Back in 1987, Mazda wanted a big piece of America’s midsize pie. So the Zoom Zoom brand requisitioned an idle plant from the Ford empire. For two decades, even with heavy fleet sales, Mazda’s family sedan struggled to utilize a quarter of the plant’s capacity. Ford re-assumed managerial responsibility in the early 1990s. A few years ago, The Blue Oval Boyz moved Mustang production into the Flat Rock factory to take up some of the slack. For 2009, Mazda’s totally redesigned the Mazda6. Will the new car finally fill Flat Rock?

Despite swearing up, down and sideways that Toe Tag sales were a thing of the past, GM started a new "employee pricing for everyone" sale yesterday. It runs through September second. At least. All the new pricing info is locked and loaded on TrueDelta. Every GM model ["91 vehicles found"] is included in the EPFE sale, even the Corvette and Pontiac G8. The "employee discount" is $75 less than it was three years ago– no big deal. But Saab and Saturn now share the regular GM formula; they had their own employee pricing formulas the last time around. This means that Saabs are priced slightly higher than before, while most Saturns drop by a few hundred bucks. (Employee pricing is especially helpful with Saturns, as many dealers normally insist on charging full sticker.) With the other GM brands, you can often negotiate a price not too far above the employee price anyway. GM shaved rebates by $1k and even $1,500 in a few cases. Rebates actually increased by $250 for the last next big thing, the Lambda crossovers. The most heavily discounted vehicle: the Saab 9-7X. The Saablazer carries an $8k rebate on top of the employee price. If low-interest financing is your thing, fuhgeddaboutit. GM removed zero-percent financing from most models; 0.9 is now the lowest you'll find (except on a Hummer). For many models the "special GMAC rate" is now 6.9 percent. As in "get your financing elsewhere."

TrueDelta has released the August results of its Vehicle Reliability Survey. Among the models surveyed: the 2009 Nissan Murano, 2009 Jaguar XF, 2008 smart fortwo (no caps) and 2008 Saturn ASTRA (all caps). The Murano follows the Rogue in requiring fewer repairs in its first few months than Nissan's previous redesigns. The smart requires more repairs than the average car, but not too many more. That would be the Jaguar. Though the sample size for the new XF was small, the reported repair rate was nearly four times the average of a nearly new car. Most commonly reported… wait for it… electrical glitches. Finally, the most reliable of the three European-sourced models, with a require rate about half the average, comes from… GM. GM designs often require far fewer repairs in their second year of production. Following what used to be a common practice with new Japanese designs, the ASTRA also spent its first year overseas. So it comes to the U.S. nearly glitch-free. Full results at the link below.

J.D. Power’s latest Vehicle Dependability Study (VDS) covers the relevant vehicles' third year of operation. [OEMs didn't want to pay for the fifth year study; by then the design is either out of production or almost out of production, so there's nothing they can really do with the results. Also, by then the warranty has expired, so they're not paying the costs of those repairs.] Once again, much media attention is paid to which brands did better this year (Saab), and which did worse (Buick). Once again, the public gets misleading brand scores rather than model-level results. (Brand averages can be heavily influenced by a single bad design, the introduction of a new design, or the lack thereof.) And then there’s the little matter of what counts as a “problem” in J.D.'s book. Apparently, it’s anything the survey respondent reports as a problem, rather than a manufacturer-related shortcoming. The VDS’ five most commonly reported problems include brake noise (get them serviced), pulling to one side (get your car aligned), and excessive window fogging. Window fogging? Maybe by the time the third year rolls around it’s time for customers to grab the glass cleaner.

Critics of Chevrolet's upcoming plug-in gas – electric hybrid Volt fail to realize one thing: it doesn't matter if the car isn't perfect. It doesn't even matter if the Volt fails to achieve ANY of its much-hyped metrics: price, range or reliability. It's what happens AFTER GM's Hail Mary is released that counts. If GM can keep plugging-away (so to speak) on the Volt, they could, eventually, offer a genuine competitor to the the all-conquering Toyota Prius. One need only look at the fiddly roof still blighting the once red-hot Pontiac Solstice to know the odds of this happening are not high. Or, alternatively, contemplate GM's new product development history vs. the genesis of the Prius.

Honda was the first automaker to offer Americans a car-based SUV with a third row of seats. It didn't matter that an Odyssey minivan was more fun to drive. Families wanted a third row without the stigma of a minivan or the bulk of a conventional SUV. The Pilot outsold all other midsize car-based SUVs. Then new competitors piled into the segment: Hyundai Veracruz, GMC Acadia, Mazda CX-9 and more. Honda lost its place at the head of the class. For the 2009 model year, Honda has responded with a fully redesigned Pilot. Have they done enough to reclaim their supremacy?

J.D. Power has released its Initial Quality Study (IQS) results. Once again, the scores combine design quality (stuff that can’t be fixed, like BMW's iDrive) and manufacturing quality (stuff that can and should be fixed). Once again, these results convey little useful information. For one thing, J.D. only releases the scores for makes, not for individual models. For another, the make scores are so close together that the rankings aren't particularly revealing. Only a single make beats the average (1.18 problems) by more than 20 percent: Porsche. The list of who’s doing 20 percent worse than average is longer: Chrysler, Mitsubishi, Saab, Suzuki, Saturn, Land Rover, MINI and Jeep. So these are the makes to avoid, right? It depends on how wound-up you get about a single additional initial problem for every three cars (you’re buying at least three, right?) in the first 90 days. And remember: J.D. doesn’t release individual model scores. At some point, J.D’ll give us “circle dots,” but these won’t divulge which models score poorly enough to earn only a single dot— the lowest score is two dots.  

[Fair disclosure: Michael Karesh runs TrueDelta, which also measures vehicle quality.]

Anyone who’s driven one of the first nine iterations of the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution (a.k.a. Evo) approaches the tenth fully expecting chest-flattening acceleration and spleen-rupturing cornering. Obviously, the Evo X’s engine and chassis are bound (and determined) to continue the model’s budget supercar-killer tradition. But there’s another less welcome Evo tradition: denture destroying suspension and a Gladware interior. Will the Evo X’s ride quality and interior materials once again conspire to kill the love for all but the masochists among us?  

Let’s not dismiss the Pontiac G8 V6 out of hand. Sure, you give up a Smart-and-a-half of ponies with the less powerful powerplant. But 256 horsepower would have seemed like plenty even five years ago. (And the way things are going, it might seem like plenty five years from now.) For enthusiasts who’ve advanced beyond the raw thrill of gut-sucking torque, it’s not the meat, it’s the motion. Yes, Virginia, it’s possible for a car to be fun to drive even if it can’t flatten you against the seatback off the line. Ah, but does this G8 V6 fit this bill?

Subarus are supposed to be the Birkenstock sandal of the automotive world; simple, robust cars with a certain sense of style that doesn't care about current fads. Alternatively, you could say a Subie used to be what a VW used to be (before Ferdinand Piech started messing with the brand) plus a boxer engine (once a key VW characteristic) and standard all-wheel-drive. In recent years, Subaru's image has become less and less clear. The automaker's desire to escape the granola ghetto first gave us the Tribeca, and then the new Impreza. And now we have a new Forester; an answer the question that in the past didn't have to be asked: what is a Subaru?

The first time GM attempted to create a BMW 3-Series fighter, we got the Cadillac Cimarron. After 27 years of trying again (and again and again) to take on the rear-wheel drive driver's car, we've got a rebadged Australian import that goes by the name Pontiac G8. No question: the G8 is a far better automobile than the Cimarron (what modern car isn't?). But it's still no 3-Series. Frankly, it's not clear what it is.

Back in 2004, Chrysler thought it had a segment-busting winner with the Pacifica. Neither car, minivan, nor SUV, the luxurious large "crossover" was supposed to play a key role in Chrysler's planned move upscale. Buyers lined-up none deep for Chrysler's bloated station wagon. The automaker was forced to de-content, discount and discontinue the disastrous distraction. Stunned by the Pacfica-shaped sales sinkhole, it took Chrysler another five years to field another three-row crossover. The 2009 Dodge Journey is in many ways the anti-Pacifica. Will it be any more successful?

We’ve all heard GM’s party line too many times: “Sure, we’re not doing so well with our current products. But we’ve redesigned the [insert model name]. It’s going to bring new car buyers flooding back to [insert brand name]” Each time, the new product has fallen short. Each time, GM has surrendered market share, especially in the midsize sedan segment it once dominated. Does the latest object of GM’s hype, the redesigned 2008 Chevrolet Malibu, continue this downwards trend?

I remember sitting in a park with my father a quarter-century ago, pointing at a nearby car. “What do you think that is?” “A BMW?” Nope, but his guess was not without reason. The second-generation Accord lifted more than a few design cues from the storied German marque. The 1982 sedan was also notable for its astounding attention to detail, compactness and efficiency. For those “in the know,” the Accord revealed Detroit’s sedans as over-sized, over-powered and indelicate. Now that Honda’s eighth-generation Accord faces a supposedly chastened Detroit, does the new model maintain the mechanical high ground?