Despite spending $264.1 million on measured media in the first 11 months of 2009, up 16.5 percent from the year-ago period [per AdAge monitoring] while sales fell nearly 27 percent, Automotive News [sub] reports that Acura is upping its 2010 ad spend by 50 percent. According to Acura’s advertising boss Steven Center, Acura’s awareness levels have been consistently high, but consumers didn’t perceive it being as prestigious as other luxury brands. By boosting advertising of new products like the ZDX and TSX Sportwagon, Center hopes to close the gap with the premium perceptions of its German competitors. Center explains:
Our messaging for years has been too ill-focused and not about the product. The ads weren’t making the point and the point is: What is it about Acura that makes it better? We want to have the emotion of BMW without the hardware,
You know, instead of being seen as higher-content, uglified Hondas. Yeah, more advertising should help with that.
Yes, they’ve got themselves one heck of a problem down Pentastar way: the boffins have done the math and reckon some 67 percent of Chrysler Group minivan buyers are previous owners. That’s a good thing when it comes to polishing your R.L. Polk Owner Loyalty award, but it’s not exactly helping Chrysler make inroads on volume or market share. Which is where the “Minivan Pledge” comes in. “It’s Time To Drive Detroit Again: The Best Minivans In The Industry Just Got Better,” shouts the headline of Chrysler’s release announcing a 60-day money-back guarantee for buyers who trade in a competitive product towards a 2010 minivan. “‘Minivan Pledge’ gives competitive owners the peace of mind to ‘try us again,’” is the pitch. The only problem: everyone knows it takes at least 90 days for a Chrysler minivan to eat its own transmission.
Sajeev, I have a 2002 Mercedes C320. I replaced the pre-cat O2 sensors at 94k miles as recommended by my service technician. This was in the summer of last year, so roughly a year and a half ago. Since then I have had the CEL twice for O2 heater circuit malfunction on the pre-cat sensor on the driver’s side. The first time I replaced the sensor and that was six weeks ago. Yesterday I start the car up and it’s back (verified at the Advance store with OBDII). Have I received two bad O2 sensors in a row, or could I have something going on with the car that is causing the O2 sensors to have problems?
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s get-toughquotes during the Toyota recall have generated significant backlash against an administration that is already knee-deep in the automotive industry. The governors of Mississippi, Kentucky, Indiana and Alabama (all of which host Toyota plants) laid into the NHTSA and Obama administration in a letter covered by the Detroit News. The governors argue:
Despite the federal government’s obvious conflict of interest because of its huge financial stake in some of Toyota’s competitors … it has spoken out against Toyota, including statements U.S. government officials have later been forced to retract… Toyota must put the safety of drivers first and foremost. However, they deserve a level and reasonable response from the federal government – one that is not tainted by the federal government’s financial interest in some of Toyota’s competitors
Strangely, the governors of Texas and West Virginia, where Toyotas are also assembled declined to sign onto the letter. Still, the attack isn’t being simply written off has home-state selfishness. One bellwether for the issue is the fact that the Detroit News looked past its own hometown interests and ran an editorial by the Cato Institute’s Daniel Ikensen, amplifying the governors’ critique. And sure enough, Obama decided to take the issue on head-on in an interview yesterday. Read More >
Automotive News [sub] reports that Fiat/Chrysler will become the latest in a line of third-rate global automakers to form a joint venture with the Russian firm Sollers, with plans to produce half a million units of nine Fiat and Chrysler models at a new plant in Naberezhnye Chelny. Previously Sollers had formed joint ventures with such notable automakers as Ssangyong and Isuzu. Reuters reports that Russia’s state-owned banks will provide most of the venture’s $2.9b in start-up costs. But Fiat/Chrysler has a tough road ahead of it. An analyst for BrokerCreditService describes Sollers’ challenge thusly:
The main object of this plan is to take some, I think, little market share in Vladivostok and Primorsky Kray Russian region, because over 80 or 90% of cars in this region are used cars of Japanese production.
Chrysler has yet to prove that it can handle that kind of competition in the US market, and it will be interesting to see how new Chrysler models sell against the previous-generation Sebring/Stratus, which is produced in Russia as the GAZ Volga Siber.
The euro-trance exhaust note is what tipped us off. The GT3 R Hybrid is not planned for production, but will serve as a “racing laboratory” in the 24 Hours on the Nordschleife of Nürburgring, reports Green Car Congress. Williams Hybrid Power is reportedly exploring road-car applications of its Formula 1 KERS-derived “fly-brid” system. Technical details after the jump. Read More >
A US District Court judge on Monday in effect told the two largest photo enforcement firms that they need to act more like grown-ups. In November 2008, American Traffic Solutions (ATS) filed suit against its Australian competitor, Redflex Traffic Systems, alleging that the company won Arizona’s statewide photo radar contract by lying in bid proposals regarding the use of radar units not certified by the Federal Communications Commission. US District Court Judge Frederick J. Marton decided in August that the suit had merit and should proceed to trial (view decision), but he showed signs of fatigue when faced with eleven separate motions and other items requiring judicial disposition Monday.
Hyundai and Toyota have done the math, and they know Americans almost always prefer big, crude and comfortable over slick, trim and stylish. In hopes Impala-ing this fat part of the mid-sized sedan market, Toyota and Hyundai have refreshed their Avalon and Azera sedans for 2011, and the results are… well, frankly, we can’t tell.
Is it me or has the new Odyssey Concept, which is supposed to preview the styling of the next-gen model, taken a few too many protein pills? Let’s hope that the production version (arriving this fall) will capture a little more of the original Odyssey’s clean, stripped-down look. Remember, if we’ve learned anything from the Nissan Quest, it’s that minivans can easily be overstyled into irrelevance.
I live near Boston, but on February first, I drove down to Northern Virginia, outside of DC, to my sister’s, to get out of the cold and the snow for the month. Don’t laugh. As I write, the second big snow is in progress, and the driving has been interesting–and fun.
We had a laugh at the Nissan Juke teaser images Nissan trotted out about a month ago, but apparently the Juke isn’t over. For some reason, Nissan has decided to announce that the Versa-based crossover is approved for the American market before the production model is even unveiled at the forthcoming Geneva Auto Show. Nissan accompanies the announcement with a gallery of shots that are labeled “Nissan Juke” but carry the caveat “model shown is European show car.” It’s clearly more production-y than the Qazana concept, which Nissan cites as the inspiration for the Juke, but could Nissan really be building a production model that’s this unforgivably ugly? At least we now know what the offspring of a Pontiac Aztek, a Fiat Multipla and a Nissan Versa would look like… though I’m still not sure why we needed to.
Thirty-two years is a long time. That’s how many years the Panther chassis-based Town Car will have been made when the last on rolls off the line in 2011. And to what can we credit this remarkable longevity? Brilliant engineering; or insightful marketing strategy? How about a big helping of GM’s boneheadedness mixed in with equal dashes of Ford cheapness and stubbornness. Sometimes you just get handed things handed to you on a platter. Although in the case of the Panther TC, it took a couple of years of anxiety before Ford realized what had been given them: the keys to the last traditional American car. Read More >
Toyota’s president Akio Toyoda was already getting ready to “visit the United States over massive recalls of its vehicles,” reported the Nikkei [sub]. Japan’s transport minister Seiji Maehara told U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos that Toyoda would be dispatched to DC. There, he would be ready to “explain the recall problems to the U.S. Congress if asked.” Read More >
Here it is, the last of the species autosaurus giganticus. Never again would beasts of this size roam our freeways and driveways with their EPA stickers (10/12) still freshly removed. It was the end of an era; the giant American land cruiser became extinct when the last 1979 Town Car rolled off the lines. And that last roll took a while: two hundred thirty three and seven-tenths inches of steel, chrome, vinyl and deeply tufted leather. No less than the visionary Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome and the very un-Town Car like Dymaxion Car lamented (and lambasted) the passing of the last big Lincoln. Given that he was all of 5’2″ tall, that seems a bit odd. But really big cars were such a part of the American psyche, that when they were gone, it left a gaping hole. You don’t miss your water ’till the well runs dry. Read More >
Like it or not, extending the concept of luxury into ever smaller classes of cars is the next big challenge for high-end auto brands. According to the latest print edition of Auto Motor und Sport, BMW is already working on their own subcompact FWD three-cylinder hatchback based on the next-generation MINI platform. Though none of these new micro-luxe vehicles are aimed at, let alone approved for the US market, it seems that a strict traditionalist perspective on luxury brand purity is going to be a lot more difficult to maintain as emissions standards continue to rise.
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