Fisker Fails, Shady Dealers And Failing V6s In This Week's News Roundup
A collection of our best posts of the week in news
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Selling cars is often a soul-crushing grind. So it’s understandable that dealership employees might feel pressure to cut corners. As one New England dealership recently found out, though, if you get caught straight-up scamming, there can be some pretty nasty consequences. - Collin Woodard Read More
The latest generation of the Toyota Tundra and the Lexus LX improved over the previous models in a big way: Toyota’s ancient, gas-guzzling 5.7-liter V8 was dropped in favor of a brand new twin-turbo 3.5-liter V6. With up to 409 horsepower (389 horsepower in the Tundra) it makes more power and gets better gas mileage than the V8 it replaced. Unfortunately, within a year or so of the new engine debuting in the Toyota Tundra and Lexus LX, some owners began reporting problems. They all had one thing in common: engine failure. Now, as The Drive reports, Toyota finally found a reason for the failures and is issuing a recall. - Lawrence Hodge Read More
Fisker, after the disastrous launch of the Ocean crossover, is not doing so hot. For CEO Henrik Fisker, founder of both Fisker Automotive and VLF Automotive, it’s a tale as old as time — spin up a car company, make a few copies of one car, and then crash and burn in spectacular fashion. A new report from TechCrunch, though, starts to connect the dots on why this keeps happening to Fisker’s companies: The man himself. - Amber DaSilva Read More
The infamous Seattle Dodge Charger Hellcat owner who thought he was hot shit for terrorizing the city with his loud exhaust and reckless driving has had his actions catch up with him. After a judge ruled that he couldn’t drive his “Belltown Hellcat” due to him disturbing the peace with its V8 roar, it seems Hellcat owner Miles Hudson ignored the judgment. He might come to regret it as Seattle’s KOMO News reports that the city has fined him $83,000. - Lawrence Hodge Read More
Toyota’s been in a bad spot with regulators recently. Its subsidiary Daihatsu rounded out 2023 by admitting to forging 30 years of crash test results, and even the venerable Land Cruiser couldn’t escape an emissions scandal. Yet, it seems the company isn’t quite done dredging up issues: A new internal investigation revealed Toyota cheated on crash tests for seven Japanese models. - Amber DaSilva Read More
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When you’re shopping for a new car, price and practicality are important, but so is fuel economy. The Environmental Protection Agency provides fuel economy ratings for almost every vehicle currently on sale, but how does that translate to real life? Our friends over at Consumer Reports independently test new cars to see what kind of fuel economy they actually get in the real world and recently published a guide to the cars that perform the best in that particular test. - Collin Woodard Read More
Jeep has been on a roller coaster ride the last few years. Sales have suffered, dealers are sitting on inventory they’re heavily discounting to move, quality has suffered and worse yet, their vehicles have become too expensive for many would-be buyers — something the company acknowledges even though it just released a $70,000 EV. Jeep is also unusual in the myriad number of options, trims and colors it offers customers. That may soon come to an end if one of Jeep’s executives gets their way. - Lawrence Hodge Read More
A runaway RV crash in Staten Island on Saturday has left two homeless as their mobile domicile rolled away and smashed into a BP gas station. Donna Eiden and Rocky Granata were en route to a Trump rally on Saturday, just a day after the former president was convicted of 34 felonies. The couple were somewhat notable supporters of Donald J. Trump, traveling to many of his events to sell T-shirts emblazoned with Presidential slogans like “Let’s Go Brandon,” “Girls Just Wanna Have Guns,” and “Trump is my Vato.” - Bradley Brownell Read More
It’s the first workday of the month of June, which means it’s time for the automakers who so graciously still report monthly sales on a monthly basis to show us their spreadsheets. For Subaru, it wasn’t all bad, but it sure wasn’t great, either, especially for the folks who work on the performance side of things. So far in 2024, sales of the WRX have dropped 39 percent compared to the first five months of 2023, and BRZ sales dropped even further. Year-over-year, the BRZ is down a full 45 percent. - Collin Woodard Read More
The BMW 1 Series may no longer be rear-wheel drive, but at a time when hot hatches are growing rarer, we’re just happy to see one live on for a new generation. Visually, the new 1 Series isn’t a wild departure from its predecessor, and while it’s not the most attractive hot hatch we’ve ever seen, it’s still a marked improvement. Then again, considering how the old one looked, improving that front-end design couldn’t have been particularly difficult. - Collin Woodard Read More