From the Passenger's Seat

Hey readers! It's been a long time since I've posted on this blog. In fact, it's been more than half a year. I'm really sorry to the negative three people who read this blog regularly, but here is a new post! School is finally winding down, so I thought that I'd review the new Accord my family bought last September and give an update on how it's doing.  In the highly-competitive, yet stagnating, field of midsize family sedans, the Accord has reigned as the best or second-best seller for many years. After a controversial eighth generation that ran from 2008 to 2012, the ninth generation is considered Honda's comeback to producing quality products. 

It is an exciting day for me! As the title says, my family bought a new car! We haven't done that since 10 years ago when we bought our 2006 Nissan Sentra.  There it is, parked on the driveway right after we drove home from the dealership. Isn't the color so nice? The interior is beige, too! It's the perfect color combination.  Getting that car to be on our driveway, though, was a laborious and drawn-out task. We started car-shopping yesterday morning, when my dad and I test drove the Camry and Accord.  At first, we headed for the Ford dealer intending to test drive the Taurus and Fusion, but it shunned us by saying that it was "too busy for test drives." There were maybe two other people at the dealership then. Whatever.  We then headed to a semi-rural Honda dealership in search of an Accord. I was expecting it to be loud and firm-riding in traditional Honda fashion. Instead, it impressed me with its solidity. Unfortunately, the specific Accord ...

Happy belated 4th of July to everyone in America! Hopefully, you all had an excellent time grilling some meat or watching fireworks.  I had the opportunity to ride in a friend's Infiniti G37 to and from the Houston Symphony performance and fireworks show, and I thought I'd share some of the impressions I had in the hour or so I spent in his car. Keep in mind that the G37 has been rebadged as the Q40 for the 2015 model year, and will be discontinued after this year. 

Being a car geek, it's almost obligatory for me to visit some automobile assembly line. It just so happened that the Bowling Green, KY Corvette factory was right on our route to Niagara Falls, so Daddy-o and I decided to take an inside look.  GM really makes a show of their prized Corvette. From the Interstate 65, the National Corvette Museum with its colorful roof and giant sign is unmissable. Across the street from the museum are some signs guiding plant visitors down a small road to where Corvettes are born. Once you approach the buildings, you're greeted by a parked Corvette and a painted water dome. 

June 2015 in Acadia NP What an exciting time! The Odyssey has surpassed its 200k birthday!  Okay, it actually hit 200,000 miles in May. I "didn't have the time" to write about it. Now, though, I'm home in Texas on summer vacation just back from a trip to Maine with Daddy-o driving the Odyssey. I literally have all day to write this review.  I'm going to split it up in four sections. First comes how the van drives and rides. Then follows an examination of the interior, what we've done with the car, and finally how the car has held up over the 70,000+ miles my family has driven it.  I've actually already reviewed this car back when we bought it in 2012. For that review, click the link right  here .

This past weekend was the Dallas Auto Show again! Even though I've since moved to Houston in the past year, I still attended this Dallas show because ... I forgot about the Houston show. It was a full day of cars: 4 hours of driving in the morning, 4 hours of being around cars, and then 4 cars of driving back.  What are some of the trends I'm noticing? Interior quality has shot up from what I can remember. Nearly every car had soft touch materials on all the upper door panels. Plus, the newly-redesigned cars all had "stitched" panels to match more intricate shapes and lines. It really makes me want a new car even though I know that my parents are likely the same heaps until forever ... I have to say, I did not enjoy this year's show as much as I did in the past. For whatever reason, auto show attendance multiplied by, like, 500 percent; there was not a single car without some guy poking around in it. Much of my time was wasted standing next to cars waiting for...

It's finally happened. I'm starting to drive a car.  After weeks of drivers' ed and hours waiting in the lobby of the local drivers' license center, I finally have my permit! At last, I can experience a car from behind the steering wheel instead of just sitting in the passenger's seat.  What do I feel about driving thus far? It's nerve-wracking. Familiarizing myself with the sensitivities of the steering wheel, brakes and gas pedal was very challenging. Once I turned onto the neighborhood streets from the parking lot, there was the added element of dealing with other cars. Am I going to hit this car on this turn? Is that woman judging my driving? What if I can't brake in time at that stop sign?  I've only been driving for one day, so it's hard to say what it's really like. However, stay tuned for future driving impressions! In the meantime, enjoy this picture I took of the sky in the parking lot of my high school where I was prac...

Originally, I was hesitant to review this because it's not something many people care to learn about and I don't have any previous truck experience to make comparisons between other models. But after spending 250+ miles sitting in it, I felt obliged to give my opinion. 

See these three new family sedans? What immediate similarity you notice about their faces?  I don't know about you, but they all look like angry fish to me. Or robots, but robots can't feel emotions yet. 

The midsize sedan segment is a hot, competitive one with many entrants vying to generate bloated sales figures. The Ford Fusion does a convincing job of winning me over.  Perhaps the best aspect of the Fusion is how seamless the riding experience is. Driving long distances is a cinch with the Fusion's pleasant balance of noise levels, ride comfort and interior space.  That's not to say the Fusion is especially impressive in any of those areas. The tires over the typical whine over grooved pavement, and wind noise from the side windows could be suppressed better. The suspension is steady and controlled, yet it doesn't blow the passengers away in terms of isolation; bumps are felt somewhat acutely. 

Each year, the Dallas Auto Show includes test drive areas where manufacturers bring cars for potential customers to test drive. This year, Ford, GM and Chrysler and Mazda showed up for test drives. However, Mazda banned people under 18 years of age from riding in their vehicles, making me ineligible to evaluate any Mazdas. As such, I rode as a passenger in the Chrysler 300 John Varvatos Edition, the Chrysler Town & Country Limited, the Chevrolet Cruze Diesel and the 2014 Cadillac CTS.

I know, I know. The Outlander is outdated and irrelevant to today's car market, especially the previous generation. Unfortunately for me, the only options at the rental car lot was this and the Kia Sportage. I had already extensively tested the Kia, so I ended up rolling with the Mitsubishi despite my knowledge of its mediocrity.  The car was not as bad as I expected, but it did have a defining fault: noise. Wind noise, road noise, and engine noise pours into the cabin at any speed. It's bad enough to the point where the turn signal click is not audible at all above 60 miles per hour or so. It was absent of any particularly annoying noises unlike the Passat I last tested, but the sheer volume of noise is astounding.

Since its last redesign, the Passat has garnered mostly praise from automotive journalists for its tight German handling, capacious interior, and solid feel. During my two days with it as a rental car running around Houston with my family, the Passat simply felt like a car. Nothing more, nothing less.  Okay, when it comes to the interior space, the Passat is definitely more. The cabin feels airy, thanks to a nice, large glass area. Legroom is a nonexistent problem in the Passat; it has the space of a flagship luxury sedan. There are two caveats: the floor hump in the second row is rather large for a front-wheel-drive sedan, and the steering wheel is situated noticeably to the right of the center of the driver. Interior quality was alright. Being the base model, our Passat had unattractive silver trim. Other than that, all of the upper door panels are padded, all of the armrests are padded, and none of the plastics were particularly harsh. Volkswagen even throws in an intri...

Well, it's that time of the year where students go back to school, and I am no exception. Since this is my first year of high school, I am super excited and anxious. But with the inevitable assignments and assessments, I feel I should take a break from my blog. The next time I will return will be Monday-Wednesday on Thanksgiving week. Until then, my readers! -Jason L.

As you might be able to decipher from the vehicle name, the Concept X5 eDrive is a plug-in hybrid version of the redesigned 2014 X5. Thinly veiled as a concept, the Concept X5 eDrive is almost sure to go into production as a environmentally-friendly luxury SUV (or SAV in BMW's language).  The big news with the Concept X5 eDrive [what a mouthful!] is its powertrain. There's a conventional turbocharged gasoline four-cylinder engine, and a 95-horsepower electric motor powering the wheels. The combination allows for a zero to 60 acceleration time of under 7 seconds. Driving on electricity alone, you can go 19 miles on a full battery charge and up to 75 miles per hour without wakening the gasoline engine. In slippery conditions, you can drive without worry as BMW's xDrive permanent all-wheel-drive system is there to get you moving.  BMW points out a 74.3  miles per gallon ( or up to 74 MPG, or 62 MPG, or 75 MPG, depending on your source) fuel economy rating on the ...

Do you like the regular 458 Italia, yet yearn for more horsepower and performance? Well, Ferrari has just the extreme car to fulfill your extreme desire! The 458 Speciale is the ultimate trim of the 458 lineup that is street-legal (there is also a track-only 458 Challenge).  Horsepower is bumped to 597, which is 35 more than the base 458 Italia. Peak torque remains at 398 pounds-feet. This makes the 458 Speciale the high-power, naturally aspirated V-8 Ferrari of all time, Ferrari says. Ferrari claims the engine itself, at 133 horsepower per liter of displacement, is the most horsepower-dense naturally aspirated road engine ever. Ferrari cites a 0 to 62 miles per hour acceleration time of 3 seconds flat, and a 0 to 124 miles per hour time of 9.1 seconds.  To enhance the car's handling, dry weight (how much the car weighs without any fluids) is cut to 2844 pounds from 3024 pounds in the base 458. A different algorithm was programmed into the Side Slip angle Control for mo...

After a substancial redesign for the 2013 model year, the 2014 Accord model line remains untouched with the exception of "premium" seat fabric for the Accord LX, and an automatically-dimming rearview mirror that no longer requires you to press a power button to activate it.  The new base price for the Accord sedan is $22745, which represents a $275 price hike to the 2013. The coupe starts at $24415, which also is $275 more than the 2013. Pricing includes a $790 destination charge. The 2014 Accord sedan goes on sale August 22, and the coupe is officially on sale now. The plug-in hybrid version of the Accord is new for 2014. 

While my mother's car is in the shop being fixed, we got a Jeep Patriot as a loaner car to drive for the week. When I saw that the Jeep Patriot was our rental, I was disappointed. I had read that the Patriot is an utterly mediocre vehicle, and I had rock-bottom expectations going in.  It turns out the Patriot is a mediocre car, but mediocrity isn't unexpected for such a cheap SUV. Starting at only $15995 (not including destination), the Patriot is the cheapest crossover/SUV on sale in America today.  The riding experience of the Patriot is underwhelming, mostly because of its stiff and bouncy ride. You get to know the road's imperfections well in the Patriot, which is not a good thing. The bouncy suspension doesn't pay off in the corners, either, where the Patriot leans.  The cabin was surprisingly quiet, though. Granted, many cars are quieter than the Patriot, but tire whine on grooved pavement was kept at a minimum at high speeds. Some low-frequency rumble filte...

After being hit with class-action lawsuits that claim the C-Max was not getting close to the original EPA-rated 47 miles per gallon fuel economy rating, Ford has decided to drop the combined fuel economy rating to 43 miles per gallon.  This moves comes after a hybrid system update to Ford hybrids in an attempt to increase real-world fuel economy.  In addition, Ford will be sending owners of the 2013 C-Max money to compensate for the misleading mileage figures. Current owners will get $550, while lessees will receive $325. No specifics were released on how to obtain the money, but current owners will be sent letters with instructors on the matter.  The mileage discrepancy comes from old EPA "general label rules." Under these rules, a vehicle can carryover another vehicle's fuel economy ratings if the drivetrain and weight are shared. In this case, the C-Max carried over the Fusion Hybrid's ratings.  The 2014 C-Max will be tweaked mechanically and aerodynamic...

To compete with the recent wave of subcompact German crossovers, the BMW X1 and Audi Q3, Mercedes decided to jack-up its hatchback A-Class to form the GLA-Class. A concept version previewed the GLA earlier this year, and the GLA will officially debut in September at the Frankfurt Motor Show.  The GLA-Class is only 173.9 inches long, 71 inches wide, and 58.8 inches tall. That makes it very small; it is 4.4 inches shorter and 8.1 shorter than Mercedes' compact GLK-Class crossover.  While the GLA-Class is small in size, it does not have a modest personality. The exterior styling is best described as extroverted, with dramatic curves and bold shapes. I might also think it's cluttered and a mess, but others might think differently. 18-inch wheels are standard, and 19-inch wheels can be had as well.  T he interior, thankfully, is much more conservative. While I don't think the round air vents match the design, they do give off a high-quality air. The dashboard can be...