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Poor headlights cause 40 cars to miss IIHS Top Safety Pick rating

Over the past few months, we've noticed a number of cars and SUVs that have come incredibly close to earning one of the IIHS's highest accolades, the Top Safety Pick rating. They have great crash test scores and solid automatic emergency braking and forward collision warning systems. What trips them up is headlights. That got us wondering, how many vehicles are there that are coming up short because they don't have headlights that meet the organization's criteria for an "Acceptable" or "Good" rating. This is a revision made after 2017, a year in which headlights weren't factored in for this specific award. This is also why why some vehicles, such as the Ford F-150, might have had the award last year, but have lost it for this year. We reached out to someone at IIHS to find out. He responded with the following car models. Depending on how you count, a whopping 40 models crash well enough to receive the rating, but don't get it because their headlights are either "Poor" or "Marginal." We say depending on how you count because the IIHS actual counts truck body styles differently, and the Infiniti Q70 is a special case. Apparently the version of the Q70 that has good headlights doesn't have adequate forward collision prevention technology. And the one that has good forward collision tech doesn't have good enough headlights. We've provided the entire list of vehicles below in alphabetical order. Interestingly, it seems the Volkswagen Group is having the most difficulty providing good headlights with its otherwise safe cars. It had the most models on the list at 9 split between Audi and Volkswagen. GM is next in line with 7 models. It is worth noting again that though these vehicles have subpar headlights and don't quite earn Top Safety Pick awards, that doesn't mean they're unsafe. They all score well enough in crash testing and forward collision prevention that they would get the coveted award if the lights were better.

Junkyard Gem: 2006 Lincoln Zephyr

The Lincoln Motor Company went all-truck for its North American offerings in the 2021 model year, announcing the death sentence for the Continental and MKZ sedans in 2020. The MKZ was the sibling to the Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan (the latter car discontinued in 2011 when the entire Mercury Division got the axe), but it wasn't called the MKZ for its first model year of 2006. For that one year, it was given a name with deep resonance in the Ford Empire: Zephyr. Here's one of those cars, found in a Denver boneyard recently. Ford's first use of the Zephyr name came when Edsel Ford spearheaded the creation of the futuristic-looking Lincoln-Zephyr for the 1936 model year. The Lincoln-Zephyr packed a flathead V12 engine under its hood, which is the same engine that turned a Model A Ford into a Cadillac-passing hot rod in the 1955 Charlie Ryan song "Hot Rod Lincoln" (the better-known 1971 cover version by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen inaccurately refers to the Lincoln engine as a V8; ex-Commander Cody frontman—and Iggy Pop's high school classmate—Bill Kirchen still makes the V8 claim but he's earned the right by now). The Zephyr name disappeared from the Lincoln lineup after 1942. In 1950, Ford of Britain revived the Zephyr name for use on a Dagenham-built saloon; British Zephyr production continued through 1972, and left-hand-drive versions of the Ford Zephyr were sold in the United States from the 1952 through 1964 model years. Mercury finally got the use of the Zephyr name, for the 1978 through 1983 model years, on the Mercury-badged sibling to the Ford Fairmont. A Chinese-market midsize luxury sedan built by Changan Ford was given the Zephyr Reflection name prior to launch, but it hit showrooms last year as the Lincoln Z. So much history in the junkyard! The saga of the name change from Zephyr to MKZ didn't end with the 2007 model year, though. Members of the Lincoln top brass spent some months insisting stubbornly that the new name should be pronounced "Mark Z" (apparently in reference to the great Lincoln Mark cars of the past or perhaps the brand-new Mark LT pickup), but finally acquiesced to the "Em-Kay-Zee" pronunciation used by everybody else in the United States and the "Em-Kay-Zedd" pronunciation used by the rest of the English-speaking world. The interior of the 2006 Zephyr was quite similar to what you got inside the Fusion and Milan, but with real wood (maple or ebony) trim and standard leather.

Ford recalls 2020-21 Explorer and Lincoln Aviator, 2021 E-Series

Ford announced safety recalls for the 2020-2021 Explorer and Lincoln Aviator along with the 2021 E-Series early Monday. The recalls address entirely different issues.  In the case of the 2020-2021 Ford Explorer and Lincoln Aviator, that issue is motor mount hardware. Specifically, the fasteners that secure the passenger-side motor mount may back out. In Ford's words, this can result in a "loss of power," which is the entirely predictable result of an engine parting ways with the vehicle it powers.  As alarming as that may sound, owners should not have to worry about anything extreme, as the passenger side mount is only one of multiple, and Ford says it is not aware of any incidents that have occurred with vehicles in customer hands. Ford says it impacts only about 1400 examples of the Explorer and Aviator in the States (plus two in Mexico and 65 in Canada) that were built at Chicago Assembly Plant between July 28 and 30, 2020. Ford is in the process of alerting its owners to the recall, and those with affected models will have their mount hardware replaced by their local Ford dealerships free of charge.  The 2021 E-Series is being recalled for a potential heat management issue resulting from improperly aligned thermal insulation on the underside of its engine cover. In vehicles where this insulation was not properly installed so that it reaches all the way to the edges of the cover, the resulting heat bleed can cause high in-cabin surface temperatures, and direct contact them could result in burns.  This is the larger of the two recalls, as Ford says it covers nearly 33,000 examples sold in the United States and Canada. Fortunately, as with the above issue, Ford says it has not been made aware of any customer incidents. Ford says the remedy is a set of insulation patches for the exposed areas.  Related Video: