Camaro driving tip: Skip the drive thru

Most of us don’t have the foresight or sufficient time to include a trip through the drive-through ATM in our new car test-driving regimen. But after a quick stop at the ATM for coffee money this morning on the way to work, I’m suggesting prospective Chevrolet Camaro buyers might want to give it a try. (Watch our Camaro video review.)
 
For openers, lets talk about windows. The Camaro’s don’t open much. They’re low, like the rest of the car, and don’t provide a lot of room for unfolding an arm. Or reaching the ATM buttons. Or even seeing them.
 
Visibility in general is not a Camaro strong suit, but when you can’t see the ATM you’re sitting next to, it takes a lack of a view to new heights. Or lows. I had to crane my neck just to see where the machine spat out my receipt, let alone reach it. And forget about opening the long, wide door to make things easier. There’s no room for that, either.
 
None of this is likely to be enough to be a deal breaker for anyone considering a new Camaro, nor should it be. Our Camaro SS has plenty of virtues, from it’s strong, smooth, 425-hp V8 to its combination of good handling and decent ride for a musclecar. But if your motoring plans ever include a drive-through ATM or stop for a cheeseburger and bucket-sized beverage, you might want to wait to see if Chevy introduces a convertible model.
 
As for me, I’ll just skip the drive-thru for my coffee. Passing 20 ounces of hot Columbian Supremo through that window is just asking for trouble.
 

—Jim Travers

See our full Chevrolet Camaro review and ratings (available to online subscribers.)

2010 Cadillac CTS – Flash-to-pass, part 3

Sometimes we wonder why is it so hard for some companies to do something that everybody else does as a matter of course. Nearly two years ago we took GM to task for a flaw on the very nice 2008 Cadillac CTS. That car lacked a flash-to-pass headlight feature. GM promised to correct that, and they have--partially.
 
The omission affected CTS versions with bi-xenon headlights which come on the Premium trim line.
 
We just purchased a new CTS sedan with the direct-injection 3.6-liter V6, Premium package and FE2 suspension.
 
Indeed, GM has not only added the flash-to-pass feature but notes triumphantly that it didn’t even cost them any money. The feature was there all along but it was disabled, GM explains, for bulb-longevity reasons. Frankly, the longevity argument doesn’t cut much ice. Xenon lights already have a much longer life expectation than halogens. But here’s the real caveat: The CTS’s new flash-to–pass is momentary. The high beam duration is merely one second regardless of how long you squeeze the left stalk. If you hold it with the intention of maintaining high beams for several seconds, you still get only one single flash that goes off after the one second, which is unlike almost any other car. You might have to blip the stalk multiple times to get an inattentive driver’s attention.
 
Examining the headlight unit reveals that there is no dedicated bulb for the flash-to-pass feature, which other bi-xenon systems employ. The CTS instead only briefly triggers the regular high beam. That’s a creative (read: cheap) way to get off the hook. We’ll take it for now, but it’s no free pass. Hopefully, it won’t take another two years to get a continuous flash-to-pass.

See the related posts:
The stalk that broke the Cadillac CTS' back
No flash-to-pass for Cadillac CTS, part 2
 
—Gabe Shenhar

Garmin Nuvifone 2.0 – The road it should travel

The long-awaited Garmin Nuvifone has arrived, and it may be too late. When Garmin puffed out its chest a year ago that it was boldly entering the smart-phone arena with a touchscreen device that promised to navigate as well as a PND, it seemed quite exciting. After all, most cell phones offered just server-based navigation solutions for a fee that were wrought with compromises and the mighty iPhone did not have turn-by-turn navigation.. Oh, how the world has changed in the months since. (See our full Garmin Nuvifone G60 review.)
 
As we have chronicled over the summer, Navigon withdrew from the portable navigation device (PND) market in the United States to focus its efforts on software, and it delivered one of the first nav apps for the iPhone. TomTom diversified its portfolio with an increased emphasis on connected PNDs and the most ambitious iPhone nav solution to date, complete with a receiver- and speaker-fitted cradle. And Garmin? Oh, they are just bringing to market what would have been big stuff last year.
 
In fairness, Garmin continues to evolve its PNDs, but the Nuvifone is underwhelming and mistimed. We have completed our testing, and while the Nuvifone G60 provides excellent basic guidance, it is expensive and short on features. On the business side, the most unfortunate element is that it will be sold alongside the iPhone; both devices are sold exclusively through AT&T. Adding further insult, AT&T ranks low in most cities in our latest cell-service ratings.
 
At an AT&T store, a customer can choose from the $300 Nuvifone G60 (factoring a $100 rebate) with 4GB of memory or an iPhone 3GS with 16 GB for $200. For that price, the Nuvifone includes a mount and nav software. Both devices need a car charger. But the iPhone has the app store, with several good applications to choose from, with prices ranging from $5 to $100. And we have seen these apps improve rapidly, providing free upgrades to customers. Plus, there are a few thousand other cool apps readily available, as well.
 
The Nuvifone of tomorrow
What I’d like to see is Garmin rapidly move the Nuviphone into a unique niche, tapping its broad GPS-device experience and appeal to its core, active-lifestyle customer base.
 
My recipe for surviving in this obscenely competitive market:

• The Nuvifone needs to not mimic the basic Nuvi 265, but the Nuvi 885T. Aim high. Throw in all the software features like reality view, then go further with voice recognition.
• Having add-on maps for other countries is nice, but the core Garmin audience is in the United States. Port over maps for hiking with topography and blue water maps, as illustrated above.
• Offer a ruggedized version that is water and scratch resistant.
• Embrace geographic-based social networking with Ciao!, as on some other recent Garmin devices.
• Push geocaching to the next level, tying together the “guided tour” concept explored on other devices, with geo-tagging. Geocache instructions could include tagged images as clues, and the electronic treasure hunts can be larger in scale.
  
• Tie into sports, allowing data to be gathered, transferred, and shared with running, bicycle, and motorcycle-focused devices.
• Develop an add-on application for measuring automotive performance, such as acceleration and braking. Bonus points for an OBDII code reader, especially a wireless system that uses a Bluetooth transmitter.
• Sell the Nuvifone with other carriers with better service and thereby eliminate the side-by-side comparison with the iPhone in stores.

Where the iPhone benefits from the creative third-party software developers, Garmin can leverage its internal strengths. There is no larger consumer-focused GPS company in the United States. Garmin is the Microsoft of GPS, and the Nuvifone is its Zune (MP3 player). In this sector, Gamin runs the risk of being outdone by Apple in like fashion.

Well, that's my take. What do you think Gamin could do to compete?

  —Jeff Bartlett

See our reviews of AT&T Navigator, iGo My Way, Gokivo, Navigon Mobile Navigator, Sygic Mobile Maps, TomTom iPhone application, and X Road G-Map for iPhone.

For more information on portable automotive GPS navigation systems, see our Ratings, first looks, and buying advice and watch our video guide. Discuss GPS devices in the forums.

Pet Peeve: Audi Q5 – The maddening key

As you know, we all drive the test cars not only on the track, but in our day-to-day lives as well. We drive the cars to the grocery store, the doctor’s office, and to fulfill our share of car pooling to kids’ soccer practices. This adds to the all-important “what’s it like to live with” section of our final write up.
 
Last night I drove the Audi Q5. In our tests, we praised its quiet, well-finished cabin; comfortable ride; strong V6 engine; and very un-SUV like handling. But, for me, the absolute deal-breaker and argument against buying one (at least this one) is the infuriating ignition key.
 
You see, Audi, similar to many high-end manufacturers, uses a blocky, all-in-one ignition key. But in no way does it resemble a traditional key, such as a house key. Instead, these new style keys are a bit larger than a Hot Wheels car, and not nearly as much fun. The ignition mechanism works by the key being inserted into a slot and then pressed to start the car. However, many who have driven our Q5 found it annoying, compared to the typical transponder keep-it-in-your-pocket key common to this class.
 
But my frustration with it boiled over last night when I drove my boys to their Cub Scouts pack meeting. When I pulled into the school lot and put the Q5 in Park, I couldn’t remove the key to shut down the car. Which left me no choice but to then push it in again, restarting the car and try again. I had to restart the car four times before it magically released from the dashboard. We walked into the meeting late. I was not amused. The same thing happened on the way home. And on the way into work this morning.
 
This was similar to our experience with the last Audi A4 we tested, which had a similar set-up. When we brought the issue up at a meeting with Audi, we were told a change is in place for 2010 models. I’ll believe it what I can pull the key out the first time.
 
For years, Audi’s slogan has been “advancement through technology.” I’m sorry, but this system is not a step forward. What is the point of taking something relatively simple (like shutting off the car) and making it complicated? How did the designers and engineers convince upper management that adding extra steps to a simple task was good idea? We criticized recent Audis in our evaluations for unnecessarily complicated controls. For example, selecting a seat heater or fan speed setting requires pushing a button and then dialing in the setting you want. Other cars do this with a single button press.
 
When I think of how much better cars are than they ever were, I think of stability control; antilock brakes; curtain air bags; and engines and components that run reliably for 100,000-plus miles. Growing up in the 1970s, I never thought I’d see the day when a 400-hp Chevrolet Corvette would get 31 mpg on the highway. Stuff like this gives me hope that the wonderful world of cars keeps evolving in ways I couldn’t dream of.

But this Audi ignition key is so infuriating that I don’t want to drive it. And in my view, it is a regression of common-sense engineering.

Read our full Audi Q5 road test (available to online subscribers).

—Mike Quincy

How I learned to stop worrying and like distance-sensing cruise control

Cruise control. To listen to some people describe it, you’d think it was a scourge put upon us by evil doers. Most naysayers dislike it because they feel the system takes away their feeling of vehicle control. To me it’s a way of saving fuel (and keeping money in my pocket) and making my right foot happy.

I like traditional cruise control of the Ron Popeil variety: Set it and forget it. But the distance-sensing systems? Well they’ve always left me cold, unable (in my opinion) to balance a safe following distance with leaving too much room behind the car in front. They left an open space that literally beckoned other drivers to hop right in. Drivers cutting in then resulted in my vehicle throwing out an anchor and rapidly slowing down, taking away momentum and annoying me and the drivers following in my wake.

After driving our Infiniti FX35 and Volvo XC60, however, I’ve come around to giving the distance-sensing systems less of the Rodney Dangerfield treatment, even if I still can’t embrace them with open arms.

The XC60 treated me well on a long trip from Connecticut to southern New Jersey. It still had its annoyances, particularly when rounding a bend and passing cars. The radar would sometimes sense the cars in the other lane and immediately slow the Volvo, as if it couldn’t recognize steering input and thought I was mindlessly going to plow into them.

But on a limited-access road like the NJ Turnpike, the system worked well. I latched on to the car ahead of me and followed for miles and miles. It resulted in a comfortable trip and better than the alternative of not using cruise control at all.

Our Infiniti had a system I liked even better. It allowed the driver to toggle between both types of cruise. The initial setting was for distance sensing, but holding down the button activated traditional cruise control. This, I feel, is better for roads and highways with more frequent access points. The CT Turnpike has exits every mile (or more frequently) in some parts. The constant merging and dicing of traffic makes distance-sensing cruise frustrating to use in this scenario, where I find using regular cruise control to be comfortable.

While I won’t be running out to buy a car with a distance-sensing system anytime soon, a vehicle with a toggle-type system certainly wouldn’t turn me off.

—Jon Linkov

Pet peeve: Poor line of (In)sight

That the Insight hasn’t made a positive impression on us here at Consumer Reports isn’t newsworthy anymore. I personally wasn’t impressed with it during my time driving it, finding it very rough when the engine automatically shut off at stoplights. I also think the Insight is noisy, cramped, too slow, and overall unpleasant. But the coup de grâce for me is the relationship between seating, the dash, and the steering wheel.

I’m 6-feet tall and prefer to sit relatively upright with the seat cushion as low to the floor as possible. With the Insight, no matter how I adjusted the seat and steering wheel positions, I ran into a conflict between comfort and seeing the high-mounted digital speedometer.

In order to see the speedometer I had to lower the steering wheel…which resulted in my hands or the wheel rim impacting my thighs. If I raised the wheel enough to clear my legs, I no longer can see the speedometer, as shown in the photo.

Perhaps I’m outside of the percentile range of people to which Honda sized the car. But I don’t think I’ve ever come across a vehicle that forced me to make such a compromised choice between being able to comfortably and safely control the car and actually see all of the gauges.

—Jon Linkov

Pet Peeve: OdoClub encourages driving and dealer loyalty

Most press releases that float over the transom sail quietly into the digital trash can, but one announcing the launch of OdoClub got my attention. And irked me.

The basic premise for OdoClub is to apply the frequent flyer business model to car ownership. By driving, club members accumulate points that can be redeemed at participating dealerships. This will breed loyalty to the dealers and ensure continuous two-way communication between the dealers and customers. Not a bad idea, really.

However, the concept of encouraging people to drive more goes against the greening of transportation. Ill timed, this business and marketing message flies in the face of the cash for clunkers (CARS) program, where the government and auto industry are encouraging gas guzzlers to be traded in for more fuel-efficient models – at significant taxpayer expense – in order to stimulate the economy (including local dealerships), reduce our national dependence on fossil fuels, and reduce emissions.

So, while the nation takes a bold step to green the national fleet, with an eye to increasingly stringent fuel economy standards over the next few years and advancing green technology, here is a club dedicated to encouraging driving? More miles, more points. Drive, baby, drive.

It could be said that this just rewards people for what they do anyway. It could also be said that selling beer at drive-through concessions would be convenient, or an on-the-go texting program to provide discounts for multitasking motorists would cut cell phone bills.

Clever idea. Wrong time. No thanks.

—Jeff Bartlett

Pet peeve: Automotive pop-up goes the weasel

I’m on auto manufacturer’s Web sites all the time. I’m checking data, looking up prices, figuring out which safety equipment is available on which trim lines, and configuring cars to buy for our test program.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why any Web site has a pop-up when you try to use the configurator, rather than just have it embedded within the page. Don’t most people use browsers that block pop-ups? Do you know anyone who says, “Oh, cool. I was hoping for an unwanted advertisement for the all-in-one doohickey that promises to solve all my problems…I think I’ll buy 10 of them.”

Aren’t pop-ups, like, so 1990s?

If there’s a pop-up that you actually want to see – such as a car configurator – my version of Internet Explorer makes me temporarily disable the blocker. Some browsers require that you hold down “Ctrl” to allow pop-ups. I admit, that’s not so hard. But why make me go through an extra step when I’m trying to buy your product? (Audi doesn’t even have a “Build your own” link on its homepage – you have to chose a model and then click on the configurator before the pop-up explodes.)

Here are the list car companies that, for whatever reason, require a pop-up so you can “build” a car:

• Audi
• Cadillac
• Porsche
• Saab
• Saturn
• Smart

Am I the only one who finds this practice annoying? Use the comments feature below and weigh in on this.

—Mike Quincy

Volkswagen makes the Rabbit name disappear

Taking a page from Ford's marketing playbook, Volkswagen has announced that the next generation of its Rabbit hatchback will once again be called the Golf. This news comes when the Easter Bunny is due for his annual appearance.

(In 2006, we highlighted the return of the Rabbit nameplate. And just last year, we were explaining how the Golf became the Rabbit?!)

Like Ford did when it rolled out the new Five Hundred sedan in 2005, VW reached into its own past to come up with the Rabbit moniker in 2006. And like Ford, VW has apparently determined that resurrecting a name that’s a few decades old won’t necessarily deliver a spike in sales.

That’s not altogether surprising. The Rabbit name may resonate with some buyers, but probably not the youthful ones VW was hoping for. Baby boomers may have memories of a Rabbit from the 1970s, but most boomers aren’t buying entry-level hatchbacks anymore. And even their Rabbit memories may be less of the warm and fuzzy kind, and have more to do with spotty reliability and premature rust. Younger buyers probably couldn’t care less. 

Maybe, if VW’s marketing types can’t make up their minds, they should combine the old and new and call it the Grabbit. That has a nice ring to it and might even impart a sense of urgency with buyers to run out and get one before they're all gone. Or they could try Rolf. Lots of people like to personalize their cars with a name anyway, and Rolf has kind of a friendly, yet Germanic sort of feel.

Carmakers keep dredging up names and even entire cars from their glory days, with varying degrees of success. Maybe a better idea would be to just concentrate on good, safe, reliable products. For some of us, fun to drive is also a plus.

The outgoing Rabbit delivers on all those points, and now that reliability has improved, it’s a recommended model and a far better car than the original. Let’s hope the new Golf, due to be introduced at the New York auto show next week, delivers as well.

—Jim Travers

Toyota Corolla – There is such a thing as too barebones

Our manual transmission-equipped Toyota Corolla is, to put it bluntly, an odd car. One of several stick shifts we purchased to see how manuals compared to automatics for fuel mileage, the Corolla is your basic stripper model. No frills here.

Manual door locks and windows are part of the package, suggesting Toyota believes the few drivers who still know how to work a clutch and shift gears like to keep busy. In spite of this, you can’t get one in the Northeast without power, heated mirrors. Nice to have, but odd to include on this least expensive of Corollas. And they drive the price up.

Where things get weirder is that Toyota, an automaker known for building cars more popular with drivers who prefer to think of automobiles as appliances rather than something that might be enjoyable to drive, has truly outdone itself with this thing. Our Corolla has got to be the least engaging stick to drive since Chevy discontinued the Biscayne with a “three on the tree” in the ‘60s.

The clutch and shifter have no feel whatsoever, and that makes the Corolla not only unrewarding to drive, it makes it difficult to do so smoothly. Methinks anyone who buys one might question their decision, and probably go back to automatics forever. Maybe that’s part of the plan.

That said, I grew to like the Corolla after spending a few days in it. The clutch actually makes a good match for the shifter, steering, and brakes; they don’t have any feeling either in traditional Toyota fashion. The engine willingly revs to the 6500 rpm redline, and sounds kind of good doing so. The manual locks and windows don’t faze me much, either, but I can understand why colleagues with kids have objections.

My colleague Jeff Bartlett said, “Dealing with manual locks drove my family nuts, turning basic errand running into a Three Stooges-type affair. However, the manual windows were a real treat to my young boy. Once we explained how they crank down, he asked where the button was to put them up... He found it endlessly entertaining, and we missed the electric lockout button.”

Really, this is a car built for nobody. If you want a manual transmission, you want to enjoy shifting. Chances are, if you want a Corolla you don’t want to shift for yourself. And if you want to shift for yourself, chances are you don’t want a Corolla. And either way, you probably want power windows. For another couple of grand, you can get a Corolla so equipped, and with an automatic. The fuel mileage is about the same.  Trust me, the upgrade is worth it.

See our latest small cars test group. And research the Toyota Corolla with complete Ratings in the model (available to online subscribers).
 
—Jim Travers