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Before you buy new tires check if you have a full size spare. If you do, why not use it before it dry rots and becomes unusable?

Not only will you save 25-50%, you’ll also have the chance to hide that embarrassingly scraped wheel that indicates to everyone you don’t know how to parallel park and screams ‘damage!’ come trade-in time.

(Note that we only suggest this if you’ve been happy with your car and and are planning on replacing your tires with an identical set).

the pay-off for impressive control over roller-coaster roads is a stiff and unsettled feel around town and on the motorway…Usually you can take the quiet refinement of a Lexus for granted [but] there’s too much road noise – especially over coarse surfaces. source: What Car? on the Lexus IS

The purpose of our Helpline is to protect people before they buy something they don’t need or that may be in the seller’s best interest rather than their own.

But recently we’ve been getting an increasing number of requests from people who need us to fix what someone else has broken, which is no surpirse to us: the only problems we’ve ever had with our own cars were caused by a technician’s rushed or sloppy repair procedure.

A recent stuy in the U.K. found comsumers are being bled dry trying to fix problems caused by negligent service centers.

We can review your service records and/or inspect your car to see if the place you’ve been taking it to is deserving of your trust and your money. As with all of our services you stand to save far more than our service will cost you…

Jouralists often critcize Mercedes Benz and Lexus models that don’t allow the driver to completely defeat the traction and stability control systems, forgetting that not everyone drives professionally and/or on a test track. We suggest leaving such systems on when driving on the street; drive smoothly enough and the computer will think you’re still in control.

That said…

For 2003+ Mercedes:
With key in position 1, press trip odometer reset button 3 times. Go through screens til ‘ESP Dynometer Test’ is displayed. Set to ‘ON’. Start car. This mode is not meant for use when driving so will deactivate ESP and ABS.

For the ‘06 Lexus IS:
Start the car with the parking brake on, press brake twice and hold. Activate parking brake twice. Repeat sequence till light activates on dash. (You have 30 seconds). Everythng but ABS will be deactivated til the next time you start the car.

source: digg.com

UPDATE: Automobile magazine has since tried the Lexus defeat procedure on their long-term GS - click here for a video…

When Ford introduced the class redefining F150, it spent a hell of a lot of money in places no one expected of a truck, one of them being the fit and finish of the interior.

Realizing that some truck buyers would rather wear a tutu than drive a truck that didn’t seep rugged from every pore, Ford pulled a page from the Audi playbook – offer different atmospheres so a buyer could season their F150 to taste, just as they can with hauling caabilities by choosing among F150/250/350 iterations.

Ford’s pulled the same trick with the Ford Fusion, Mercury Milan and Lincoln Zephyr.

Too cold?: the Ford Fusion [click on 360 views>interior] gets an interior that is devoid of any flair to the point of being depressing. Cost cutting is so prevalent that the things that you touch not only don’t feel plush, they’re genuinely pain inducing. Touching the door pull, the shifter lever, the steering wheel, the cruise control or pretty much anything else is met with un unfriendly hard seam, as though the ieces were made with the same dies as the toys that come with a Happy Meal.

Too hot?: As much as we appeciate touches like heated and cooled seats with memory and a steering wheel that moves out of your way, the Lincoln Zephyr is a bit over the top and priced accordingly.

Just right?: The Mercury Milan is priced just $1,000 higher than the Fusion, and those $1,000 get you a power driver’s seat and higher grade cloth and dash materials. The Milan Premier has leather that’s softer than that available in the Ford.

Motor Trend’s editors have also evaluated all three, and similarly conclude in their January issue:

The differentiation works, at least to the extent that the Fusion has the blue-collar look appropriate for Ford, while the Milan comes off as more white-collar.

Many of you may have observed that GM has a serious problem when it comes to managining its brands. This is especially true of companies it buys into. Wheras companies adopted by Ford tend to improve in quality (e.g. Volvo, Jaguar), GM tends to run the brands into the ground by forcing them to use existing components.

The result: the Trailblazer based Saab 9-7x and WRX based 9-2x. (Some have argued that Subaru and Saab have more in common than youd think – after all both companies have histories rooted in eccentric cars built by aircraft engineers. But while the 9-2x outhandles any Saab in history, you have to question why the 9-7x wasn’t based on the Tribeca. Perhaps a 9-2 based on a shortened version of the Legacy platform would have fared better in the marketplace…)

Anyone who’s driven a Subaru (or Porsche 911 or Boxster) can appreciate the way the flat engine enhances both ride and handling response, while the equal length halfshafts of the Symmetrical AWD layout benefits steering feel. Despite all this, Motor Trend’s Mike Connor reports in the Jan. ‘06 issue that GM’s descision to liquidate its 20% share in Subaru was in reponse to Subaru’s insistence that these singular distinctions be retained in future products.

One Motown analyst… slammed Fuji’s conviction that the boxer engines are an integral part of Subaru’s brand character, saing few U.S. Subaru buyers knw or care about what’s under the hood of their cars. Julst like all those Oldsmobile buyers who didn’t know or care when GM fitted their cars with Chevy engines…

We wonder if those at GM who were so insistent in platform sharing ever drove a Subaru. (If they did, perhaps GM would move towards flat-fours and sixes and away from overpowered, clumsy handling front wheel drivers).

Everyone’s talking about Biodiesel, particularly those of an environmental bent.

While filling up for free at your local fast food chain makes for a good story, we haven’t covered the topic, feeling there had to be a catch. Apparently that catch is that farmland is being used to support growing Biodiesel demand…

The U.K.’s The Guardian recently ran a piece on this topic; you’ll find a summary here.

...an engine that never sounds hurried or manic, with a rich, melodious growl underlying each different squeeze of throttle. Floor it in, say, third and as it swells and pulls from a few hundred low, rumbling rpm to a top-end howl it goes through a whole host of sonic stages, the most curious of which sounds something like a helicopter taking off.

source: AutoExpress

...and yet every day people allow services to be performed that are suggested simply to increase profits.

You know the routine… you go in for an oil change and suddenly you’re being told you need a transmission power flush (NEVER say yes), new filters, specially formulated oil, etc. It’s a trick of every sales trade – the ‘upsell’.

By the fabricated service schedules shops come up with, every car has the same service requirements (not true) and every car benefits from services not listed in the maintenance schedule (also not true).

Here are a few pointers to keep you from getting taken for a ride:

Never allow any work to be performed that you didn’t originally take the car in for. Dealership service departments, tire chains and especially quick lube services make most of their money upselling people on services that are not needed. Unless the issue will cause immediate harm to your car or your person, get a second opinion and get quotes from other shops.

Never say ‘I need a X,000 mile service’. Instead consult the maintenance schedule in your owner’s manual and make a list of parts that require replacement. Doing so will save you 50% or more!

Unless you make frequent short trips, follow the normal service schedule – this will save you an additional 50%. This is especially true of a car that you are leasing or don’t plan on keeping indefinitely/past the warranty period. Car & Driver torture tests its cars for 30,000 miles and only changes the oil ever 7,500-15,000 miles. With their quick warm-up times and precise engine managment, many modern cars can safely go 10,000 miles between oil changes, especially when using a synthetic oil. (We change our own oil once a year – two of our cars are now over a dozen years old. One of our former cars was bought back by the dealership to be used as a service loaner because even though they were aware we serviced less frequently they also knew we were fanatical about the quality of oil and replacement parts used).

Don’t ‘power-flush’ anything. Doing so to the transmission (particularly at higher mileages) can lead to transmission failure. Doing so to the power steering or engine is a needless expense.

The technician may point out your oil is dirty and show you how black it is to sell you something. Kindly explain to him that means its doing its job (oil turns black after just a few hundred miles).

Don’t let them perform ‘services’ that amount to their simpy pouring a bottle of something into our engine or gas tank. Oil treatments do nothing but make the oil thicker than it should be, while fuel injector cleaner mixes with oil and makes it syrupy as well.

Call our helpline at 617.308.1136 before approving any work- there is no charge for the first 5 minutes.

Saving money on unnecessary services will benefit the environment and allow you to afford higher quality replacement parts (e.g. tires, brakes, synthetic lubricants) or a safer car the next time around. You’ll notice most services are things that are a) easy for the shop to do and b) impossible to feel the effect of.

You work hard to earn your money – spend it wisely.

When we heard the Elise was coming to the U.S. we got excited. But news that revsions would first be made concerned us; would we miss out on the car that made the name an icon as was the case with the original WRX, 3.0L M3, early Miatas etc.?

The news that Toyota would be supplying the engine came as a shock, but then again there was little to recommend the Rover sourced unit that had been used previously. Our main concern was that the ride/handling compromise and alertness of steering would be ruined by the larger wheel and tire complement. In their April 04 issue, evo assured us that we hadn’t missed anything…

“the most impressive ride and handling compromise since launch, the Elise is better than ever.”

(We welcome comments from anyone who has had the good fortune to drive both versions back to back as we have yet to drive a car we prefer on 17s over 16s – particularly a lightweight one).