Compared to the original BMC Mini from back in the Sixties, the modern Mini launched at the dawn of the 21st century was a portly affair, expanded in all directions to accommodate modern people with modern lives. And, compared to that first “new” Mini, the most recent generation of the three-door hatch looks positively ginormous. Somewhere along the way, Mini became not all that small.
Mini wants to correct the bloat, but only to a degree. Read More >
Not many of you will, of course, and not just because the Lincoln Continental Coach Door Edition now sells for more than $115,000. There’s too few of them, you see.
Last year’s surprise run of coachbuilt, suicide-doored Continentals sold out in 48 hours and totalled just 80 vehicles. For 2020, the fabulously expensive long-wheelbase Conti stages what might be its last appearance, offering a greater likelihood of scoring a buy. Read More >
Tax credits are a great way to stimulate purchases or participation, and in the politician’s mind, they often take precedence over affordability measures that would benefit broader swathes of society. That being said, they’re here to say… unless you’re referring to the slowly vanishing federal EV tax credit.
Automakers like Tesla and General Motors are already watching their $7,500 credits halve, then halve again, after surpassing the 200,000-vehicle threshold that starts the countdown to a credit phase-out. Now, the Treasury Department is claiming some recipients of the eco stimulus shouldn’t have received it in the first place. Read More >
Infiniti’s sales took a tumble in September, dropping 44 percent (43.9 percent, to be exact) compared to September 2018.
Last year, Nissan’s luxury brand sold 12,536 units in September, while just 7,031 units left dealer lots this time around. The brand is also down 16.5 percent over the first nine months of the year.
Bigger picture, the industry has been hit by six months of sales declines in 2019, and all large automakers, Asian or American, were facing large drops (double digits, in many cases) in September. The good news for the industry is that the seasonally adjusted annual sales rate (SAAR) checked in around 17.16 million units across all brands – a healthy number despite the sales declines.
Ford Motor Company may have sidelined thousands of 2020 Ford Explorers and Lincoln Aviators due to hazy manufacturing issues, but it seems many vehicles slipped through the quality dragnet and into the hands of consumers.
You saw a eyebrow-raising walkaround of a dealer-fresh Aviator here the other week. Owners, however, get to slip behind the wheel and, in some cases, experience a bewildering array of symptoms. Read More >
The paranoid luddites that write for this site have occasionally been accused of being hyper critical of modern-day driving aids. Be it a cursory mention of how a little snow totally flummoxed the systems of an otherwise agreeable review car, the direct addressing of an issue where road salt encouraged a vehicle to attempt to steer itself into a ditch, or one of this author’s many diatribes on how the bulk of this technology doesn’t seem anywhere near market ready, there’s always a couple of exceptional individuals ready to call us backward-looking morons.
While that’s often a correct assessment in other matters, it seems we’ve called this one correctly. The American Automobile Association (AAA) recently tested four sedans from competing manufacturers, running them through a handful of scenarios intended to replicate situations that place pedestrians at extreme risk. Taking into account the above smugness, you can probably imagine how poorly it went. Read More >
Lincoln’s MKC was a solid effort for the brand’s first foray into the compact premium crossover market, but certain gripes stood out. For this not-broad-of-beam writer, the relatively narrow front chairs didn’t usher in that sense of coddling a buyer demands of a high-end vehicle. In base spec, the 2.0-liter Ecoboost four-cylinder felt slightly labored, and that push-button transmission, with the selector keys mounted high on the center stack, isn’t something a driver grows used to in a hurry.
It looked above-par for its class, however. Kudos to Lincoln’s designers.
For 2020, the MKC nameplate mercifully bites the dust, replaced by an all-new vehicle with an honest-to-goodness name and an extra helping of style. Read More >
The badge you don’t see in the photo is the no-longer-Ram-associated Dodge badge, the one we’ll be discussing today. In a post the other day, yours truly waxed on and on, probably to your great annoyance, about the brand’s attempt to stimulate interest in its future via its past. What name would you like to see return, the brand’s Twitter account asked.
Some readers considered the tweet a possible sign of a returning Viper — the low-volume supercar that bowed out Dodge’s lineup not all that long ago. A month before his death, former Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne poured cold water over the idea, claiming the Viper could only stage a profitable return if it shared a platform with something from FCA’s European collection, and in doing so wouldn’t be able to handle a giant, honking, torque-laden American engine necessary for a Viper to be a real Viper.
Maybe it’s still a good idea to some, though others might feel a Ford GT-like one-off model punted to a Canadian specialty manufacturer and offered at a stratospheric sticker price is a better way to go. Read More >
TTAC regular Ronnie Schreiber writes:
Sajeev,
Tonight, while driving on the interstate, the tire pressure warning light came on in my ’15 Honda Fit, then the ESC light came on, then the power steering warning light came on, and then the info display said to check the charging system. Everything seemed to be working just fine, though. I pulled off to check the serpentine belt, which was intact so I started searching on the internet for the symptoms.
According to the forums, it’s sort of a known problem that’s due to glitches in the electrical system causing erroneous fault codes. Dealers usually try replacing the alternator, which doesn’t help. The alternator harness, the ABS sensors, and the injectors/coil packs have all been mentioned in the forums as fixing the problem.
I’ll check all the connections in the morning, but in the meantime I’m leaning towards a faulty ABS sensor, since those are used for the TPMS in my car, not an actual pressure transducer, and the first light that goes on is for tire pressure. Also, the check charging system warning was intermittent.
What do you think? Read More >
The hunt for Nissan’s next chairman has been narrowed to three potential candidates. Their final challenge will be impressing Renault chairman Jean-Dominique Senard. According to reports, Senard spent the better part of Tuesday interviewing Renault-Nissan veterans — via teleconference or face-to-face meetings in Paris.
Considering the laundry list of problems Nissan currently faces, it’s difficult to imagine why anybody would want the job. Maybe it’s the sizable paychecks or perhaps an eagerness to turn things around at the automaker. Either way, whoever Nissan ends up with will have at least as much as they can handle.
Let’s take a look at the candidates. Read More >
Sentries stand on guard for our safety, keeping watch over sleeping or unprotected persons, and Tesla’s “Sentry Mode” system pretty much does the same. While two-legged assailants can’t slip a Fairbairn-Sykes dagger between the digital guardian’s ribs to disable the feature, the external camera security system can, in return, set that assailant up for a date with the police.
That’s what happened when one Tesla went up against an angry Coloradoan. Read More >
Tesla’s Model 3 became the best-selling car in the Netherlands last month, edging out the Volkswagen Polo. If you’re wondering how an electric automobile that goes for the domestic equivalent of $47,300 in Europe outsold VW’s $18,650 hatchback, take a look at the United States. Ford’s F-Series is always at the top of the charts here and, while it can be had for under $30,000, most have sticker prices nearly identical to the aforementioned Model 3.
Tesla also has the advantage of the Netherlands’ eagerness to adopt EVs, which has resulted in some heavy incentivizing. Honestly, if this author could bring himself to be surrounded by the Dutch on a daily basis, he’d be tempted by the parking perks alone. Read More >
Never have pickup trucks mattered more to an automaker, especially domestic automakers. As sedans and coupes fall off, trucks make up an ever greater percentage of a company’s sales, and the greater (and quickly rising) average selling prices of these hulking family vehicles means there’s a pot of gold waiting for those who succeed.
While the full-size pickup front-runner hasn’t changed since the early 1980s, Ford’s F-Series faces growing competition from two traditional foes. Both Fiat Chrysler and General Motors have newer pickups on the market, and it’s eating into the popularity of the untouchable F-Series. Read More >
“Jesus!”
The poor server at the Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Convertible launch had just dumped an entire tray of backwash onto her chest, thanks to the raucous, deafening, unholy rumble of the C8.R Corvette that had been started and revved up nearly fifty feet away from her. I stifled my laugh and reassured her from my nearby hi-top table.
“Don’t worry,” I said to her as she stood there shaking with a combination of laughter and disgust. “I don’t think anybody else saw that.”
If you want to read all about how great the new Corvette Stingray Convertible is, I encourage you to go to your web browser and read any one of the literally hundreds of stories that were posted the instant the embargo dropped last night. There, you will be able to read all about the nearly 500 horsepower and the 3-second zero-to-60 times and the 16-second-folding-hardtop and the $67,499 price tag, plus you’ll be able to see some very flattering photos of an orange Vette that have been photoshopped within a pixel of their lives. I was doing “Triometrics” at the hotel while everybody else was breathlessly regurgitating the stats, so I apologize that you’re only getting this vital information this morning instead of last night.
But, if you want to read about how the Corvette Stingray Convertible is the ugliest, most Playskool looking car I’ve ever seen in person, plus some stuff about how the C8.R shows us how terribly executed the coupe/convertible is, stick around and click the jump.
With the Audi RS 6 Avant confirmed for America and the manufacturer teasing wagons via social media throughout the summer, we figured Germany would soon send another wagen our way. And while nothing has been confirmed through official channels, Audi executives are already saying it’s to be the A6 Allroad.
Rumors stated that the model would make its way to the United States ever since the updated A6 premiered at the New York Auto Show in the spring. Audi managed to encourage these rumors without issuing any confirmation — at least until Oliver Hoffmann, managing director of Audi Sport, chimed in earlier this week. Read More >
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