American Car News

The controversial J.D. Power and Associates 2010 U.S. Initial Quality Study is out. The study on American-market cars has been conducted annually for the past 24 years, and while not wholly accurate, it is an interesting look at the number of defects that show up in brand new cars. Lexus, Honda, Infiniti and Hyundai are expectedly on top of the listings, while Chevrolet and Nissan have seemingly placed above Toyota. Volkswagen and Land Rover take their usual spot at the bottom of the tally.

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Our Chevrolet Malibu long-termer has gone back to the General for use in some photo shoot, so they’ve provided us with a temporary replacement car, simply as a courtesy. The car happens to be the graphite 2010 Chevrolet Cruze that we tested a few months ago, so there isn’t much left to say about it, other than how much fun it is to throw around a good-handling compact car. Incidentally, Chevrolet Arabia is giving away a Cruze every day during the FIFA World Cup.

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Hennessey Performance has announced the delivery of the company’s first production-ready Venom GT supercar. Having left its UK production facility, the Chassis Number 01 Venom GT is headed to the UAE where it is to be delivered to its new owner by Hennessey’s exclusive Middle East distributor, Al DiMora of DiMora Motorcar.

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We took our first ever 2010 long-term car on a trip from Dubai to Ras-Al-Khaimah, partly as an excuse to test the highway behaviour of the Chevrolet Malibu LTZ on a long drive, and partly to meet our resident desert-safari-driving friend, who happens to live in that rocky city.

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The Chevy Malibu LTZ has now become my main mode of transportation, as my Jeep and BMW start gathering even more dust than usual. The Mallu is proving to be a rather comfortable ride, while also keeping up appearances. It looks like a luxury car after all, and behaves like one too.

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General Motors is recalling 1.5 million vehicles, across their Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Hummer and other brands, because of a potential fire risk due to faulty heated windshield washer nozzles. This includes 22,500 cars in the Middle East, of which 6,000 are in the UAE.

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Chrysler, maker of Dodge and Jeep, has announced a recall for as many as four models in as many days. Among the three different recalls, the first one involves the Dodge Caliber and the Jeep Compass, the second involves the Chrysler Voyager minivan, and the third involves the Jeep Wrangler.

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I first asked General Motors’ old PR agency for a long-term test car back in 2005. At the time, they couldn’t comprehend why anyone would need a test car for more than 2 days, let alone some start-up website. Since then, we’ve asked others, and they all rejected us, mumbling something about the “quality” of our audience. But things have changed. Online is in. Chevy design is in. The new GM is in. And the new GM now has cool new PR people. They recently started a long-term test program, and we are only the second people to get a long-termer from them,

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Something rather weird happened with my 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee. After the starter motor blew out late last year, I got a brand new one fitted from the dealer. Then over the winter, my fuel consumption started dropping dramatically. As stated by the trip computer, it went from hovering above 17 litres/100 km down to as low as 15.5 litres/100 km, all without any change in driving style. One could attribute this to many other things, like winter weather or a dying trip computer, but neither can be proven definitively. This wasn’t my first winter with the Jeep, and the trip computer seems to be otherwise working fine.

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This image of what looks like the next-generation Ford Explorer is doing the rounds of the internet. While many believe it is the real deal, we believe it is simply a manipulation of an existing spy shot. Even then, based on the spy shots, this is likely identical to how the new SUV will look like. Said to be debuting in early 2011, it could either be badged as a 2011 or a 2012 model.

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