered the Chrysler 200 to 16 consecutive months of improved U.S. sales through October 2015, demand for the midsize 200 suddenly dried up.

During that 16-month stretch between July 2014 and October 2015, sales of the 200 jumped 72 percent, an increase of more than 6,000 sales per month for the Sebring’s replacement. But between November of last year and January 2016, U.S. sales of the 200 were essentially chopped in half.

As a result, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles skipped quickly from a temporary shutdown at the 200’s Sterling Heights assembly plant, to a prolonged shutdown, to an announcement that the 200 and its Dodge Dart cousin would be gradually wound down. It wasn’t so gradual: Dart production is about to end and 200 production will be over before year’s end.

Coinciding with these sedan cancellations, FCA also mired itself in a sales fixing scandal. FCA now claims in 2011, 2014, and 2015, the company was under-reporting real total sales volume, FCA also clarified that sales through the first-half of 2016 were 7,450 units lower than the company first announced.

Though lacking specific monthly data for the early part of this year, we now know which brands and models were the key offenders with July figures in hand. No drum roll required. (Read More…)

“Why,” the artist formerly known as Danger Girl snarled, waving a few stapled pages in the face of the frightened-looking, weasel-faced service advisor, “is there a balance payable on this?”

(Read More…)

After a steep May decline and modest growth in June, which fell below expectations, U.S. auto sales expansion flatlined in July 2016, suggesting the market is poised for a slower second half than the early part of the year projected.

New vehicle sales volume rose less than 1 percent in July 2016, a year-over-year improvement equal to roughly 11,000 sales.

There were a number of significant improvements. July 2016 was the best July ever for American Honda, for example, as sales jumped 6 percent to 139,125 at the Honda brand, overcoming another Acura decline. Buick, up 10 percent last month, ended the January-July period with its best start to the year since 2005. The only brands with superior growth rates in July were smaller outlets: Smart, Volvo, and Scion.

Mixed in with these gains, however, were double-digit percentage losses from a bundle of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles brands: Maserati, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and Dodge. (Read More…)

Consider it a low point in German-Korean relations.

Thanks to the diesel emissions scandal, South Korea just decertified about 68 percent of all Volkswagen, Bentley and Audi vehicles sold in that country over the past decade, Reuters reports. The country also revoked the certification of 80 model variants and leveled a large fine, meaning VW’s one-time Asian market breakthrough is truly busted. (Read More…)

Hyundai’s rear-drive sports coupe is dead.

First reported by the Globe and Mail, the Genesis Coupe’s 2016 model year will be its last in the U.S. and Canada, a company spokesperson confirmed today. A replacement is expected to follow sometime after 2017, but it won’t carry the Hyundai badge. (Read More…)

Wherever roads fade to tracks, bridges give way to fords, and addresses become coordinates, an intense internecine war is under way. Since the Land Cruiser and Patrol were born in 1951, Nissan and Toyota have battled over which automaker produces the best large, go-anywhere, do-anything SUV. It’s a competition that has spawned battle wagons of ever increasing size, […]

A roadside drug-testing pilot program signed into law at the end of June is unconstitutional and runs the risk of destroying lives, a motorist’s advocacy group says.

Michigan’s “Barbara J. and Thomas J. Swift Law” will see five counties selected for roadside saliva swab tests designed to identify drivers impaired by drugs. The one-year pilot, which became law on June 24, raised the ire of the National Motorists Association, which claims the law oversteps boundaries and could prove inaccurate. (Read More…)

If Elon Musk’s tweets are accurate (and who can prove that they aren’t?), the Tesla CEO plans to build Millennials and hippies their dream ride at some point in the foreseeable future.

As per tradition, Musk took to Twitter to release snippets of detail about his sprawling (but vague) 10-year “master plan,” including what to expect from the automaker’s next two models. One proposed model is a no-brainer, but the other would be worshipped at a counterculture love-in. (Read More…)

MrKiwi writes:

I’m currently driving a 2011 Ford Fusion with 80,000 miles. It’s good, reliable, and utterly boring. I’ll have it completely paid off in a couple of months. Here’s where I’m going to get myself into trouble.

The responsible thing to do would be to keep the Fusion and enjoy a paid-off car. But …

While driving a rental car recently, I remembered how much I enjoy a manual transmission. There are also a couple of times a year when I could use the extra capacity of a hatch. I’m starting to look at the listings for lightly used Ford Focuses and Mazda3s with manual transmissions, thinking, “Wouldn’t it be fun?”

(Read More…)

North American motorists with a hunger for foreign badges will have to wait a little longer for a yes/no answer from Škoda.

The Czech subsidiary of Volkswagen Group will make up its mind on a possible entry into the North American market by next year, CEO Bernhard Maier said to German newspaper Handelsblatt (via Wards Auto). (Read More…)

Much has been written about Stockholm Syndrome. It’s been critical to the plotlines of countless books, movies, and television shows: someone gets taken hostage and yet inexplicably sympathizes with and develops positive feelings towards their captor. I truly believe this thought process extends to inanimate objects as well. Case in point: a colleague of mine refuses to give up her Blackberry. My automotive equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome is Lincoln … ahem, excuse me … the Lincoln Motor Company.

To the delight of certain other TTAC contributors, my past is littered with examples of big Fords: five Crown Vics (including a wagon) and a Grand Marquis. I know, right? Most of these vehicles darkened my driveway for a maximum of six or seven months and were, without exception, terrible examples of the breed. The floor of my second Crown Vic was so rusty that the carpet eventually caught fire from resting on the exhaust and filled the cabin with apocalyptic amounts of dark smoke. My solution after I put out the flames? Cut off the exhaust. My neighbours hated me.

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Josh writes:

Around fall of last year, my girlfriend and I learned we were going to have a baby. I already have two girls and she has three boys. With the existing brood, we were already traveling places in convoy as her Nissan Maxima and my Honda Accord Coupe V6 could not fit everyone together. We threw our money together to get a third vehicle that could carry the entire family and our future baby.

After much research on my end and exploring all other alternatives, we concluded that we wanted a good ol’ Chevy Suburban. It has plenty of room for all of us, can be had relatively cheap, it’s simple enough to troubleshoot and work on, yet will be pretty handy for future home improvement projects.

(Read More…)

Opportunistic thieves are making off with high-end wheels from dealer lots more than ever, but one Ohio man’s nighttime excursion at a General Motors dealer just cost him his life.

Employees at Ron Marhofer Buick GMC opened their Canton, Ohio dealership per usual on Saturday morning, not knowing that a 43-year-old man lay dead under one of their Yukons. (Read More…)

To bastardize an old Dodge slogan, if you’re willing to devote your life to sustainable driving and ditch your electricity provider, you could be Tesla material.

The electric automaker announced a deal with solar company SolarCity today — an all-stock agreement worth $2.6 billion. Acquiring the nation’s largest rooftop solar provider gives Tesla CEO Elon Musk the top-to-bottom green company he always wanted, but it opens the company up to new risks. (Read More…)