The slugs of aluminum inside your engine live in a fiery hell. At full throttle and 6000 rpm, a piston in a gasoline engine is subjected to nearly 10 tons of force every 0.02 second as repeated explosions heat the metal to more than 600 degrees Fahrenheit. READ MORE ››
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Parenthood is rarely glamorous, and the cars we drive around often aren't either. Of course, there is merit to the practicality of a minivan or crossover, but sometimes we parents want the world to know we haven't lost our more adventurous side.
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To achieve this, parents need look no further than a full-size pickup truck. Trucks can be practical family-haulers and show the world you've still got some pizazz. If you long to be a carpool-lane iconoclast, consider a full-size pickup truck for your next family car. When you do, be sure to look out for these five family-friendly features:
While truck-makers may have different names for it, parents will want a truck with four full doors, often known as a crew cab truck. These models make getting in and out easier and provide for more cabin space. Yes, the four-door models are more expensive, but having kids is more expensive than not having kids, so just chalk this up as another expense you never anticipated.
Getting into a truck can be difficult for small people, tall people and basically anyone who is not a giant. It's a long way down from the cabin of a truck to the ground, and running boards function as a stepstool. Ideally, you should look for a truck that has powered running boards that move in and out with each opening and closing of the door. However, even the old-fashioned kind that remain in place are fine, too, so long as they're there. Without running boards, entry and exit have the potential to cost someone an ankle.
One of the simple yet beautiful things about a pickup truck is its nearly endless storage. You can fit more than you've ever imagined in the bed of a truck.
Beyond the bed, there are options like the Ram 1500's RamBox, which are large, lockable storage boxes embedded in the sides of the truck's bed. These are useful for securing valuables and groceries.
Inside the cab, models with front bucket seats offer huge center consoles that can fit a laptop and a handbag without a problem. Models with a front bench seat don't have the enormous console, but many still offer a roomy bin underneath the center seat cushion. Dual glove boxes, multiple cup- and bottleholders and in-door cubbies are also prevalent in most pickups — and necessary for family life.
A full-size pickup truck can fit up to six people comfortably if it has a front bench seat. Without the front bench, a truck accommodates five people. The beauty of a truck's rear seat in a crew cab is that three child-safety seats often will easily fit across the rear bench. This isn't the case with many other family vehicles.
Additionally, trucks like the Toyota Tundra are available with a 60/40-split backseat that can be flipped up in various configurations to create different storage and seating options.
When it comes to features, safety and finish, trucks can be bare-bones or the height of luxury these days. Bluetooth connectivity, dual-zone climate control and integrated multimedia systems are all common among trucks, and features like bed covers or fold-up rear steps to create access into the bed are offered, too. When it comes to safety features, trucks can be outfitted with backup cameras, blind spot warning systems and even parking sensors.
Cars.com photos by Courtney Messenbaugh, Evan Sears, Joe Bruzek and Ian Merritt
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Yesterday I was working for the greatest automobile company in the world.
Today I am working for the greatest automotive blog in the world.
Yesterday I was working for the Germans.
Today I am working for a 25-year-old Canadian kid who loves rap music.
I am one lucky sumbitch.
I elected to take early retirement after 17 years at Mercedes-Benz Financial Services. The hardest part about leaving the OEM auto business is giving up the free company car. The 2015 ML350 you see above was my last ride and is currently for sale at Mercedes-Benz of Tucson (Low Miles! Illuminated Grill Star! Celebrity Owned!). God, it hurts… An old retail automobile business adage says that the only things car salesmen need are the "3 Ds" – a desk, a drink and a demo. For me, that first demonstrator was a used 1981 Rosewood Brown Buick Regal that I drove while working at Spires-Douglas Buick in San Antonio. I clearly remember driving it off the lot after my first day on the job and thinking, "I like this business!" The days of salespeople getting free rides are long gone at most dealerships, no doubt a factor in attempting to draw new talent into the retail industry now.
The scores of Honda (all stick shifts by the way) and Mercedes-Benz vehicles parked in my garage over the years were nice but my favorite ride was a 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited High Output V8 I drove during the year I was sentenced to work on the Chrysler Financial side of our company. I was our auction rep in Arizona, selling repossessed Neons and off-lease Jeeps, and the GC could flat-out fly over the whoops on the rugged Apache Trail outside of Phoenix.
Stories of wrecked demos are commonplace as there can be a certain "it's not my car" mentality to driving one, as illustrated in this funny company car features page. In my own case, I tell people my last accident was in 1977 because I don't count the night in Dallas in 1988 while coming home from Adair's Saloon that I discovered that the counter rotation of the wheels on a 4-Wheel Steering Prelude negated my ability to execute a perfect bootlegger's turn. I slid sideways hard into a curb and destroyed the suspension but somehow limped her home, dragging one tire all the way. Thank God it was during the corrupt days at American Honda: I traded a load of Accords to a dealer in return for him replacing the Prelude and making the wrecked one disappear. I think that night was the end of my drinking and driving days and I have never put more than a scratch on a demo after that. Besides, get in an accident or get pinched for DUI in a OEM car and you could lose your job or, if you are lucky, keep your job but have to buy your own car.
I can take solace in the fact that I will driving the occasional press car for test drive purposes. You may wonder if I will be biased in favor of Honda and Mercedes-Benz. Of course I will. But I told Derek those are the last two brands I want to write about. I will pen a few stories about my days working for those corporations but I owe it to you to explore and write about all brands and all automotive companies. Besides, I already know how most of you feel about Mercedes-Benz vehicles…
I am thrilled to be reporting to you from the Tucson TTAC Tower and can promise you only one thing: the truth.
The post My Last Free Mercedes-Benz appeared first on The Truth About Cars.
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On October 3rd, 1984, American Motors announced that the Renault Espace would be imported to North America as an AMC product. 30 years later, the Escpace's minivan heritage will come to an end.
The Espace is to Europeans what the Chrysler minivans are to us – the first example of a modern, mass-produced minivan that set the standard for the entire segment. A front-drive, neatly packaged three-row people mover that proved to be far more modern than the Fiat Multipla or Volkswagen vans.
At this week's Paris Auto Show, the Espace will be revealed, after undergoing a radical transformation. No longer a minivan, the Espace is now being marketed as a crossover. No more sliding doors or the distinctly French two-box profile that was a trademark of the Espace. The new version is a bling-bling pseudo-CUV with shades of CR-V in the D-pillar.
For Renault minivan customers, the Scenic will still be available. But the Espace, like the wildly successful Captur, is an attempt to give consumers more of what they want – in this case, crossovers – but with the people carrying abilities of the minivan (or MPV) body style.
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Aside from GPS-equipped starter interrupt systems, lenders have another tool to repossess a vehicle, with the added benefit of using the data obtained to acquire better contracts: license plate recognition.
According to Auto Remarketing, the CEO of Fort Worth, Texas-based Digital Recognition Network, Chris Metaxas, says his company's LPR technology has found 55 percent of their customers' assets up to 100 miles away from where the paperwork claimed the vehicle would have originally been. As most assets are with the lenders' customers, any deviation from that is a red flag.
Thus, originators seeking to minimize risk could use LPR data to "determine the truth of a statement someone may make on an application," in turn enhancing the process so better contracts are entered into a given portfolio:
If you think about what a bank does in translating risk mitigation into their ability to grow their book of business, the loans they write, the policies they write, it is substantial and is exponential. What you lose on the back end is only a fraction of what you write on the front end.
Earlier this year, DRN and another LPR company entered into a lawsuit against Utah governor Gary Herbert and attorney general Sean Reyes over First Amendment issues regarding legislation that prohibited such technology from being used to analyze the image of the license plate in question. The lawsuit is part of an ongoing battle between privacy advocates who claim the private data tied to a plate can have the potential to be abused, and by LPR proponents like DRN who believe license plate numbers contain no such thing, citing the public nature of the plate itself.
The post Metaxas: License Plate Recognition Can Improve Originations appeared first on The Truth About Cars.
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