The joke that's followed Ford's terrifically popular Explorer (six million have been sold) since day-one twenty years ago has been that owners never actually drive the off-road-equipped SUVs off the pavement. Marketers have been playing to a consumer's desire to have their friends think that they might, one day, be the type of person who would rock-crawl a mountain pass. ...
Continue Reading »Television images of cars being T-boned at intersections are impossible for viewers to ignore. That's great news for shows such as ABC's Good Morning America, which aired such video a few weeks ago in a story about the auto insurance industry's study claiming automated "red light cameras" saved lives. These devices activate if a vehicle enters an intersection when the traffic light turns red, ...
Continue Reading »There are dozens of devices that can track the whereabouts of your car, and we recently spent time testing a simple and inexpensive unit called the Safe Driver from Lemur Vehicle Monitors. Safe Driver is intended as a tattletale for parents to monitor how their teens are driving. But unlike GPS-based systems that require downloading to computers, subscribing to a satellite service, or hiding ...
Continue Reading »Ask the mother of a teenage driver what piece of emergency equipment they want their kid to have with them in the car and mom will answer "cell phone." Indeed, the days of carrying tools, jumper cables, and a jerrycan of gas in the trunk are over – just call AAA. But still, the question beckons: What happens if you're hypermiling in your Prius and you overestimate your skill? You can certain ...
Continue Reading »Off-road people do things differently than on-road people. Off-roaders measure their tires by overall diameter; on-roaders measure theirs by wheel diameter and sidewall height. Off-roaders go slow, favor long-travel accelerator pedals, and rarely use brakes; on-roaders like a quiet wood-and-leather interior, balanced handling and quick-reacting brake and accelerator pedals. Jeep's new fourth-gener ...
Continue Reading »Sometimes small changes in chassis tuning can make the same car either a delight or a disaster to drive. That’s why automotive engineers tick off tens of thousands of miles in cars before things are finalized for sale. It’s in these drives that shock absorber settings, spring stiffness, anti-roll bar stiffness, and tire characteristics are all determined, to say nothing of engine and t ...
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