Car News Articles

Depends where you are. And indeed who you are.

The Seat Ibiza, for example, has been voted “Most Wanted Vehicle of 2009″.

This particular poll was conducted in Macedonia, among viewers of the Auto Magazine television program, and one suspects there were no UN observers involved.

But there are enough such polls around the world to ensure that every child wins a prize.

Hyundai has garnered enough awards in India to fill several long press releases.

However, waving a few trophies of dubious origin doesn’t make you the Rolls-Royce of anything.

It’s to do with having your brand automatically used as a byword for quality and on that front, nobody out-Rolls-Royces Rolls-Royce.

A quick net search of current world media found lazy journalists using such terms as “the Rolls-Royce of choirs”, “of drainage systems”, “of anti-malaria pills”, “of tools for artificial nails” and “of wig purifiers” (the Rolls-Royce of wig purifiers is the Ozone Clean, if you must know).

There was even a mention of “the Rolls-Royce of political machines” in The Daily Telegraph, though that referred to the UK Independence Party and was prefaced with a “not”.

The risk of a letter from R-R lawyers means companies are circumspect about applying such cross-branded praise to themselves, though they often come close. Lambda, for example, refers to itself as having been “hailed as the Rolls-Royce of olive oils”.

In other words, they aren’t saying it, they are merely reporting that someone else did.

There are companies that have simply adapted the name, such as the Royce Rolls Ringer Company, a US concern that makes stainless-steel restroom and mopping equipment that is, I’m sure, the Royce Rolls of stainless-steel restroom and mopping equipment.

But is the popular perception of the Roller’s perfection backed by any hard evidence? In March, the influential Kelley Blue Book survey of US consumers declared BMW the “coolest car brand” but Mercedes-Benz the “best prestige brand”. The Luxury Institute looked at perceptions of “high net-worth” Europeans and declared the running order was Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, then Jaguar.

JDPower’s US Quality Study is a confusing screen-full of gold dots. But it gives the maximum of five to only one company: Porsche.

Four dots have been given to Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Infiniti and Mercury. Sorry, I’ll write that last one again: Mercury! Strangely, JDPower doesn’t even rank Rolls-Royce. But when have you ever heard about the Infiniti of choirs or the Mercury of drainage systems? And when someone uses a Porsche analogy, it’s usually to suggest something is outrageously over-priced and favoured by wankers.

Mercedes-Benz often crops up as a metaphor for quality, of course, but never its sister brand, the supposed Rolls-Royce competitor known as the Maybach. Nobody wants the Maybach of anything, not even cars.

Cadillac comparisons are hugely popular in the US but even that is starting to change.

In the rather wonderful US series The Wire, a young, slight and creepy hit-woman named Snoop visits a hardware store. Snoop needs a nail gun for nefarious purposes, which happen to be her favourite purposes. Shopping with a substantial drug-related income, she’s not price-sensitive. The salesman sees an opportunity and sells her what he calls “the Cadillac of nail guns”.

But, when Snoop later repeats the virtues of the unit to her partner in crime, she says: “He mean Lexus but he ain’t know it.”

It’s an explanation that probably sums up General Motors’ problem as succinctly as any yet voiced. For generations, successful US career criminals would have been proud to own “the Cadillac of nail guns”. And they would rarely been seen driving anything but a Cadillac car.

Not just them. There were people around the world and all walks of life who aspired to a Caddie because they believed it was the apex, the top of the tree. In short, they considered it the Rolls-Royce of cars.

What do you consider to be the Rolls-Royce of cars and why?

Tony Davis

Michael Schumacher has tried to pass himself off as The Stig in a Brtiish episode of Top Gear.

In the latest of a series of stunts designed to cover the fact that another Stig – race and stunt driver Ben Collins — has blown his cover, Jeremy Clarkson introduced the Stig and had him remove his helmet, revealing the former F1 champ underneath.

However those who have seen the footage of the show says the Shumacher Stig drove erratically, stalled the Reasonably Priced Car, and nearly crashed into the camera crew.

Earlier this year, Collins was outed as the current Stig, after ordering a print run of posters showing the mysterious ‘tame test driver’.

His stint as The Stig follows that of former F1 driver Perry McCarthy – the black Stig – who outed himself and then supposedly disappeared into the ocean after a stunt drive off an aircraft carrier .

A video on Youtube earlier this year showing a Black Stig reappearing from the sea off Britain suggested that the black firesuit may return.

It seems likely that the Shumacher ‘outing’ is a typical Top Gear stunt — highly unlikely to be true – concocted by the show’s producers and probably seen by Shumacher as a fun way to fill in an idle hour.

Check out Schuey driving not so well in Top Gear’s Suzuki Liana.

Joe from Boston writes:

Here’s what happened to my 2003 Murano with 145k on the clock: the “service engine” light came on. So I took the car to dealer. They said the oil was low, and they put car on computer and said it needs a new engine, for a mere $7,000. I thought they were joking: they claim the computer says the engine is failing internally and there is nothing they can do about it. I had the oil changed and by my calculations, the car is consuming about a quart of oil every 1,400 miles.

This is shocking: at idle, the car runs as quiet as a church mouse and at highway speeds, it seems to run fine. There is no knocking in the engine, no oil leaking on my garage floor. This indicates the oil is being consumed inside the engine: there is no smoke coming out of the exhaust. Thus far, I have just been checking the oil every 500 miles and adding it as I go along.

The question is: keep the car and add oil, or trade it now? My overall feeling is that this is poor quality, I have a Dodge truck engine with over 200,000 miles and it does not burn one drop of oil.

Sajeev answers:

Oh no, not again!

Since my obligation is to our readers, sell this heap to a faceless corporation, not an unsuspecting buyer on Craigslist. Until TTAC gets word of a redesigned part/recall from the Nissan Mothership, put these 3.5L Nissans on your Shit List. TTAC commentator ponchoman49 said it well:

“I know a 2005 Nissan Quest owner with the same 3.5 engine with the same issue. The oil changes were done around 4-5K intervals, the van now has 81K miles and the engine uses a quart of oil every thousand miles or so, which is excessive. The engine was diagnosed as have scored cylinder walls due to catalytic converter failure and would soon need a rebuild.”

But it might not be a V6 only problem, Shane Rimmer noted that the four-banger versions are prone to killing engines:

“Nissan has had a few issues with pre-cats going bad. This has mostly plagued the 2.5L 4 cylinder, but it is not unheard of on the 3.5L engines. When it happens, catalytic material gets sucked back into the cylinders where it scores the cylinder walls.”

If you are lucky, the problem stops at the piston’s oil control rings, and the compression rings remain intact: which is why this Murano burns oil like mad but still runs fine. This is a design flaw that goes back to the location (and size?) of the small catalytic converters that mount close to the engine.  While these “pup” or “pre” cats do a great job lowering emissions on a cold motor, Nissan obviously screwed the pooch. More importantly, they are NOT alone.

Bonus!  A Piston Slap Nugget of Wisdom:

I have more than a tangential connection to this problem. Channeling my inner Michael Karesh, I recently inherited a 2002 Mercury Cougar (Duratec V6, 70k miles) with this problem. The Coog was a friend’s car, until we heard a pop under light throttle and it started running on five cylinders. After that, it was mine.

I found the solution to these engine-killing Pup Cats: exhaust headers. The aftermarket makes headers for the Ford Contour (yes, really) that delete pup cats. So I will bring the Cougar back to life, with an extra 60 ponies from a Taurus engine swap to boot. (That bit of hot-rodding is certainly besides the point, but why not have some fun at the same time?)

Sorry Murano fans, a quick Google search says that Altima headers will not work on your CUV.

[send your technical queries to mehta@ttac.com]

Top Speed recently had the opportunity to learn a little bit about the 2010 Ford Taurus SHO and we figured who better to tell you about it than the men who put the plan into action, the design team. So without further ado, please enjoy this walk around of Ford’s new flagship, with Exterior Designer Eric Lucas and Interior Designer Lon Zaback.

We already showed you what Advanced Engine Design and Development Manager, Brett Hinds had to say about how the fuel sipping 3.5 Liter Eco Boost V6 works with the car’s all wheel drive system to make 365 HP and one of the hottest Ford sedans we have seen in a while and a Top Speed certified successor to the classic Super High Output four door to wear the blue oval badge.

Enjoy!

Filed under: Hybrids/Alternative, Green

AutoblogGreen for 06.22.09

by Sebastian Blanco on Jun 22nd 2009 at 6:02AM

	You, too, can buy a $300 Tesla Roadster with exhaust pipes One word: fail.		CARB asks DOE to restore hydrogen vehicle funds Another word: again?
	Ethanol-free gas a hot seller in Florida Want some fuel that isn’t full of corn? These Florida gas stations know you do.	Other news: European scrapping schemes driving small car sales Zero X vs Quantya Track electric off-road shoot out Envy alert: cruising in a Tesla Roadster in Hawai’i