detnews.com

October 28, 2009 http://detnews.com/article/20091028/AUTO01/910280377

Ford lauded for ‘world-class’ reliability

Consumer Reports says carmaker has achieved ‘world-class’ quality status

ALISA PRIDDLE
The Detroit News

Detroit — Ford Motor Co. is the most reliable domestic automaker, and continued quality improvements have brought its vehicles almost bumper to bumper with its Japanese competitors, Consumer Reports magazine said Tuesday.

“Ford has secured its position as the only Detroit automaker with world-class reliability,” Consumer Reports said in releasing its 2009 Annual Car Reliability Survey to the Automotive Press Association here.

The endorsement for Ford comes as Detroit’s Big Three fight to retain market share against strong foreign competitors and as General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC strive to show the government and American taxpayers that a strong domestic auto industry is worth saving and can lead the field. GM and Chrysler, however, didn’t fare as well as Ford and still have work to do, Consumer Reports said.

“This is just one more proof point, but it’s a great testament because that’s not a statement (Consumer Reports) has always made about us,” said Bennie Fowler, Ford’s global quality chief.

And it’s the result of dedicated work to get there.

When Ford first closed the quality gap with Honda and Toyota a few years ago, “we didn’t know if it was a fluke or if they could maintain it,” said Rik Paul, automotive editor for Consumer Reports. But Ford continued to produce well-made vehicles that testers and readers appreciate.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally spoke repeatedly about reliability when he took over the company, and he visited the magazine to better understand and address lackluster findings that the company’s vehicles had previously suffered.

Efforts at Ford today include a system that sends information about a problem to team members on the assembly line within 24 hours of a vehicle being brought into a dealership so changes can be made to correct the issue and prevent a recurrence.

Toyota, which consistently does well in the survey, also takes any slips seriously — such as the Lexus GS that was rated below average.

“Historically, when a car’s quality has slipped, the problem is rectified the following year,” said Toyota Motor Corp. spokesman Curt McAllister. “We’re not sure what the problem was with the GS, but we will go through the data with Consumer Reports.”

About 1.4 million readers submitted data on vehicles from 2000 to 2009 model years, and the reliability results augment staff road tests of current vehicles to determine whether a vehicle is recommended to buyers.

Toyota and Honda Motor Co. still dominate the industry for long-term reliability, and the Honda Insight topped the list as the single most reliable vehicle. The Volkswagen Touareg was last in the survey. Of the 48 models with top reliability scores, 36 were Asian brands. Toyota had 18; Honda had eight; Nissan Motor Co., four; and Hyundai Motor Co./Kia Motors Corp. and Subaru each had three.

GM had some “bright spots” and appears to be on the right track if new vehicles such as the Chevrolet Malibu are any indication, but Chrysler “still struggles” and has a long way to go with only a single vehicle recommended by the testers and readers of the magazine. Last year, the Auburn Hills automaker had none recommended.

Bankruptcy filings by GM and Chrysler did not affect results — the survey was taken in the spring before the companies completed their stints under Chapter 11 protection, Paul said. And bankruptcy should not affect next year’s results if readers are objectively noting things that break on their cars, Paul said.

Of 48 GM models, 20 were average. The all-wheel-drive Chevrolet Traverse/Buick Enclave crossovers did well, and the magazine now recommends the Chevrolet Silverado/GMC Sierra light-duty pickups.

“Consumer Reports is one of several third-party inputs GM takes seriously because we realize the influence it has on purchase decisions,” said Jamie Hresko, GM vice president of global quality.

Chrysler faces the biggest challenge. Its three brands are among the four worst, and more than a third of Chrysler products are rated much worse than average. Only the Dodge Ram 1500 is recommended, and there are few new cars and trucks on the horizon to boost future scores, Paul said.

As bad as that sounds, it is an improvement over last year when the Chrysler Sebring was the worst single vehicle on the list and no models were recommended.

Chrysler will detail efforts to restore quality in its five-year business and product plan to be unveiled Nov. 4 and is expected to talk openly about the need to correct quality and other errors committed under previous owners. Chrysler’s newest partner, Fiat SpA, has implemented its manufacturing processes and quality controls, and improvement already can be seen, Chrysler spokeswoman Jodi Tinson said.

Warranty claims have been reduced 30 percent in the last 18 months, she said, adding that “the Ram represents where we are going.”

The problem, said Consumer Reports senior auto engineer Jake Fisher, is that Fiat in Europe is known for its style, not its quality.

“There could be a lot of very pretty cars broken down on the side of the road,” Fisher said.

That should not be the case for Ford products, as about 90 percent had average or better reliability, according to the survey.

The Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan beat out the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry for the second year.

“It’s rare for Consumer Reports to see family sedans from domestic carmakers continue to beat the reliability scores of such highly regarded Japanese models as the Camry and Accord,” said David Champion, senior director of Consumer Reports’ Automotive Test Center. The last domestic that had better reliability than the Camry and Accord was the Buick Regal in 2004, he said.

GM’s Malibu with a V-6 also did well and “is on par with the most reliable family sedans,” Champion said.

Ford’s upscale Lincoln brand did not fare as well. All-wheel-drive versions of the Lincoln MKS, MKX and MKZ came in below average. But the MKZ was ranked stronger than the Lexus ES or Acura TL.

The Honda Accord dipped in overall ratings, something Honda spokesman Chuck Schifsky said is not uncommon for a new car. “Customers may have problems with new features and technology they are not used to. But I think the study showcases the hallmarks of the Honda brand: durability, quality and reliability.”

The Nissan Armada/Infiniti QX56 large SUVs have brought their reliability up to average, but the magazine expressed concerns with the rear-drive Nissan Titan pickup, Quest minivan and tiny Versa sedan.

Continuing their quality climb are Hyundai and Kia. Scoring well were the Hyundai Elantra and Tucson and the Kia Sportage. Hyundai’s foray into the luxury segment with the Genesis proved above average with the V-6 and average with the new V-8 engine. Not as strong are the Kia Sedona minivan and Sorento SUV.

“The results are not an anomaly,” said Hyundai spokesman Dan Bedore. “They are the dividends of our huge investment to improve quality.”

Small cars fared well. Of 37 in the survey, 20 scored above average, including the Honda Fit, Scion xD and VW Golf.

Half of the 42 family cars tested were above average, including five of eight hybrids in this segment (Prius, Fusion, Milan, Camry and Nissan Altima hybrids).

Among the least reliable vehicles in their class are the all-wheel-drive Lexus GS, Nissan Versa and Subaru Impreza WRX.

European automakers showed some improvement again this year. The reliability of Mercedes-Benz vehicles has improved; most are now average or better, and the new GLK proved a strong new entry in its first year.

Results are more mixed for BMW AG, as the 535i sedan and X3 SUV fell and the new 135i scored below average. The only model Consumer Reports recommends is the BMW 328i.

The VW Rabbit/Golf and new CC were above average, and the Jetta TDI is the only diesel the magazine recommended. The Passat and Audi A3 have improved to average, along with the Tiguan SUV.

Porsche saw its Boxster fall below average and the magazine no longer recommends it.

The reliability report is in the December issue of Consumer Reports, which goes on sale Nov. 3.

Bryce Hoffman and Scott Burgess contributed.
© Copyright 2009 The Detroit News. All rights reserved.

Trade-ins from the Cash for Clunkers program are piling up and auto recyclers are seeking more time to meet the deadline for disposing of all those vehicles.

Cash for Clunkers Trade-Ins Piling Up

At some places, Ford Explorers, Chevy Blazers, Chrysler Town & Country minivans and other popular clunkers are parked bumper to bumper on several acres, many marked “C4C” on their windows, waiting to be drained of fluids, stripped of valuable parts and eventually flattened for scrap.

“I’ve got a parking lot of almost 4,000 vehicles right now,” said Harry Haluptzok, chief executive of John’s Auto Parts in Blaine, Minn., near Minneapolis. His business typically dismantles 100 vehicles per week, but the workload has now more than doubled, and Haluptzok hired 10 more workers to keep up with all the extra vehicles.

Under the program, the cars are required to be crushed or shredded within six months of the date the vehicle is transferred from the dealership. Recyclers say the deadline, even a few months away, will be hard as they try to remove spare parts such as transmissions, front and rear axles, starters and alternators.

“True recycling is using something to its fullest potential and then recycling it over again by making it into steel and sending it out to become another engine or transmission or car,” said Jeff Cantor, an auto recycler in Candia, N.H. “We’re breaking that circle here by crushing good quality parts. We can’t process them quick enough in six months.”

Consumers bought nearly 700,000 new vehicles in late July and August through the program, taking advantage of rebates of up to $4,500 on new cars in return for trading in their older vehicles. Congress tripled the size of its original $1 billion price tag because of the program’s popularity.

Used engines from the vehicles were required to be destroyed to promote improved fuel efficiency.

The American Recyclers Association, a trade group representing auto recyclers, said the six-month deadline to crush the vehicles was developed in line with the initial $1 billion program, but never took into account the additional vehicles sold when the program was expanded. The association met with the Transportation Department in late September seeking an additional six months to recycle the cars.

“We do have a lot of facilities that have two or three times the number of vehicles they could ever have imagined getting. They’re trying to process these in addition to their regular business,” said Michael Wilson, the trade group’s executive director.

Transportation Department spokeswoman Sasha Johnson said the department was aware of the request and noted that under the regulations, “most trade-ins through the CARS program do not need to be crushed until at least early next year.”

In metropolitan Los Angeles, Aadlen Bros. Auto Wrecking in Sun Valley brought in about 6,000 vehicles through the Clunkers program since early September. “At times, we were having to stack cars on top of cars — it got unruly there for a little bit,” auto recycle Nathan Adlen said.

Most of the vehicles on their 26-acre lot go into a self-service yard, letting customers find the used parts they need for their vehicles. A car typically stays there for a month, but many vehicles have gone to the crusher earlier than normal because of the influx.

In Minnesota, Haluptzok expected to receive more than 1,000 cars through the program but saw his load grow to nearly 5,000. Each vehicle needs to be drained of oil, antifreeze and other fluids and then properly recycled.

“If it’s about recycling, the thing to do is to give us another six months and let us do them the correct way each time,” he said.

Ford testers try to balance in-car safety, technology

BRYCE G. HOFFMAN
The Detroit News

Dearborn –In a laboratory beneath Ford Motor Co.’s Product Development Center, a team of scientists and technicians is using driving simulators to study how motorists interact with new, onboard technology and ensure that systems like Sync do not become too distracting.

The ubiquity of cellular telephones and the proliferation of in-car technologies such as navigation systems and voice-activated music players mean today’s car trip involves a lot more than just getting from Point A to Point B. But all of this technology has made driver distraction a concern.

Ford has created the Human Machine Interface Verification Laboratory — informally known as the “Distraction Lab” — to make sure new features make driving safer, not less safe.

“This is where we make the determination about what can or can’t go into a product,” said Jeff Greenberg, senior technical leader of vehicle design research and advanced engineering at Ford.

The lab includes a full-sized vehicle simulator that technicians can configure to match the interior layout of any Ford vehicle. They can then use the simulator to study how driving performance is affected by various actions.

Another system uses special goggles to measure how much time a driver looks away from the road when using things such as the navigation system. The same system can track how much information a driver can read off a screen in a single glance.

Using the results of these tests, Ford has made significant changes to systems such as Sync, the onboard computer connectivity and entertainment system it developed with Microsoft Corp. For example, drivers cannot manually scroll through their cell phone’s address book while driving.

Ford engineers also have modified the interface of some systems to make them more rapidly readable.

“This kind of research is going to become very important,” said safety expert Sean Kane of Safety Research & Strategies Inc. of Rehoboth, Mass. “Distracted driving is the hot issue in motor vehicle safety today.”

In fact, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that distracted driving contributes to 80 percent of all road accidents.

Kane said much of that distraction comes from the technology drivers bring into the vehicle with them — like cell phones and music players. He said finding ways for motorists to control these technologies without taking their eyes off the road is one way to address the problem.

Ford says the average driver looks away from the road for two seconds while selecting a song using its Sync system, compared to 25 seconds using a handheld MP3 player.

But Greenberg says the biggest surprise he and his researchers have discovered is that younger drivers are more distracted by such technologies than older motorists. He said most experts assumed that teens, who have been surrounded by high-tech devices since infancy, would be better able to use them while driving.

“We found absolutely, positively, unambiguously that is bunk,” he said. The distraction level of adult drivers increased by a factor of four when they tried to dial a cell phone while driving. But the distraction level of teen drivers increased by a factor of 13.

“It’s very hard to get an experienced adult driver to pull their eyes away from the road,” he said.
© Copyright 2009 The Detroit News. All rights reserved.

After Clunkers tax rush, states come down hard
Car buyback program gave quick boost to finances, but usually not enough
The Associated Press
updated 12:32 p.m. CT, Sun., Oct . 11, 2009

WASHINGTON – Struggling states and towns got a dose of badly needed money this summer from a Cash for Clunkers program that poured hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenue into their budgets.

Now, like the auto industry, recession-ravaged governments are seeing revenue fall off as car buyers take a breather from the frenzied sales of July and August. That means less money for schools, roads, public safety and other projects that get much of their funding from sales tax collections.

And while officials welcomed the shot in the arm, the extra clunkers money won’t come close to filling the gaping holes in their budgets or do much to solve the worst revenue downturn in decades.

“It is chump change,” said David Zin, an economist with the Michigan state senate’s fiscal agency.

State and city officials say their budget problems are too severe for one government program to fix.

“Fifty-thousand is not to be sneezed at,” Dean Rich, finance director of O’Fallon, Ill., said of the city’s expected tax gain from its 16 car dealerships. But it’s not enough to prevent a job freeze and cuts to capital projects for the town of 29,000 people.

“It’s not the windfall that is going to fix the $1 million shortage we have this year,” he said.

Like most governments, O’Fallon suffered during the recession as people facing job losses, reduced pay, lost homes and general unease over the economy snapped their wallets shut. That means big drops in sales tax, which makes up around half of many state budgets. Sales of cars and trucks, big-ticket items with high price tags, are a big component of sales tax collections.

Cash for Clunkers held some promise — customers bought nearly 700,000 new vehicles during late July and August, taking advantage of rebates of up to $4,500 on new cars in return for trading in their older vehicles. The program ended up tripling the size of its original $1 billion price tag due to its broad popularity. For government budget offices, that represented some rare good news.

The auto forecaster Edmunds.com estimated that the average clunker sales price was $26,321, meaning roughly $18 billion worth of new vehicles were sold under the program. Multiplied by the average combined state and local sales tax of 7.5 percent, the total tax bill amounts to a loose estimate of $1.36 billion.

But here’s some perspective — the budget shortfall of Michigan alone, the symbolic heartland of the U.S. auto industry, amounts to $2.8 billion. And it pales in comparison to the $240 billion that states collected in total general sales taxes in 2008.

“That’s more than a drop in the bucket … but not much more for state budgets,” said Robert Ward, director of fiscal studies for the Rockefeller Institute of Government in New York.

The taxes brought in by clunkers offered a summer shot of adrenaline for most states. The funds — often earmarked for school aid, highway repairs and law enforcement — came at a time when they were struggling with big shortfalls.

Kentucky reported that clunkers’ taxes propped up its Road Fund, which supports the state’s network of roadways. Motor vehicle usage taxes grew 11.4 percent to $36 million in August, helping keep the fund flat for the month. The state estimates it can now afford to see receipts fall more than 4 percent for the rest of fiscal year and still meet its budget forecasts.

Legislative estimates in Michigan show the state may have taken in $39 million from Cash for Clunkers. About a third of that money is devoted to education.

Massachusetts reported that motor vehicle sales tax revenue rose nearly 36 percent in August from a year earlier, higher than the state’s monthly target. That gain, combined with a rise in the overall sales tax that month, pushed vehicle tax collections above the monthly goal.

The extra money may be a help, but state budget officials say it’s minor compared with their huge problems.

Kentucky officials have warned that until unemployment improves — about 11 percent of state residents are now jobless — tax revenues will remain in the doldrums.

In Michigan, where the state sales tax is the major source of aid for schools, lawmakers proposed cutting $218 per pupil from the aid the state government gives to local school districts. That’s despite the clunkers money and extra vehicle sales tax revenue from laid-off auto workers who got vouchers for new cars as part of their severance. Sales tax collections are still down 9 percent.

Auto sales nationally fell 41 percent from August to September, a drop caused largely by people who would have normally waited a few months to buy a new vehicle rushing in to take advantage of the federal program’s big rebates.

That hangover showed up in Massachusetts’ sales tax collections last month, which were 5 percent below forecasts. That worries Robert Bliss, a spokesman for the state revenue department.

“Has the pool been drained as a result of this program for the next couple of months? That is the question,” he said.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33266927/ns/business-autos/

MSN Privacy . Legal
© 2009 MSNBC.com

By Dan Carney, contributor

Introduction

Uptight art snobs periodically work themselves into a lather when a respected art museum decides to host an exhibit celebrating automotive design as an art form.

Outside the orthodoxy of such rigid thinking, however, it is obvious to most people that the very best automotive design is unquestionably the product of the very best artistic inspiration.

But what about the worst designs? What of the automotive equivalent of atrocious community college art class watercolors?

Museums have no space for the ugliest cars, but fortunately, we do, just as a reminder that artistic daring doesn’t always have a happy ending.

Such selections, of course, are subject to debate and opinion. It is impossible to include every deserving offender on our list of 10 of the most egregious cars, so please submit your own suggestions, with a description of why they deserve to be considered among the ugliest cars ever.

Here is our list, in random order, so take a look and be glad that one of these babies doesn’t (dis)grace your driveway.

Vote: Which car do you think is the ugliest?
‘70-’78 AMC Gremlin
Hulton Archive / Getty Images file
‘70-’78 AMC Gremlin

It may be an unsubstantiated legend that American Motors designer Richard Teague sketched the Gremlin on an airline airsickness bag, but it is a fact that AMC launched the car on April Fools Day, 1970, a fitting arrival for a car with clownish ill-proportioned lines.

The long hood and near-vertical tail gave the car the aspect of a clown’s oversized shoe.
‘74-’77 AMC Matador Coupe
AMC
‘74-’77 AMC Matador Coupe

AMC surely deserves some credit for recognizing that even on a limited budget, it could imbue its cars with distinctive styling. Unfortunately, as happens in military campaigns, daring sometimes meets with legendary failure rather than the hoped-for surprise victory.

So it was for the lumpy Matador Coupe, which looked like a designer’s droopy clay model that was accidentally left in the sun. In an uncharacteristic failure to identify a naked emperor when it saw one, Car and Driver magazine inexplicably named Matador coupe the “Best Styled Car of 1974.”

Any question of the Matador’s place on this list is put to rest by the ’77-’78 Barcelona version festooned with a padded vinyl top, opera windows and two-tone paint. Earth tones only, natch.
‘75-’78 AMC Pacer
Anonymous / AMC via AP
‘75-’78 AMC Pacer

The Pacer really deserved better than this.

There was true innovation in the Pacer’s fishbowl body, such as the industry-leading elimination of rain gutters to reduce wind drag (now accepted practice), a longer passenger-side door for more convenient back seat access from that side, and rack-and-pinion steering which was uncommon among domestic cars at the time. A planned rotary engine would have truly put the Pacer on the cutting edge.

But the rotary engine never reached production, leaving the Pacer with AMC’s antiquated straight-six engine, and the unorthodox, bloated styling never got any less shocking to the eye.
‘80-’83 Cadillac Seville
GM Corp.
‘80-’83 Cadillac Seville

Cadillac designers were apparently not paying attention to the ridicule heaped on the Gremlin for its unbalanced proportions and chopped-off rear end.

Evidently enamored of ‘70s neo-classics like the Excalibur (a worthy candidate in its own right), Cadillac sought to lend its mid-size model weight of heritage by borrowing the “bustle back” trunk from an earlier era. At least they didn’t attempt running boards or exposed exhaust pipes.

The ugly styling and a plague of mechanical problems from its new front-drive layout and attempts at fuel-efficient engines dropped sales of the once-popular model in the tank.
‘58-’59 Edsel
Ed Carlin / Getty Images file
‘58-’59 Edsel

In the 1950s, Ford wanted to establish a new luxury division, so to create this new brand’s prestige bona fides, naturally the company named the new car after Henry Ford’s well-liked but unusually named late son Edsel.

They then bestowed upon it laughable styling that closely approximated the expression formed by people laying eyes on the car for the first time. This negative first impression of the “sucking a lemon” grille on the ’58 Edsel models was reinforced by Ford’s months-long ad campaign building up consumer anticipation of the big reveal.

Like a blowout game in a much-hyped Super Bowl, much of America felt tricked when they’d been led to expect something exceptional, only to find something exceptionally ugly.
‘60-’62 Plymouth Valiant
‘60-’62 Plymouth Valiant

The observant reader may have noticed a trend by now. Most of the cars on this list are the result of car manufacturers operating outside their comfort zones, attempting to enter new markets or entice new customers.

That is why so many of our ugliest cars are the early attempts at compact car design by domestic carmakers. You can’t get much farther outside the comfort zone than old Detroit trying to conceive small cars when General Motors still held 60 percent of the U.S. market all by itself.

The 1960 Plymouth Valiant apparently tried to set itself apart with all manner of slashing lines and jutting edges, but the resulting mess earned the car a solid spot on this list.
‘70-’80 Ford Pinto
Ford Motor Co. via AP
‘70-’80 Ford Pinto

Animal forms serve as the inspiration for many automotive designs. The reason is obvious; their organically powerful and efficient lines can be quite evocative.

Why the Ford Pinto designers thought anyone would be excited by an automotive frog, though, has never been discovered. Especially when finished in the popular dull green of the era, the Pinto looked like it should have been named after it amphibious inspiration rather than wild equine.

If Ford had been able to use even smaller wheels so it could seal off the wheel wells, the look would have been complete.
‘74-’78 Datsun B210
Nissan
‘74-’78 Datsun B210

One might think from the earlier entrants that only domestic companies have made ugly cars, but that would be untrue.

It is just that many of the most ugly foreign cars either never came to the U.S., or sank so fast upon arrival that they didn’t even leave a ripple.

Datsun’s mainstream, high-volume compact model of the mid-‘70s, the B210, is a notable exception. Its lumpy silhouette, tiny windows and suspect details like the honeycomb hubcaps firmly established Japan as a force to be reckoned with when it came to uglifying American roads.
‘76-’78 Datsun F10
Nissan
‘76-’78 Datsun F10

In case the domestic car makers thought the B210 was a fluke, Datsun followed it up with its first front-wheel-drive ugly-mobile, the F10.

“As with the B210, the F10 is a bit garish, with its GREAT BIG EYES for headlights,” noted Road & Track magazine in 1976.

The absurd headlights and taillights bookmarked an absurdly high beltline that squeezed the side windows to squinty proportions, and raised the rear hatchback to the height of a rear sunroof.
‘01-’05 Pontiac Aztek
‘01-’05 Pontiac Aztek

Though bankruptcy was still a decade away when General Motors was designing the 2001 Pontiac Aztek, the same desperation that led American Motors to build its verge-of-bankruptcy atrocities in the ‘70s had Pontiac executives willing to risk anything on the chance for a breakout hit.

But while consumers have at times embraced cars with unorthodox styling, like the original Volkswagen Beetle, there are no recorded instances of popular cars which violently defile basic standards of design decency, such as the enduring appeal of balanced, flowing lines.

Instead, the Aztek was a contrived, hunch-backed, trying-too-hard, plastic-clad abomination and its failure was certain before it even rolled off the assembly line.

Vote: Which car do you think is the ugliest?

Updated: 5:10 p.m. ET Oct. 8, 2009

© 2009 MSNBC.com

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33194543/ns/business-autos