Car Loans
Certified Pre-Owned Can Provide Options
December 22, 2011 | Author ratoxuha
(NewsUSA) – Are you in the market for a new vehicle?
Perhaps you are ready to take a step up from that older-model used vehicle you would normally buy, but you still can’t afford that fresh-off-the-showroom-floor car that you have been dreaming about for so long.
If this is the case, then maybe it is time to consider certified pre-owned for your next vehicle purchase.
For those who have yet to be exposed to CPO marketing, the basic concept of the certified pre-owned vehicle is simple.
Automobile manufacturers take their late-model used vehicles (usually less than five years old), put them through a fairly rigorous inspection process, attach an extended warranty and other perks, and sell them at a premium. Read the rest of this entry »
What Is Protecting You From a Highway of Filth?
November 28, 2011 | Author ratoxuha
(NewsUSA) – Americans spend a combined 3.7 billion hours in traffic each year -; a key factor in the automotive industry’s decision to increase the number of vehicles equipped with cabin air filtration systems.
“Cabin air filters are designed to protect passengers from harmful airborne pathogens by capturing contaminants such as soot, dirt, pollen and other pollutants that enter a vehicle through its heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system,” said Paul Bandoly, manager of technical services for WIX Filters, whose cabin air filters are found on everything from cars to 18-wheelers to NASCAR racecars.
Audi Quattro Concept Meets Ur-Quattro – Feature – Car and Driver
November 19, 2011 | Author ratoxuha
From Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro on down to Audi’s Quattro, German speakers for centuries have abandoned their own language for Italian to express articles of passion. Quattro means “four” in the language of love, undoubtedly a better name for the driveline hardware that has come to define Audi’s high-tech and sporting image than the German
vier , which is pronounced “fear.” Can you see the ads? “Come drive the new 5000S Fear at your Audi dealer today!”
Selecting Between Above Ground Pools and In Ground Pools
November 2, 2011 | Author ratoxuha
More The placement, size, and look of a window can make a room. A south-facing window will let in maximum light and on the north side, light is added but can be more like mood light in some seasons and parts of the country. There are numerous window treatments which can be chosen.
Consider the benefits of using professionals when looking to purchase a home or land. Understanding why you need a real estate agent to buy a property will give you peace of mind. Know you are in good hands when you work with skilled people who only have your best interests in mind.
2010 Lexus RX350 / RX450h Hybrid – First Drive Review – Auto Reviews – Car and Driver
July 26, 2011 | Author ratoxuha
It can easily be argued that companies that play it safe probably have the greatest chances of surviving the malaise currently afflicting the automotive industry. And it can be argued that Toyota Motor Corporation and its Lexus luxury division have played the game as safely as any other company in the world. Case in point: the Lexus RX, both the bestselling luxury crossover and the bestselling of all Lexus models. It’s a cash cow for the brand, and when time comes to redo it, Lexus knows not to mess with a good thing.
So it’s no surprise that the third-generation RX350 and its hybrid sibling are largely the same as they’ve always been—pleasant and inoffensive, two veritable shades of beige, despite being completely redesigned.
Evolving Little Is Evolving Intelligently Enthusiasts and journalists have been largely ambivalent toward the RX’s styling, but customers clearly see the crossover as a thing of beauty, or at least something beautiful enough to spend at least 38 grand on, plus options. (Pricing for the new model had not been released at the time of this writing.) So it seems wise to adhere to the design vocabulary that has worked so well for the RX in the past, including its long beak, clean-shaven chin, bubbled hatch, hunched roofline, and awkward-looking wheelbase.
The RX has grown in pretty much every dimension—1.6 inches in length and width, 0.2 inch in height, 1.0 inch in wheelbase—and every body component is new, but the overall proportions and conservative styling statement are little changed. The RX’s styling is awash with numerous L-finesse styling elements, including more expressive lighting elements (with available multielement LED headlamps on the hybrid), a sculpted hood, a swoopier roofline, and wider-looking, sculpted body sides. The wheel arches have grown to accommodate up to 19-inch wheels and tires, the sexiest of which are found on the hybrid with the Sport package, and that model was also the best one to drive. Hybrid models feature blue outlines on the L badge and blue-tinted lighting elements.
One of the common L-finesse design themes, as found all over recent Lexus models such as the LS and IS sedans, is an “arrow” motif. It’s basically a sharp angle framing a radiused corner, usually with chrome involved. Here, it dresses up the RX’s exterior in various places, and one particularly clever application is the way the rear-window wiper is concealed by the rear spoiler.
Just Two Rows, Still
Happily, Lexus saw fit to keep the RX a two-row vehicle (Could it be that the three-row-is-the-new-two-row trend is coming to an end? We hope so) with sliding and reclining 40/20/40 second-row seats and a cargo area that is five percent larger than before, thanks to an unequal-length control-arm rear suspension.
The interior themes remain conservative yet pleasing to the eye—parchment with brown walnut, or gray tones with charcoal maple—and the seats have been redesigned to spoil backs and backsides better than an army of Swedish masseuses, complementing the RX’s excellent driving position. The leather feels softer than ever, especially the new optional semi-aniline variety, and space for four adults is more than acceptable.
Article source: http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/car/08q4/2010_lexus_rx350_rx450h_hybrid-first_drive_review
2009 Ford Flex: The O’Rourkes do Utah’s Lower Left – Feature – Auto Reviews – Car and Driver
July 19, 2011 | Author ratoxuha
For an old-fashioned family vacation, let me recommend piling three kids into a Ford Flex in L.A. and, forgetting about Disneyland, go instead across the Mojave.
Eschew Las Vegas in favor of the wildlife refuge of the Sheep Range Mountains. View spectacular scenery in Utah’s Zion and Arches national parks while avoiding every “Genuine Wild West Ghost Town,” Native American tchotchke shop, water park, and other locale of childish interest. Traverse the Rockies continually explaining to the kids—from Grand Junction to Denver—the marvels of North America’s geology. Then stay in a hotel without a pool.
It’s just what you’re looking for, if what you’re looking for is admission to a mental hospital. But that’s as it should be. The ultimate test of a car model is psychiatric. We all know this—we who had as our first love an
or a two-cycle Saab or an old Alfa Spider that would rust if its beauty provoked a moist glance.
I wanted the Flex to provide sessions on the Freudian adjustable seatback of “psycarlogical” analysis for potential car buyers such as my wife and myself. Gosh, what subconscious horrors were summoned forth. Mrs. O. and I worked through our anger at parents who wouldn’t stop at the “Genuine Wild West Ghost Town,” our guilt about making dad halt every 20 minutes because “I have to go,” our mixed feelings about our siblings (a mixture between loathing and detestation). “She’s touching me!” Some memories weren’t even repressed. We had gotten no farther than Rancho Cucamonga before I was shouting—in a perfect echo from the front seat of 50 years ago—“Don’t make me pull over and come back there!”
The Ford Flex may need more mental-health attention than most automobiles. I mean, it isn’t making much sense. It’s babbling as a product. For one thing, Ford already has plenty of Sport-Futility Vehicles, cross-dressing SUVs, and vans in false mustaches, many of them needing immediate sedation. Then there’s the Flex’s purposeful look, lacking in only one thing—purpose. Seems like you could go off-road with it. And you can—on your lawn. It has 5.9 inches of ground clearance (versus a Jeep Wrangler’s maximum of 10.3). Or, with the Flex’s slabby sides, maybe it could double as a handyman’s special. Except the biggest sheet of plywood that will lie flat inside is three feet, four-and-a-half inches by a little short of seven feet. What is that? The European Union’s new mandatory plywood dimensions? The maximum cubic feet of cargo space in the Flex, with all seats that will fold folded, is only 60 percent of a Chevy Suburban’s. This is a lot of stowage subtraction for a vehicle that’s only nine percent shorter than the bow-tie behemoth. And if what you really wanted was a minivan but you lacked the social humility to buy one, get a
, bolt a spare to the hood, install a brush bar, put a safari rack and a row of
halogen lamps on the roof, and see if any
dads talk smack to you.
But it takes more than the foregoing to create a truly conflicted automobile. You have to add in my family’s immediate and unconditional love for the Flex. Whatever crazy thing Ford is doing, we are enablers.
My wife is an aficionado of classic modern design. She dislikes the rubbery anonymity that coefficients of drag impose on modern bodywork and dislikes more the blob-job add-ons of bulgy bumpers and wheel-well flares. And she really detests the “commuting is a battlefield” buncombe of Hummers, Dodge Nitros, and Jeep Commanders. She adores the Flex. “Clean lines,” said Mrs. O., “great proportions, and the contrasting roof color keeps the whole thing from taking itself too seriously.”
Article source: http://www.caranddriver.com/features/08q4/2009_ford_flex_the_o_rourkes_do_utah_s_lower_left-feature
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