Monthly Archives March 2014

To qualify for 2014 Top Safety Pick, a vehicle must earn good ratings in the moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraint tests, as well as a good or acceptable rating in the small overlap front test.

To qualify for 2014 Top Safety Pick+, a vehicle must meet the Top Safety Pick criteria, plus earn a basic, advanced or superior rating for front crash prevention.

Models that earn Top Safety Pick+ or Top Safety Pick are the best vehicle choices for safety within size categories. Size and weight influence occupant protection in serious crashes. Larger, heavier vehicles generally afford more protection than smaller, lighter ones...

Enterprise news source inform us that some of their southern California locations are running a promotion, you can rent a Mercedes or a Jaguar for 3 weekend days (Friday – Monday required), at a daily rate of $69.99.

This photo is taken at Costa Mesa Enterprise, which confirms the news. I specifically asked which model of Jaguar they are renting out, they said it will be a Jaguar XF.

The IIHS side crash test uses a same object to T-bone the test vehicle, and then measures the distance from the center-line of the driver’s seat to the inner edge of the car’s B-pillar. Therefore, the more distance the better (because of more survival space).

Nowadays most new cars in the market all have this side crash test “distance” greater than 10cm. But as of model year 2014, there are still some cars’ side crash result do not reach the 10cm mark. Here are a list of them (data obtained from IIHS’s website), numbers after the car model means the survival space distance in centimeters:

Toyota Yaris Hatchback  9.5

Volvo XC90  9.5

Mitsubishi Mirage  7.5

Mi...

Toyota is running a promotion that ends at 3/31/2014. The deal is you pay $99.95 for a brake service and get a $50 Visa gift card.

Click here for more details.

One fact known to all of us is the high performance version of the current BMW 2-series – M235i, has a turbo inline 6 engine that produces 320 hp and 330 lb-ft of torque.

This left the rumored M2 with less space for imagination. We all admit that BMW would not let M2’s specification and performance touch the higher-level product such as M3/M4’s territory. Considering the upcoming M3/M4 will has a 425 hp 6 cylinder turbo engine, so we are sure if M2 does exist in the future, its engine horsepower will not get close to “425”.

We also found that the front/rear weight distribution of current M235i is not so “optimal”, which is at 53% front and 47% rear...