Warranty Direct Reveals UK’s Least Reliable Engines, 3 German Brands Among the Worst

Cars are complicated machines made out of thousands of parts that, even when their owners take great care of them and follow the user and service manuals religiously, sometimes go wrong. After all, that’s what warranties are for.

Of course, warranties at some point expire, and while a light bulb or something equally minor may be of little concern, the engine is a completely different, much more scary and costly issue.

“Engine failures are the biggest fear for any motorist as they’re the ones that can lead to the most astronomical costs because of their parts and hours of labor required to fix them”, said UK’s Warranty Direct managing director Duncan McClure Fisher.

Read more »

Survey Shows Carmakers Remain Skeptic about EV Sales, will Invest in Internal Combustion Engines

It seems that, despite all the noise they make about their hybrid, plug-in and all-electric vehicles, carmakers still expect the internal combustion engine to dominate sales until 2015.

According to a survey conducted last November by audit, tax and advisory company KPMG, which surveyed 200 global automotive executives, including 22 in North America, automakers believe that sales of electric vehicles will not account for more than 15 percent of global sales for at least a dozen more years.

Read more »

NHTSA Lays Out Minimum Sound Requirements for Hybrid and All-Electric Vehicles

Following up to the 2010 Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act (PSEA), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proposed establishing a federal motor vehicle safety standard that would set the minimum sound requirements for electric and hybrid vehicles.

The rule applies to EVs and hybrids that have an electric-only propulsion mode whether they are cars, light trucks, heavy-duty trucks, buses or motorcycles.

Read more »

Polk Forecasts U.S. New Vehicle Market to Reach 15.3 Million Sales in 2013

The U.S. auto market has rebounded from the low figures of the 2009 pre-bailout crisis in spectacular fashion. It’s a trend that is not going to fade away any time soon: after Edmunds.com, automotive analyst firm Polk also predicts that new car sales will continue to rise in the States.

For 2013, Polk forecasts new vehicle registrations in the U.S. to increase by 6.6 percent over 2012 to 15.3 million units, helped by the improving state of the economy and the manufacturers’ increasing capacity in their local plants.

Key to this increase will be the drastic increase of new and redesigned vehicles. For the year that has just begun, automakers plan 43 new vehicle launches, which represents an impressive 50 percent increase compared to 2012, and no less than 60 redesigns.

Read more »

Carscoop's 10 Most Viewed Stories of 2012

No doubt, it's been an interesting year in automotive news. Besides an abundance of important new model presentations such as the VW Golf Mk7, we also witnessed the rebound of North American sales, the rapid decline of Europe's auto market amidst the euro currency crisis, and even announcements on the re-birth of brands like Datsun, just to mention a few of the things that took place in 2012.

But which stories captured the attention of CarScoop's readers the most in 2012? Well, to answer that question, we compiled a list with the 10 most read articles of the year, and let's just say that, while some entrants were to be expected, many caught us by surprise with their presence in the Top 10, especially the ones from previous years. Naturally, the same can be said for those missing from the list…

Read more »

Ford to Sell 2.2 Million Vehicles in the U.S. this Year, Has 3 Best Sellers in the World's Top 10

The Blue Oval has announced that U.S. sales of its Ford brand will surpass the 2.2 million mark in the year that ends today, adding that it has three vehicle nameplates in the global top 10, according to the latest vehicle registration data from research firm Polk.

This is the second year in a row that the Ford sells more than 2 million vehicles in the States, the only brand to do so since 2007.

Read more »

The Top 10 Cars Most Likely to be Targeted by Thieves in Britain

General insurance company Swiftcover has released a list with the top 10 vehicles that are most likely to be stolen in Britain.

The company states it analyzed more than 2,300 theft claims among the UK vehicles it insured from February 2011 to February 2012, while taking into account the estimated numbers of cars on the road and removing models with less than ten cases of theft per year.

Read more »

Analysts Predict U.S. New Cars Sales to Grow to 15 Million Units in 2013, Used Car Prices to Fall

New light-vehicle sales in the States are gradually recovering from the slump that began in 2007 with the global credit crunch and will continue to grow in 2013, albeit at a slower pace than previous years, according to most automotive analysts.

Edmunds.com projects 15 million new car sales in 2013, a four percent increase over 2012, which is expected to end with around 14.5 million units. It will be the first time since 2007 that the U.S. market will surpass the 15 million sales mark.

Read more »

Clean Diesels are Experiencing a Renaissance in the U.S. as Sales Rise by 25.6 Percent

In contrast to Europe, where they account for more than half of new cars sold, diesel-powered models hadn’t really caught on with U.S. new car buyers. In the past two years, though, numbers show that more and more Americans recognize the benefits of the new generation of “clean” diesel engines.

That is, the advances in diesel technology have resulted in today’s diesels being nothing like their crude forebears of the ‘80s, while they are also up to 40 percent more fuel efficient that comparable gasoline-powered versions.

According to data from HybridCars.com and Baum and Associates, sales of diesel-powered cars in the States increased by 25.6 percent in 2012, almost double the total market’s 13.8 percent increase rate.

Read more »

NHTSA Wants Black Boxes Made Mandatory in New Cars – But 90 Percent Already Have Them!

By now, you must be aware that there’s no such thing as privacy on the internet. It’s not a conspiracy theory, just the way the medium has evolved.

The funny thing is that a large number of people are willingly disclosing important information about themselves, their lives, almost everything they do in many cases, in social media.

Even if you aren’t one of those people, though, the sad truth is that everything is tracked, recorded and stored somewhere. Now, the NSA, NCIS, CSI or some other agency with a funny acronym may not come knocking on your door but nevertheless it’s all being done without your consent.

Read more »

EPA Says 1 in 4 New Vehicles Meets 2016 Emission Standards Today; 2025 is Another Issue

Apparently, meeting future emission standards shouldn’t prove too hard for auto manufacturers as one would expect. That’s because according to an Environmental Protection Agency official, one-quarter of all new vehicles today already meet federal emission standards that won’t come into effect until 2016.

Jeff Alson, senior policy advisor at the EPA Office of Transportation and Air Quality, said during an event at the agency’s Ann Arbor test facility that nearly 90 new models sold today either meet 2016 emission targets or can meet them simply with air condition improvements and no powertrain changes.

Read more »

Unbreakable: These are the 10 Most Reliable Cars in the UK of the Last 15 Years

About a week ago, we posted a list of the 10 least reliable cars in the UK of the past 15 Years. This list was compiled by the Warranty Direct insurance company, which has been collecting data since 1997.

In the company’s own words, the 'Reliability Index' uses a “complex formula” that includes factors such as the number a car breaks down and its repair costs, for more than 450 models.

Read more »

Breaking Bad: Warranty Direct Lists the 10 Least Reliable Cars of the Last 15 Years

While we have no problem replacing everyday products such as DVD players and cell phones with new ones once they go bad, if the same thing happens to our car, it's a whole different story, and rightfully so, since automobiles are the second largest investment in most single family households.

Cars tend to be much more complex than most household appliance and face seriously more adverse conditions day-in, day-out. No matter how good the car is or how much carefully you maintain it, at some point, something is bound to go wrong.

Read more »

Toyota Prius Not a Car Thieves’ Favorite, Will Most Likely be Recovered Even if it’s Stolen

If you happen to own a Toyota Prius, you’ll be glad to learn that your car is not very popular with car thieves. On the contrary; compared to other models of the same age, Prius is less likely to be stolen.

At least that’s what the National Insurance Crime Bureau data reveals: as of the end of June, only one in 606 examples of the 2008-2010 MY Prius cars had been stolen compared to one in 78 of all other vehicles of the exact same model years.

California is the “capital” of stolen Prius cars with 1,062 thefts; Florida, New York, Washington and Texas followed with 127, 111, 92 and 89 cars respectively. NCIB data show that, despite the Prius not being completely immune to theft, it has a 96.7 percent recovery rate.

Read more »

Study Finds Nearly 50 Percent of Drivers Under 30 Access the Web While Driving

Driving is an activity that should not be taken lightly; on the contrary, it demands 100 percent of your attention at all times. Yet distracted driving, which according to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood accounted for 3,092 deaths and 400,000 injuries in road accidents in 2010, is becoming something of an epidemic.

A report from insurance company State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance, the largest seller of auto coverage in the country, says that an astounding 48 percent of drivers aged between 18 and 30 access the Internet while driving!

Read more »

Feds Want More Electronic Nannies to Become Standard in Our Cars

On Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board urged the U.S. government to make advanced safety technologies mandatory for all new vehicles in order to reduce road accidents.

The NTSB wants rear-end collision warning, lane departure warning, adaptive cruise control and advanced braking systems, technologies which are already available by most manufacturers, albeit mostly as an option or on luxury cars, to be standard on all vehicles sold in the U.S. market.

It also wants the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to raise its performance requirements to the level set by luxury cars as the NHTSA’s own data indicate that run-off-road, rear-end, and lane change maneuvers account for 23, 28, and 9 percent of highway accidents, respectively.

Read more »

Ford Comes in Second Last in Consumer Reports’ 2012 Auto Reliability Survey [w/Video]

Two years ago, Ford was included in the Top 10 of Consumer Reports’ (CR) annual reliability survey, with more than 90 percent of its range rated average or better.

In the 2012 survey, however, you’ll have to look a long way down to find the Blue Oval: it occupies the next-to-last place as it finished 27th out of 28 brands rated, and its Lincoln luxury division is just one place ahead.

"Ford's bumpy road can be seen in the numbers. Sixty percent of Ford-branded models and half of Lincolns were below average in predicted reliability and none placed above average," said Jake Fisher, director of automotive testing for Consumer Reports.

Read more »

The Sales Network: Facebook’s New Features Help Carmakers Shift More Cars

Initially, Facebook was available only to Harvard students, then to other Ivy League institutions, companies like Apple and Microsoft and as of September 26, 2006, everyone in the world who has a valid email address and is at least 13 years old.

As of last month, the social network has over one billion active users worldwide. California-based web analytics company Quantcast reports that in May 2011, it had 138.9 million monthly unique visitors in the U.S.; that’s close to 45 percent of the country’s population.

A billion users, half of them accessing the social media through their mobile devices, which means that they can be reached at all times: it’s a marketing team's wettest dream.

Read more »

British Study Reveals Alarmingly High Levels of Interior Pollution in Smokers’ Cars

Nobody needs to tell us that smoking is a nasty habit that threatens not only your own health but others’, too: the Surgeon General and thousands of advertising campaigns have ensured that you get the message. Whether you choose to adhere to or ignore it is your own choice.

Smokers may have an increasingly hard time finding a place where they can indulge in their vice but their own vehicle is their private space and, for the most part, they can do what they want in it.

Read more »

TomTom Publishes List of Most Congested Cities in North America and Europe

It’s happened to most drivers: congestion, that is, that plague of modern cities that increases traveling times and, of course, pollution.

Since 2007, Dutch manufacturer of automotive navigation systems TomTom has initiated a program to better understand the traffic flow of more than 80 major cities in all continents to improve its guidance systems.

Instead of relying purely on mathematical models, the company is collecting real-life GPS data from millions of TomTom customers and has created an accurate database of their driving patterns.

Read more »