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Toyota has built a solid reputation for quality and reliability over the past several decades, but that streak hit the skids in 2009. Marking a first for the Japanese automaker, Toyota lead the industry in safety recalls during 2009. According to the Detroit Free Press, Toyota’s 9 safety recalls involving 4,872,583 was tops in the industry this year. Toyota narrowly beat out Ford’s 4,521,993 recalled vehicles to take the title of most recalled automaker for the first time in company history. Of those 4.87 million recalls, 4.3 million were a direct result of an unintended acceleration problem with some Toyota...

Hi All,I'm in need of some advice on a new car.

How can James Bond recover the control disk for the dual GoldenEye satellite weapons driving something like this? Brace yourself. Aston Martin just released more detailed photos of its Cygnet luxury minicar, and it isn’t pretty. In fact, it looks a lot like Toyota’s Euro-based iQ on which it’s based. Jalopnik, which published official photos this morning, writes: “[T]he looks are...umm...well...as these first official images show, the Cygnet is still closely based on the Toyota iQ city car, retaining the same basic body shape and even the same front lights. The front has been given a heavy Aston-style rework, however,...

Hybrid gasoline-electric and all-electric cars will continue to cost more than vehicles with a conventional internal combustion engine for the foreseeable future, putting the new technology beyond the reach of many car buyers. Sales of hybrid and all-electric cars therefore may be limited to affluent buyers who can afford to make an environmental statement and the vast majority of vehicles will continue to be powered by gasoline or diesel engines. While promising, the new lithium-ion battery technology won’t significantly reduce pollution or dependence on foreign oil by 2030.

Fifty Ugliest Cars of the Past 50 Years A Half-Century of Automotive Eyesores By Damian Joseph Considering how many new cars are rolled out every year, it's no surprise that a few might be just plain homely. There's a chance that certain styles might become fashionable with a dash of retro hip. (Well, maybe not from the 1970s.) But for the most part, the following 50 cars will never be anything but design duds.

After five years of inspecting vehicles, Dallas mechanic Robert Garcia has seen cars with everything from whisper-thin tire treads to brakes ready to fall off. Garcia – like many insurers, legislators and safety advocates – can't imagine how bad the disrepair would be without Texas' yearly required safety inspections. "It would cause a big dilemma on the road," said Garcia, who works at Adkison Tire and Service on Irving Boulevard. But some states have dropped the basic safety review after driver complaints that they were annoying and unnecessary. And some automobile experts in Texas and across the country say more...

Will consumers buy from a bankrupt auto maker? There always are bargain hunters, but I was certain many would stay away. With Pontiac and Saturn out of the picture, I figured General Motors would be down to 16% market share, losing perhaps another 3% as worried potential buyers talked themselves out of visiting a GM showroom. That would have left GM with as little as 13% share. At least, that’s what I figured, and I have a lot of experience covering failing auto companies. So far, I’m wrong. GM’s market share has been climbing since it left bankruptcy, hitting 20.2%...

Will consumers buy from a bankrupt auto maker? There always are bargain hunters, but I was certain many would stay away. With Pontiac and Saturn out of the picture, I figured General Motors would be down to 16% market share, losing perhaps another 3% as worried potential buyers talked themselves out of visiting a GM showroom. That would have left GM with as little as 13% share. At least, that’s what I figured, and I have a lot of experience covering failing auto companies. So far, I’m wrong. GM’s market share has been climbing since it left bankruptcy, hitting 20.2%...

A number of recent headline stories out of China about joint ventures and acquisitions involving American companies didn't seem to get much attention in the US media, yet these stories indicate that the current economic recovery will remain jobless for some time. Is China a lifeboat for US firms, or the tugboat pulling the entire wounded US economy back to shore? The biggest news came out of the automotive industry, where Beijing Automotive announced its intention to acquire all or part of Saab from General Motors which also announced a joint venture with Shanghai Automotive to sell small cars...

America should learn from Britain's disastrous takeover of its biggest auto company. Few of the policymakers currently nationalizing the American auto industry seem to remember the British experience, and fewer still seem to have learned anything from it. British Leyland, Britain's largest automaker, faced bankruptcy in 1975. Fearing that its collapse would leave a million workers unemployed, the Labour government nationalized it. The company remained a ward of the state for 13 years. During that time, the British taxpayers invested 11 billion pounds — the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $22 billion today — in a company whose only sign of life...

LA MARQUE, Texas - Police say a low-flying pelican distracted a driver in Texas, causing him to veer off a road and drive his million-dollar sports car into a salt marsh - La Marque police Lt. Greg Gilchrist does not know if the car can be salvaged but conceded that "salt water isn't good for anything." - Click for photo

Considering how many new cars are rolled out every year, it's no surprise that a few might be just plain homely. There's a chance that certain styles might become fashionable with a dash of retro hip. (Well, maybe not from the 1970s.) But for the most part, the following 50 cars will never be anything but design duds...

The Cash for Clunkers program was widely touted as a major success by the administration but like most things coming out of Washington that was was a fabrication. The Automotive research website Edmunds.com did a simple business analysis of the cash for clunkers program and discovered that American Tax Payers payed an average of $24,000 to sell each additional car in the clunkers program. A total of 690,000 new vehicles were sold under the program, all but 125,000 would have been sold anyway. Divide the the total cost of $3 billion by those 125 thousand cars and you arrive at...

Saab Automobile has received permission to borrow 4 billion kronor from the European Investment Bank, the bank’s board revealed on Wednesday. Prior to Wednesday’s meeting, most indications were that the EIB board, which includes representatives from all 27 European Union members states, would approve Saab’s request. The EIB leadership group had recommended to the board that the bank agree to lend the Swedish car company up to €400 million, or roughly 4.1 billion kronor ($590 million), having concluded that Saab’s application was sufficiently strong. The loan is a critical lifeline for Saab, and was a key element for the planned...

PDATED (October 2, 2009): Volkswagen has now officially released details on the 2010 Golf TDI. The new model is rated at 30/41 mpg (city/hwy) for the manual transmission and 32/42 mpg with VW’s advanced DSG automatic transmission. The car is priced from $21,990. Noticeably absent from the North American market since 2006, the Volkswagen Golf TDI will return for 2010. The new model was showcased today at the New York Auto Show, along with the high performance GTI (see our review here). There weren’t any standard Golfs on the floor, but we do have info on that model too....

09.30.2009 3:35 pm Auto employment in St. Louis shrinks to just 700 By David Nicklaus St. Louis Post-Dispatch After reading STL JobWatch’s update on the unemployment situation in St. Louis, I headed for the Bureau of Labor Statistics website to refresh my knowledge on where the jobs are being lost. There are no surprises in the big industry categories, which I’ll get to in a moment. One number did, however, leap out at me: In August, the metro area had just 700 auto manufacturing jobs. That was down from 3,000 in July, a drop that reflects the shutdown of Chrysler’s...

General Motors said Tuesday it would wind down its Saturn brand after talks broke off with Penske Automotive Group on a bid for the nameplate. GM said in a statement that Penske "has decided to terminate discussions" to acquire Saturn "because of the inability to source new products beyond what it had asked GM to build on contract." "This is very disappointing news and comes after months of hard work by hundreds of dedicated employees and Saturn retailers who tried to make the new Saturn a reality," the US automaker said.

WASHINGTON — The Cash for Clunkers buzz is starting to wear off and it seems that some buyers are having serious second thoughts about getting on that government-funded bandwagon, according to a new survey. In the meantime, the U.S. Department of Transportation said that dealers by Tuesday's deadline had submitted a final total of 690,114 Cash for Clunkers deals for $2.88 billion in rebates. The total is just under the revised $3-billion budget for the four-week program. The new survey by CNW Purchase Path, of Bandon, Oregon, finds that of nearly 1,000 Cash for Clunkers participants, 17 percent say they...

A few weeks ago, Government Motors dropped a public relations bomb when new chief Fritz Henderson announced that the forthcoming Chevy Volt would get an astonishing 230 miles per gallon (that's 98 kilometers per liter, for our metric-system friends). We'll stop short of calling it a fabrication and instead chalk it up to a classic apples-to-oranges comparison. After all, the Volt will be powered more by coal than by oil. United States EPA mileage guidelines are based on a bunch of hypothetical “typical” driving patterns. And the makers of conventional and plug-in hybrid cars are lobbying hard to change those...

Auto makers will release their monthly sales reports Tuesday and they're expected to show the first year-to-year increase since 2007. While the Cash for Clunkers program is getting all the credit, local car dealers are still waiting for their cash. During the month long program, Billion Automotive sold close to a thousand vehicles but has only been reimbursed for 272 of them. Vern Eide sold over 200 cars and has only been paid for 27 of them, and that's fueling lots of concerns in the auto industry. Billion Automotive cashed in during Cash for Clunkers, but owner Dave Billion is...

Over all the Cash for Clunkers program makes about as much sense as breaking all the windows in the country so that you can sell new windows. You trade in a car get $4,500 toward a new car and the dealer has to destroy your old car, instead of re-selling it. This clunker of a program breaks a key rule of economics, for an economy to grow you need to create capital. The United States economy is in the crapper and our government, is destroying capital. It gets even worse, dealers all over the country have been complaining because they...

Michigan's unemployment rate for June of 2009 jumped to 15.2%. That's a 1.1% increase over the prior month. Rates usually climb or fall by a few tenths of a percent. It's rare to see such a substantial increase or decrease. But experts say the struggling economy combined with the ailing auto market means Michigan has been hit harder than other states. We'll have much more on the numbers and what it means for Michigan tonight on 6 News at 5 and 6.

Koenigsegg, the Swedish luxury sports carmaker set to buy Saab Automobile from US firm General Motors, is confident that the company can be rescued, the firm's co-owner said on Saturday. GM, which has now filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States, placed Saab on the market in February as part of its attempts to slim down its brand range and return to profitability. A Sveriges Television (SVT) report on Thursday said Koenigsegg and a group of Norwegian investors had signed a letter of intent to buy Saab. Bård Eker, whose holding company Eker Group holds a 49 percent stake...

Sporty Swedish car maker Koenigsegg has teamed up with a group of Norwegian investors to buy Saab from General Motors, according to state broadcaster Sveriges Television's news show Rapport. Koenigsegg has signed a declaration of intent with regard to the purchase, with more detailed negotiations set to continue over the coming months. The sports car maker, based in Ängelholm in southwest Sweden, has secured the backing of Norwegian investors, according to Rapport. Koenigsegg has long been named as one of the parties interested in snapping up the ailing Swedish auto giant. Earlier on Thursday, the Swedish trade ministry indicated that...

You could call electric car company Coda Automotive the anti-Tesla. The company, formed by fleet vehicle provider Miles Electric, on Wednesday unveiled the Coda, a plain-looking electric car that's designed for everyday use. The highway-capable four-door sedan can go between 90 and 120 miles on its lithium ion battery pack. It will be available to consumers in California in the fall of 2010 at a price of $45,000. The cost can be offset by about $10,000 from a federal tax credit and state incentives, the company said. Coda is marketing the car as a way to kick the oil habit...

Today I commited to the largest purchase of my entire life. The only problem was that I didn’t even have a say in it. I am now the not so proud owner of Government Motors (GM) and quite frankly I think I could have done a little better with my $10.5 billion dollars. As though we needed anymore proof that the Conservative party, led by Stephen Harper, has redefined conservatism in Canada as a light form of liberalism Harper has commited to, if not the largest, one of the largest government bailouts in Canadian history and quite frankly Canadians had...

The phrase “bankrupt General Motors,” which we expect to hear uttered on Monday, leaves Americans my age in economic shock. The words are as melodramatic as “Mom’s nude photos.” And, indeed, if we want to understand what doomed the American automobile, we should give up on economics and turn to melodrama. Politicians, journalists, financial analysts and other purveyors of banality have been looking at cars as if a convertible were a business. Fire the MBAs and hire a poet. The fate of Detroit isn’t a matter of financial crisis, foreign competition, corporate greed, union intransigence, energy costs or measuring the...

In the sidebar of this article about California's latest Proposition vote is a Poll about Obama's fuel standards which right now has the result that they are overwhelmingly approved of by the American public. Freepers needed to participate in the poll and give a truer picture of what we think about Obama's fuel standards. http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/20/news/economy/california/index.htm Quick Vote What do you think about the Obama administration's new automotive fuel standards?

Go back, if you will, twelve months into the past. You are sitting over your morning cup of joe having a discussion with a friend. Suddenly your friend says, "I can see one day in the near future when the government will own two of the big three auto companies, hand a big piece of them to the auto unions for basically nothing and then force them to make tiny fuel efficient cars that no one wants to buy" Now honestly, if someone said something like that to you a year ago you would think they were losing touch with...

[snip] Chrysler’s TC by Maserati (1989–91) Arrogance, thy name is Lee Iacocca. In the late 1980s, the Chrysler chairman and perpetual huckster turned a friendship with Alejandro de Tomaso, then president of Maserati, into the most shudder-worthy example of corporate avarice ever to roll off an assembly line. Chrysler’s TC by Maserati was little more than a Milan-built K-car with a few pricey underhood components and some styling hackery, a wrinkly grandmother dressed up in custom running shoes and ill-fitting hot pants. The Maserati trident plastered on the grille just added insult to injury. [snip]

Are there any Freepers out there that can help me w/a an automotive repair question? I'm trying to replace my ball joints (upper & lower) in my '94 GMC Sonoma 4x4, and ran into difficulty -- I can't separate it from the steering knuckle! I managed to get the rivets & castle-nut off, but can't get the stud out of the knuckle. I'm trying to replace a ball joint in my '94 GMC Sonoma 4x4 . . . I can't use the special ball joint separator tool I borrowed from the auto store b/c the front transaxle is in the...

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has announced new economic stimulus measures, including subsidies for people who buy new cars.

After months of debate, Congress appears close to reaching a compromise “Cash for Clunkers” plan that would give consumers up to $4,500 if they turn in their old car and use the money to buy a new, more fuel-efficient replacement. Late Tuesday, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce released a fact sheet that outlines the plan, which includes elements of two competing bills in the House and another in the Senate. Under the plan, consumers can turn in cars or light-duty trucks that get less than 18 miles a gallon. If they buy cars that have “window sticker” mileage...

Using a separate E85 direct injection boosting system combined with gasoline port fuel injection (PFI) makes the engine more efficient in its use of gasoline, and can be viewed as a more cost-effective alternative to a modern diesel, according to a Ford study presented by Robert Stein, currently of AVL, formerly of Ford, at the SAE 2009 World Congress.

Fisker Automotive announced that it raised $85 million in venture capital backing from New York-based Eco-Drive (Capital) Partners LLC, a European-American investment consortium, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A potential investment of roughly $600 million could bring an estimated 2,000 new jobs to Kentucky. Today, the National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Batteries (NATTBatt) announced that it has chosen a site in Hardin County to develop batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles.

"A collaborative effort between General Motors and Segway Inc. debuted Tuesday April 7th in New York: the new PUMA (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility vehicle). With the assistance of GM, Segway did something everyone thought was absolutely impossible: They made the Segway even DORKIER. Ever since they debuted to great fanfare in 2001, Segways never captured the hearts of Americans like they were supposed to. Originally projected to sell forty thousand units the first year, it is now speculated that Segway probably hasn't sold 30 thousand units to date. So why didn't they catch on? I'm guessing just because they...

Here's some material I rounded up from daily automotive news sources: 1. GM's UAW workforce has shrunk to 54,500 with the latest buyouts, down from 115,000 just 3 years ago. Another 10,000 have to go per the bailout requirements by the end of the year. Will the last one out of the UAW union hall please turn off the lights? 2. The U.S. is now being passed by both Japan and China to become the 3rd largest producer of cars. China is expected to take the lead this year at 8.7 million vehicles, Japan will be around 7.6 million, and...

AN BUREN TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WXYZ) - Industry experts believe that Visteon Corporation may file for bankruptcy by the end of the day. The auto supplier has a $15 million dollar interest payment due, and analysts expect the company to default on the payment, triggering the filing. Visteon has been under increasing pressure from their suppliers to pay overdue bills and shorten the periods between payments. The speculation comes as Visteon's stock has been delisted by the New York Stock Exchange. Shares dropped to just 2 cents on Thursday, the last day it was traded on the NYSE. The company is...

Horsepower can be so overrated. At least that’s what the developers from HumanCar, an industrial design firm, are betting on with the Imagine_PS, or Power Station, vehicle. The vehicle uses electric motors and regenerative braking along with human power to keep it moving at a decent clip. “The human part is a patented bi-directional human-power interface, which is like a rowing action that uses your entire body,” says Chuck Greenwood, CEO. “One to four people can operate these cars and they create enough electricity by themselves to power computers, cell phones, etc.” He claims that the car is able to...

Automotive industry continues a slow death. J.D. Power and Associates Reports that U.S. Light-Vehicle Retail Sales in February are down by nearly 38% from one year ago. GM and Chrysler LLC are receiving TARP money from a government bailout. The suppliers for the US auto companies are not getting any assistance. Many are facing a tight cash flow that could force them into bankruptcy. They have high priced materials (like steel) in their supply chains. Many have significant inventories of goods. While car sales have declined 38%, demand for auto parts for some vehicles have declined even more. Almost every...

When chief architect of the Global Economic Collapse Barney Frank, appeared on 60 Minutes in December we learned what the Auto bailout was really about. It had nothing to to with propping up ailing car companies. Frank insisted it is about the individual, that the government needs to help the people in the car companies. In other words it is welfare for the UAW: "No. We’re not propping up companies. That’s your mistake," he tells Stahl, who had asked him about taxpayer money going to prop up companies that had made bad decisions. "We’re propping up individuals. The world doesn't...

China tops USA in car sales for the 1st time everChina sold more vehicles in January than the United States. The US auto market is sinking into a deeper gloom. Manufacturers are trimming back their sales forecasts to suppliers and adding additional shutdown or idle times to their lines. Sales in the US are predicted to be less than 10 million units. This is a 26 year low. Unfortunately, this may be an optimistic estimate. Meanwhile, the Obama Administration is taking moves to make cars and trucks more expensive in the US. He is adding a hidden fuel mileage and...

General Motors Corp's (GM.N) product chief and Vice Chairman Bob Lutz will retire at the end of the year, bringing to a close a legendary automotive career that spanned 46 years and included top jobs at all three Detroit automakers. Lutz, 76, will transition to a new role effective April 1, as vice chairman and senior adviser -- providing input into GM's global design and key product initiatives -- until his retirement at the end of 2009, the automaker said on Monday. Tom Stephens, currently GM's executive vice president of global powertrain and quality, will take over product development at...

After dropping $17.4 billion in what was only the first installment of the Automotive bailout, the auto parts suppliers are lining up for their turn. Many of the auto parts suppliers are in as bad a shape as the "Big Three". Auto parts have always been a competitive business with slim profit margins. The auto manufacturers are always pitting the suppliers against each other for bidding. Every year they call the suppliers up and demand a price reduction. Recently, the skyrocketing price of steel has taken a heavy toll on suppliers. The auto manufactures have refused to accept all of...

How green can California's cars go? 4 February 2009 Californians love their cars and many of them are fuel hungry US President Barack Obama gave California's environmentalists cause to celebrate when he took a step closer to backing the state's plans for strict vehicle emissions standards. The BBC's Rajesh Mirchandani looks at whether the technology required is feasible and if drivers would pay for it. Driving is a way of life in California: the state has more cars than any other. But the authorities think they are a major contributory factor to global warming and should be targeted in attempts...

Brace yourselves for a mess. The New York Times is reporting that the Obama administration intends to allow California and other states to set their own emissions and fuel economy standards. Obama is expected to announce his decision this week, maybe even as early as today. The move, which Obama campaigned on during the run up to last November's election, would overturn the prior Bush administration's denial of a waiver to California that allows the state to set its own standards. If the report is correct, it's not clear yet what the implications of the decision will be or how...

Albert Kahn is America’s forgotten architect — even though in his lifetime, he (and his firm) produced more buildings than any other architect, and his design and production method changed the face of the country. Eighty years before the bailout of the auto industry, just before the Great Depression, Kahn built the most opulent of Detroit’s new corporate skyscrapers — the Art Deco-style Fisher Building. Facing the GM headquarters, Kahn’s grandest expression of civic architecture defined the unique American union of commercial and civic identity. Detroit Auto Show 2009 this month pinned its hopes for a twenty-first century transformation of...

Volvo had the unenviable time slot of the last press conference of the day, but the world premiere of the Volvo S60 concept should have drawn more than a gaggle of photographers elbowing for room at the rope line. What was shown was more than just the future of Volvo’s mainline sedan but of Volvo design in general. The deep shouldered look—at least to the extent it has been—and the “chair-shaped” taillights are out. The new look for Volvo is the double wave. Forget the Orrefors crystal center-stack/console. It’s concept car fluff and though some soft of legerdemain creating another...

DETROIT (AP) -- Even by the standards of battered automakers, Chrysler is in dire shape. Its sales in December were down a stunning 53 percent, far worse than Ford or General Motors, and analysts say it probably won't survive the year as an independent company -- despite $4 billion in government loans and the possibility of more. Things were so bad last year that a single Toyota model, the Camry/Solara midsize car, outsold the entire fleet of Chrysler LLC's passenger cars.