Today’s News From the Cars.com Family
A reader wants to know if a towing package can be added to a 2010 Town & Country minivan after the sale, and Ask.car.com finds out. Then, check out PickupTrucks.com’s coverage of the 2010 Work Truck Show in St. Louis. Finally, MotherProof.com reports on driving academies helping to fund after-school programs.
Can a Towing Package Be Added to a 2010 Town & Country Van After the Sale? (Ask.cars.com)
Coverage of the 2010 NTEA Work Truck Show (PickupTrucks.com)
Driving Academy Helps Fund After-School Programs (MotherProof.com)
Building a Better Pothole
With spring around the corner, roads and freeways everywhere are sure to be littered with winter’s potholes, but what if those potholes were easier to avoid?
That’s the idea behind the Safe Street Initiative, dreamed up by students at Milan Polytechnic University in Italy. Their plan is to start at the manufacturing stage and make the lower layer of road asphalt a bright color, such as yellow or orange, so that when the surface breaks, the potholes become easily spotted wounds in the road surface.
The team will test the idea later this year in the small Italian town of Rho, just outside Milan, to see if “the project is viable and cost effective,” according to one of the students. This would likely mean if the cost and trouble of coloring the lower asphalt actually prevents damage to cars on the road (or perhaps allows municipalities to skimp on repairs a bit longer).
British pothole experts — yes, there is such a thing — are skeptical, saying the solution is to prevent potholes in the first place, not just make them more visible.
Designer Potholes (Wheels)
Americans Use GPS to Find Wal-Marts
You probably couldn’t dream up a more stereotypical image of Americans than what GPS provider TeleNav found in its data. The company’s 13 million GPS subscribers used the navigation applications and search functions to find, in order, Wal-Marts, Starbucks, pizza and cheap gas.
TeleNav anonymously collects records of information and search requests sent from mobile devices to computers that answer the questions. This is supposed to help TeleNav figure out how to better serve customers, but in the meantime it gets to find out where its customers are headed most often.
While Wal-Mart and Starbucks were the most popular destinations by far, food became a more regional issue. For instance, in KickingTires' hometown of Chicago, we apparently have a non-stop jonesing for pizza, while in New York, GPS users are more often looking for Chinese food.
When it comes to cheap gas, Phoenix, San Antonio and Cleveland residents are the most interested in saving every last penny.
Our conclusion based on this data is that there has got to be some European sketch comedy show just having a blast with that report.
How to Donate Your Car
If you’re looking to donate your car or truck to charity, Cars.com can help you every step of the way with the Cars.com Vehicle Donation Program. It can help you find the right charity for the cause that most interests you through the Vehicle Donation to Any Charity program (V-DAC).
Even better, it can take you through the donation process step by step and help you find the necessary tax info. Check out the complete page for an easy guide through the details.
Donate a Car (Cars.com)
Cash for Clunkers Sold More Cars Than Previously Thought
The Cash for Clunkers program sold far more cars than even the government thought at first, according to an analysis conducted by the automotive market research company Maritz Research.
Martiz says Clunkers was responsible for 765,000 new vehicles sold. Some skeptics of the program said it simply robbed car sales from future months, but Maritz maintains that this prediction has not materialized and the cars sold never would have left dealer lots without the program.
This goes well beyond previous estimates: The Department of Transportation said the program was responsible for 346,000 vehicles that otherwise wouldn’t have been sold, while Edmunds.com put the number at 125,000.
About 542,000 of the 677,000 vehicles sold under the program were purchased by people who hadn’t planned on buying a new car. An additional 223,000 people who went to dealerships to check out the incentive bought a car even after finding out they didn’t qualify.
Martiz arrived at these figures based on a survey of 36,000 people who bought a new car or truck between July and August 2009, when Cash for Clunkers was under way. The survey points to data that showed nearly 80% of Clunkers customers were long-term car owners trading in vehicles with more than 100,000 miles on them, and half of the trade-ins were more than 10 years old.
In other words, these were people lured strictly by the well-publicized incentive and not those looking for the typical summer cash-back rebate from the automaker.
Cash for Clunkers: Better Than We Thought (CNNMoney)
2011 Nissan NV Commercial Van: First Look
Mike Levine at PickupTrucks.com has a terrific first look at Nissan’s new NV commercial van. It looks like most Ford and GM commercial vans with a Nissan schnoz and Cube-like styling around the boxy back end.
Find out more about the NV, its three configurations and more pictures here.
More Toyota Prius Acceleration Issues Reveal Lack of Fix
Recent incidents with 2004-2009 model year Toyota Prius hybrids have shed new light into the recall process of nearly 6 million Toyota and Lexus cars in the U.S.
Police investigators, Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are looking into Monday’s incident involving a 2008 Prius traveling over 90 mph with a stuck pedal in California. No cause has been determined, but the owner said his Toyota dealer told him his car wasn’t involved in the recall.
Meanwhile, a 2005 Prius in New York accelerated out of a driveway into a stone wall, causing extensive damage to the car, shown above. Police there said they’ve almost ruled out the floormat as the cause of the accident because it was tied to the seat base with plastic ties. That was an early fix that Toyota dealers installed while they waited for a more permanent solution to the problem.
That permanent solution still seems to be in the works for the Prius models. Other models such as the Camry have already received extensive retrofits, including shortening the accelerator pedal and adding a brake override system. Toyota says its solutions for the floormat recall — initiated last fall — are rolling in nature, meaning that some models, like the Prius, still don’t have fixes in place.
Toyota has said the repairs would be rolling from day one — which was over five months ago — so we shouldn’t be surprised. But with all the scrutiny involving congressional hearings, it’s a bit of a shock that so much work remains to be done.
Police Warn About California’s ‘Cool Cars’ Rule
The California Air Resources Board is facing new resistance to its “cool cars” rules, which require cars to have reflective glazing on their windows to reduce solar energy and keep car interiors cooler. Law enforcement is objecting to the rule on the grounds that it will interfere with ankle monitoring bracelets worn by released felons.
Research has shown that the glazing can degrade signals from devices such as cell phones, especially in rural or mountain areas (of which California has both). Ankle bracelets use a similar signal. Police are also concerned that vehicle occupants will have trouble dialing 911 in an emergency.
Toll collectors fear the glazing will make the EZ pass system more troublesome with a poor signal, causing delays or unwarranted tickets.
The new rules are to be finalized May 7, but the growing chorus of objections has put the Air Resources Board in a tough spot. The rule will supposedly save 700,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2020 — the equivalent of taking 140,000 cars off the road for a year.
The rules will be amended in the coming weeks, but the board has not indicated how it will address the types of concerns mentioned, a board spokesman said.
California to Amend ‘Cool Cars’ Rule (Detroit News)
Police Warn About California’s ‘Cool Cars’ Rule
The California Air Resources Board is facing new resistance to its “cool cars” rules, which require cars to have reflective glazing on their windows to reduce solar energy and keep car interiors cooler. Law enforcement is objecting to the rule on the grounds that it will interfere with ankle monitoring bracelets worn by released felons.
Research has shown that the glazing can degrade signals from devices such as cell phones, especially in rural or mountain areas (of which California has both). Ankle bracelets use a similar signal. Police are also concerned that vehicle occupants will have trouble dialing 911 in an emergency.
Toll collectors fear the glazing will make the EZ pass system more troublesome with a poor signal, causing delays or unwarranted tickets.
The new rules are to be finalized May 7, but the growing chorus of objections has put the Air Resources Board in a tough spot. The rule will supposedly save 700,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2020 — the equivalent of taking 140,000 cars off the road for a year.
The rules will be amended in the coming weeks, but the board has not indicated how it will address the types of concerns mentioned, a board spokesman said.
California to Amend ‘Cool Cars’ Rule (Detroit News)
Building a Better Pothole
With spring around the corner, roads and freeways everywhere are sure to be littered with winter’s potholes, but what if those potholes were easier to avoid?
That’s the idea behind the Safe Street Initiative, dreamed up by students at Milan Polytechnic University in Italy. Their plan is to start at the manufacturing stage and make the lower layer of road asphalt a bright color, such as yellow or orange, so that when the surface breaks, the potholes become easily spotted wounds in the road surface.
The team will test the idea later this year in the small Italian town of Rho, just outside Milan, to see if “the project is viable and cost effective,” according to one of the students. This would likely mean if the cost and trouble of coloring the lower asphalt actually prevents damage to cars on the road (or perhaps allows municipalities to skimp on repairs a bit longer).
British pothole experts — yes, there is such a thing — are skeptical, saying the solution is to prevent potholes in the first place, not just make them more visible.
Designer Potholes (Wheels)
