Honda Civic entered the Best New Cars 2012 List

According to About.com Version 2012 Honda Civic has been named as one of the About.com Cars Best New Cars of 2012.Apa are the advantages of this hybrid car, economical, fun and meet a variety of consumer desire

What kind of award given to this car, About.com s called Civic 2012 is the most comprehensive compact car, sedan or coupe combined, fuel efficiency, high performance, leather, hybrid.

Award from About.com add to the list of awards that arise include the Honda Civic 2012: Green Car of the Year (Civic Natural Gas), capturing Best Resale Value for a Compact Car by Kelley Blue Books kbb.com, and 2011 IIHS Top Safety Pick.

About.com is one of the largest content providers of the content on the web, with more than 60 million unique visitors per month in the United States.

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VIDEO Consumer Reports Re Tests Blesses Lexus GX 460

Alright, "blessing" is too strong a term. "Lifting the curse" is probably a better way to put it. After all, a month of being labelled a "Dont Buy" by Consumer Reports is the nearest thing to a kiss of death the automobile industry knows.  But its all better now, right?

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2011 Ford Fusion Review

These have to be sweet days for Ford. Not only did they spare themselves the bankruptcies GM and Chrysler went through (by mortgaging the famous Blue Oval logo), theyre making and selling cars.

That probably sounds like a no-brainer...I mean, Fords a car company, right? But the fact is that Ford and the other domestics spent most of the last two decades selling trucks and SUVs. Sure, they made cars, but they werent the companys prime focus (way more profit in the trucks and SUVs) and consumers had long since put Toyota and Honda on the top of their family sedan shopping lists.

Well, thats all changing...and three weeks (yep, an extended test) in a Ford Fusion SE (courtesy Bell Ford in Phoenix, Arizona) goes a long way toward explaining why.

Weve said it before, well say it again: Want to know how good a car is? Get as close to the base model as possible. In this case, the tester was one level up...the four-cylinder SE. A base price of $22,830 buys a six-speed automatic transmission, 8-way power drivers seat, an AM/FM/SiriusXM Satellite Radio with CD, mp3 capability and six speakers, automatic headlamps, foglamps, floormats and 17" alloy wheels.

Loaded?  No. Nicely equipped? Absolutely.  Cloth seats breathe nicely in the summertime, so the lack of leather was actually a plus. And the interior design...the placement of all the controls...is so intuitive, so logical, that the Fusion went from a pleasant ride in its first few days to being an extension of the driver as the days and weeks went on.

As an automotive journalist used to a week at a time, multiplying the test window could expose serious flaws or at least niggling shortcomings, but not with the Fusion. It held up. I could see living with this car for the length of a 5-year car loan. Especially when you consider that the bottom line of this one is right at about $23,500 with delivery charges.

EPA estimates: 23 city/33 highway. Camry and Accord are still strong choices, but they can no longer take for granted that its all theirs.

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Bribery Charges Filed Against Daimler AG

 

The United States Justice Department has filed charges against Daimler AG, maker of Mercedes-Benz automobiles, alleging a "long-standing practice of paying bribes to foreign officials."

The feds say at least 22 countries were involved over a ten-year span and hundreds of payments to foreign officials worth tens of millions of dollars.

Full story from Reuters at Automotive News.

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2011 Chevrolet Cruze LTZ Review

Its been 35 years since the famous "Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet" ad campaign. But the basic principle is evident in the new Chevrolet Cruze.

If youve heard or read that the Cruze is a quantum leap beyond the car it replaces, the Cobalt, youve heard or read right. This is a thoroughly modern, no-apologies small sedan...ready for battle in an intensely competitive segment.

Whats fascinating is how, in the same year, both Chevy and Ford get serious about building very good small cars, and yet, come up with very different solutions. The new Focus is Ford acknowledging that theyve been building the good stuff for Europe all these years and finally letting us get some...its essentially a German sedan.

The Cruze is, in its own way, every bit as good as the Focus...but its all-American. More like a smaller, tigther, more responsive Malibu (click the link to see that were not damning with faint praise...we like the Malibu a lot).

The Cruze we had for a week was the top of the line LTZ model, loaded at a base price of $21,975 (the Focus Titanium sedan starts at $22,270, so theyre competitive) with a 1.4 liter turbo four-cylinder, six speed automatic transmission, sport tuned suspension, a full complement of airbags, Stabilitrak stability and traction control, four-wheel anti-lock disc brakes, power door locks, theft alarm, remote keyless entry, rear parking assist, six months of OnStar, and tire pressure monitoring.  There are also power adjustable heated outside mirrors, variable wipers, a rear defogger (not a given in small sedans) and 18 inch alloy wheels.

Inside, theres an AM/FM/CD 6 speaker audio system with Bluetooth, steering wheel controls, USB interface and auxilary jack, floor mats, a drivers 6-way power seat (8-way manual for the front passenger), acoustic insulation, automatic climate control, leather appointed seats and steering wheel, a driver information center, tilt and telescoping steering column, power windows, cruise control, and heated seats up front.

The Chevy PR folks loaded ours up further with a power sunroof ($850), a Pioneer premium audio system ($445), crystal red metallic tintcoat pain ($325) and a compact spare tire ($100). Add $720 for delivery and the bottom line comes to $24,415.

Thats about $1300 more than the Focus we tested, and it was a five-door, which starts about $900 higher than the sedan. The Focus is more of a drivers car, manages better fuel economy despite a bigger engine (28 city/38 highway from a 2.0 liter to the Cruzes 24/36 from the 1.4 liter turbo), and seems a lot more like a drivers car...that European influence, no doubt.

So...a slam-dunk for the Focus? Not necessarily. On a lot of levels, the Cruze was more comfortable and easy to live with...and theres a huge segment of the intended audience that is not about performance...theyre looking (especially at prices nudging $25K) for comfort and convenience theyre used to from larger cars with small-car fuel economy.  Its really a matter of taste. And if it were me and my money Id be wrestling with the decision a long time.





 

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Nissan Recalls Armada Titan Quest Frontier Pathfinder Xterra

Brake pedal pins and faulty gas gauges. Details from Automotive News (free registration required) here.

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Hyundai will release a new car for 3500 dollars

Hyundai Motor Co is about to start production of new low-cost car in India, according to "Reuters". The machine cost approximately in 3500 dollars will be competing with supercheap Tata Nano, whose sales should begin later this year. The emergence of new models planned for the year 2011-2012. Representatives of the Indian branch of Hyundai said that they have no immediate plans to defeat the Nano. The company wants to create a car smaller than that produced now Hyundai Santro. The main buyers of the new model must be residents of India and China, with the prospect of other markets. Development of the car will be in factories Hyundai in Korea, as well as in the Indian cities of Hyderabad and Chennai. Hyundai is the second largest automaker in India after the group Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. In addition to selling vehicles in the domestic market, the Korean company exported from India, more than 100,000 vehicles in 2007. This year, Hyundai plans to increase exports by half.

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Airbags In Your Checked Airline Luggage No Its Not Okay

As anyone whos blown an airbag knows, replacing them is expensive. Apparently more so in Europe, because, according to the TSA Blog from the folks at the Transportation Security Administration, a  lot of Europeans are flying over here, buying the new bag, putting it in their checked luggage and flying home.

Trouble is that airbag actuators are on the list of hazardous materials prohibited from transport aboard passenger aircraft.

How come? Well, the same reason that Honda has recalled 800,000 of their cars and that now-retired Car and Driver Editor-at-Large Patrick Bedard pointed out that the airbag is the first safety device to carry a warning label that you could die using it properly.

Namely...its an explosive that blows the bag (similar to a solid rocket booster, the TSA Blog tells us). 

Not safe in the cargo hold of an airliner...any sensible person can see that. But inches away from your face and chest? Theres another agency of the government that has made that mandatory for the past 18 years.

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2011 Lincoln Town Car Review

The 2011 Lincoln Town Car. The end of the line, the end of an era.

The end of the year clearance sales are on. 2011s are leaving the lot to make room for the 2012s.

Except for the Lincoln Town Car. When the last one is gone, thats it. There will be no more. Its been years since Ford bothered to put one in the press fleet in TireKickers hometown, so we arranged with Fiesta Lincoln in Mesa, Arizona to drive one for a week.

The last Lincoln Town Car is a big deal because its not just the end of a body style or a nameplate, but of a type of automobile. The Town Car is what American sedans were from World War II onward...big, comfortable, rear-wheel-drive, V8-powered machines that sat six adults in great comfort.

The 2011 Lincoln Town Car interior. You may have had smaller apartments.

See that armrest in the picture above? Fold it up, and youll find a seat belt. Theres no center console. The gear selector is sticking out of the steering column. 3 in the front, 3 in the back...and even given contemporary American bodily dimensions (within reason), nobodys crowded. Theres 21 cubic feet of space in the trunk for all your things.

Its more comfortable than a large SUV, certainly has a better ride and arguably better handling, and it definitely gets better mileage (the EPA says 16 city/24 highway, and we saw 22.5 on a long stretch of urban freeway, with our weeklong city street/freeway mix never dropping below 19).

Our tester? Basic as it comes. The Signature model. $47,225. 4.6 liter single overhead cam flexible fuel V8, automatic transmission, halogen headlamps, heated power windows with memory, heated 8-way power front seats with lumbar, leather seating surfaces, leather and wood steering wheel with audio, cruise and climate controls, a dual-zone climate system, an AM/FM/6-CD changer premium audio system,  power adjustable pedals, rear park assist, four-wheel disc brakes with ABS, traction contol and a security alarm. All that packaged with a 4 year/50,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty, a 6 year/70,000 mile powertrain warranty and 24 hour roadside assistance.

Complete enough that ours had only one option...whitewall tires ($125). Yes, whitewall tires. You can still get them. And, apparently, reasonably.

All told, with $945 for destination and delivery charges, the Town Car rang in at $48,295. And you know what? We loved it. Its the ultimate road trip car (I rented dozens, if not hundreds over the years as a traveling TV news reporter), and its perfectly fine in city traffic as well. There is, in fact, nothing wrong with it that couldnt be fixed with some cosmetic and convenience updates, and driving the Town Car, I kept coming up with arguments why it should be saved.

But the Town Car got stuck with the label of "old peoples car", and in an acutely image-conscious society thus was doomed to declining sales as its owner base aged, gave up drivers licenses and, well, began dying off. Demand stayed strong in the limousine and executive sedan market, where the combined virtues of room, relative economy and near-bulletproof reliability (300,000 to 400,000 miles is not uncommon for a Town Car) are highly prized.

The 2011 Lincoln Town Car. Off into the sunset.

Why dont civilian drivers who buy large (in some cases, huge) vehicles prize those qualities, too? Room for 6, more than respectable gas mileage, decent cargo space, epic safety ratings and legendary durability and reliability with a starting price under $50,000 would probably be a big draw...on paper..for a lot of buyers in their 40s and 50s.

Until you say the words "Lincoln Town Car".

So we walk away from something that works in favor of more stylish things that dont quite work as well. Our fault and our loss for that. There are a lot of people for whom a Lincoln Town Car would be just about perfect. If you have an open mind, Cars.com says there are 746 new Town Cars on dealer lots in the USA as I type this. Thats 28 fewer than there were when I began writing this review a little less than an hour ago. 26.64 more hours like that and theyre all gone.

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Painting a car with his hands

Mazda - car, loving care and comfortable service. This directly applies to the painting. And who, if not favorite car owner will be able to do it at the highest level? Of course, do not forget about the general rules and some schemes, preferably during the painting of the car at home to avoid further confusion and make beautiful mazda into a monster. First: Before you start any action on the painting, you need to wash the car, and once again to clarify - it really necessary to paint or you can leave everything as is. Washing, of course, is their own hands and simultaneously check pillar, bottom and other details on the need for repair. If any item requires intervention or change, then the painting should be postponed. Second. Necessary to prepare the body. Using screwdrivers, pliers and other essential tools necessary to untwist and remove all the body parts (locks, gaskets, moldings and other) that should not be painted. After this time-consuming occupation's turn to clean the body from corrosion. If, however, found a hole from rust - then there will only welding. Next, the third stage - a primer. It is a corrosion-resistant coating and is divided into three stages. The first phase - phosphate metal. The second stage - the primer used for alignment, thereby smoothing the microscopic defects and the surface prepared for varnishing. The third stage - gives presentation covering. Now the surface is ready to spray enamel. And thus - the fourth step of directly applying the enamel. Should pay attention to the options for paints: - simple, single layer - double layer - Metallic and pearl, which will look at this sleek and modern cars, such as mazda, very succinctly. For painting at home is better to use acrylic based paint, since it does not require high temperatures during drying. And this is important because, for quality painting requires three layers of paint that should not be dry for a long time. And last, the fifth stage - finishing. After the surface has dried, it needs polishing. After polishing acrylic lacquer is applied and the surface is dried again. Following this, at first glance is not complicated, but actually quite tedious and requires more time steps, you can upgrade mazda and a positive result for a long time to be proud of the results of their labor, because manual work is always a special price.

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Toyota Feds To Investigate New York Runaway Prius Claim Today

Toyota, fresh from tests that contradict the story of a "runaway Prius" driver in San Diego County, California, is in Harrison, New York today to inspect a Prius that, according to a 56 year old woman, sped up and rammed into a stone wall.

The company and federal investigators will be going over that car using the same methods as they did in San Diego...with a critical eye on how many times the driver hit the brakes and the accelerator.

Full story from the Associated Press here.

Prius owners are talking about it on the Prius Chat forums.

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