Agreed, no lumbar or bolstering. Just a flip up church pew.

Nah, I don’t know about livery companies, they’d rather have Navigators and Escalades. This is for old retired folks in Oro Valley who still have to have a van “because we’re used to it now and they’re just so nice to have!”

‘21 Pacifica Pinnacle

‘21 Pacifica Pinnacle

Datsun was silly because it went against the grain of how you’re supposed to market a value-centric sub-brand. What Renault has been done which seems relatively successful is to market two brands in more affluent markets, one standard and one value-oriented, then take the cars from the value brand and slap the logo of…

Oops, I thought it got the later SI6 T6 from the XC70 but it looks like it never did (i.e. the turbo version of the 3.2); that one is a pretty punchy powerplant. In Polestar tune it gets 325hp and 354lb-ft which soundly beats the V8's 311hp and 325lb-ft, though its standard 300hp and 325lb-ft are pretty on the money… Read more

mitsubishi 

I hear the 3.2 six is also pretty slow, so I really can’t imagine what it’s like with any of the fives. The T6 I’d say would be the baseline of acceptability, with the V8 the impractical but fun choice (same figures as the T6 but more noise and fuel).

I don’t think it’s considered low, they call it small frontal because it’s a collision with only 25% of the frontal area of the car as opposed to moderate frontal which is 50%.

and that’s how you small frontal, kids

What a gorgeous landscape! It looks like the Alps of Asia, just stunning! Strangely surreal to see the middle-American Highlander in the context of all of that, but such is the nature of grey-market imports; I find it weird that Toyota Mongolia doesn’t carry them, I would have thought a soft-roader cheaper than a… Read more

They didn’t bring the Kona because it’s a size larger, just like they didn’t include the Kia Seltos or Nissan Rogue Sport.

Is that a FWD Monoposto, perhaps the only one ever made?

That’s a much better break-down, thank you. I read the FREP article back and forth many times and all I got was that the transmission behaved a bit differently, Ford programmed it to act more “torque converter-ey”, and that just created clutch failures, nothing more (besides a few shitty TCMs at the beginning of… Read more

not a fighter, just nearly as good for a cheaper price: C&D, M/T, etc. Read more

Ok, but logically a lower-budget Macan, theoretically, would be slower, no? If it was every bit the same as the Macan, the title would be like “The 2020 Mazda CX-30 is a Macan”. I dunno, it looks like you’re searching for pointless pedantry. I’ll bet you didn’t like it when auto publications called Accords poor-man’s… Read more

I think you’re misunderstanding the segment; your RX is a size above, the CX-5 is more of a modern equivalent and it offers the 250-hp turbo 2.5 that you’d be after, not to mention a 2.2 diesel which is what the rest of the world would buy for towing. The CX-30's 186 hp is plenty for its segment; in fact, it’s the… Read more

See, that’s what I’ve experienced driving them as well, but I also read somewhere that they essentially programmed the TCM to slip the clutches as much as possible because early customers complained about the jerkiness when it shifted more traditionally. I’m not sure if that’s founded or not, but it sounds a bit like… Read more

I have, quite a few times. 

I’ve read that intimately, it sounded to me that the DCT worked decently until Ford hampered it with a software upgrade to soften shifts which just ate clutches left and right. Besides a few faulty TCM’s, I haven’t really seen any solid data figures on failure rates which is what I’ve been hoping for.