Leasehackr has a screaming deal on a 2016 Chevrolet Cruze Limited (the old body style) 1LT Automatic if:

1) You can sell it for more than $13,000 after two years;
2) You’re were a Costco Auto member before Sept. 30;
3) You can get $1,800 off of MSRP, or thereabouts;
4) Max incentives;
5) You’re a current lessee of another automaker;
6) You don’t mind driving a Chevrolet Cruze Limited 1LT Automatic for two years.

If you ticked every one of those boxes, congratulations! You can lease a 2016 Chevrolet Cruze for $40 or less*** per month for 24 months.

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A Chicago Tribune investigation has uncovered that the city’s speed cameras have nabbed school bus drivers, police, public employees and city bus drivers more than 8,000 times over the past two years.

In most cases the tickets were passed on to the drivers, but in some cases — bus drivers and police driving unmarked cars who could justify speeding — those fines were either paid by the Chicago Transit Authority or waived altogether.

The Chicago Tribune’s fine, fine, fine reporting work uncovered 714 bus violations and more than 2,000 police tickets in two years. Read More >

Volkswagen in Canada rolled out the same “goodwill” package for Canadian customers that they did for U.S. customers last month, according to Green Car Reports (via Autoblog).

Diesel buyers north of the border — up to 100,000 of them — will get the same $500 Visa gift card, $500 dealer gift card and three years of roadside assistance that U.S. owners received in November.

Volkswagen diesel owners can register their cars via Volkswagen Canada’s diesel emissions site.

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Where do you end up if you’re the former CEO of a company guilty of cheating diesel emissions tests, the fallout of which wipes out billions of dollars of value from said company? Business Insider’s “The 15 biggest career crashes of 2015” list, of course.

That, and Nissan prices the new Sentra, oil is still on a well-lubricated downhill slide, Jeep is now online in India, and more … after the break!

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Stop us if you’ve heard this one before:

Billionaire investor, activist and horse racing enthusiast Carl Icahn bid to buy Pep Boys on Tuesday for just over $1 billion, outpricing Japanese tire giant Bridgestone for the franchise, Bloomberg reported (via Automotive News).

Bridgestone’s refusal to tender a competing offer after its final bid of $947 million for the 800 Pep Boys stores seemingly means that Icahn is the winner — although we’ve been here before.

Icahn offered up to $18.50 per share of the company, of which he already owns 12 percent, which is slightly higher than the company’s stock during trading Wednesday.

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Fifteen leaders of environmental and health groups signed off on a letter sent to environmental regulators Dec. 18 asking officials to fully punish Volkswagen in response to Tesla CEO Elon Musk and others asking authorities to push for electric vehicles instead.

The letter, which was signed by the policy director for the Coalition for Clean Air and the director of the Sierra Club California, among others, calls for “vigorous enforcement of both criminal and civil laws” to deter actions like Volkswagen’s cheating of diesel emissions tests.

The California Air Resources Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revealed in September that Volkswagen admitted to fitting nearly 500,000 cars in the U.S. with an illegal “defeat device” designed to cheat emissions tests. In November, the agencies said an additional 85,000 cars with 3-liter diesel engines were cheating too. Read More >

Panther Love will never die.

Plenty of TTAC writers and readers have shared their affection for the big Ford sedans and wagons. I have but one brief tale of Panther Love of my own — that of unrequited lust.

For many years, my dad was a traveling salesman. Company cars were the big perk, and dad went through a few A-bodies before landing a Crown Victoria, painted the same shade of dark grey as the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s cruisers. This came in handy throughout the Great Lakes region he covered. Unfortunately, his time with the big Vic ended before I turned 16, to be replaced by a second-generation Taurus wagon in which I took my drivers’ test.

I’ve yet to drive a Panther.

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Infiniti finally got our letter that the Q30 and the QX30 looked so much alike that we thought they were the same car.

From here and forevermore they’ll both be known as the QX30, according to the automaker.

Accordingly, the QX30 comes in three flavors: QX30 (nee Q30, or Sedan Spice), QX30 AWD (nee QX30, or Crossover Spice) and a sporty edition QX30S (nee Sporty Spice).  Read More >

After delaying its Chevrolet Colorado/GMC Canyon diesel trucks for a “final validation” issue, General Motors said Tuesday that the trucks would be on their way to dealers.

“The highly anticipated 2016 GMC Canyon diesel has begun shipping to dealers. We look forward to getting these trucks in the hands of our customers and appreciate their patience,” GMC spokeswoman Kelly Wysocki said in a statement.

Earlier this month we reported that people who ordered the truck — in some cases as far back as August — said GM was delaying delivery. A GM spokesman said the trucks were delayed due to a “final validation” issue. GM didn’t specify what the “final validation” issue was with the trucks, nor did they say why they were delayed. Read More >

The New York Times reported that federal regulators have received about 150 complaints over four years about power steering failures in the 2012 model year Ford Focus, including 124 crashes with injuries, with no recourse. One crash reportedly killed an 89-year-old New Jersey woman, although federal investigators concluded, “a steering failure is most likely not implicated,” according to the New York Times.

Despite the widespread reports by owners and the manufacturer, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration hasn’t asked Ford to recall the car. Ford has issued two service bulletins to dealers to inform consumers that the electric-assisted steering could lose power on startup and “wander” at highway speeds.

Safety authorities told the New York Times that its investigations revealed that in most of the crashes the fault was with the steering wheel and not necessarily the power steering.

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A California man sued General Motors this month for revising its tow ratings for his 2014 GMC Sierra 1500 5.3-liter V-8, which meant he couldn’t tow his toy-hauler and golf cart, according to court records.

The complaint, which was filed Dec. 11 in Central California’s district court, said General Motors intentionally misrepresented its claims for Richard Quintero’s truck, which he purchased in July 2013 for nearly $47,000.

According to Quintero’s attorneys, the man opted to buy the 2014 truck because its advertised tow rating of 8,800 pounds was significantly higher than the 2013 model’s 6,900 pounds. GM lowered the 2014 trucks’ ratings to 6,800 pounds in a letter to owners, which was less than Quintero’s 1,000-pound golf cart and 6,700-pound trailer. Read More >

The Wall Street Journal reported that Jeep’s remarkable sales pace may be fueled in part by a significant increase in fleet sales through the first 10 months of this year.

According to the newspaper, which cited R.L. Polk’s sales figures, Jeep through October increased its deliveries to rental companies by 57 percent compared to the same period last year.

Through October, 11.2 percent of Jeep’s overall sales were to fleet buyers, according to the report. A Jeep spokesman told the Wall Street Journal that the fleet increase was due to Cherokee deliveries to rental companies that weren’t reported until this year.

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A picture is worth a thousand words, or millions of dollars worth of cars not built by the United Auto Workers.

That, and Buick is planning a surprise for Detroit, oil prices are ever-so-slightly up, a super mullet El Camino, and Manny, Moe and Jack … after the break!

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Milan has banned cars in the city limits for six hours each day for the next three days, and Rome has limited car access via odd/even restrictions, all to reduce smog in those cities. This might sound familiar, as Paris did the same thing for a day this past summer as an experiment, and Beijing and Delhi have been banning cars this month too.

Cars aren’t the only scapegoat, however. According to the BBC, a town has banned wood-fired pizza ovens that aren’t equipped with a particulate filter.

(I’m waiting for the bombshell: Papa John’s gets hit by massive fine after emissions defeat device is discovered on a pizza oven.)

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Hat tip to my good friend Sam Strano, he of the approximately 400 SCCA Solo and ProSolo National Championships, who forwarded me a letter (click through the break). General Motors sent Sam, a 2007 Corvette Z06 owner, extremely specific instructions about what to do if he were ever to find himself stuck in his Corvette due to low battery voltage, complete with pictures and diagrams.

You might think that even Corvette owners would be able to figure out how to get out of their cars, especially the ones with removable roofs. But you’d be wrong.
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