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Ford, Toyota clean up in Best Car For The Money Awards

The U.S. News Best Cars for the Money Awards picks winners by looking at the average transaction price, five-year total cost of ownership, the regard a car has from the automotive press, reliability figures from J.D. Power and Associates and safety data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The result, according to the magazine, is "the best combination of critical acclaim and long-term value."
Ford nabbed six of the 21 categories that received awards this year, the Focus, Fusion, Fusion Hybrid, Taurus, Escape and Edge getting trophies. Toyota and its Lexus and Scion sub-brands took another five, the Tacoma and Tundra owning the two categories given to pickup trucks. The other ten awards were split between Honda with three, Buick with two, and one each for Subaru, BMW, Hyundai, Chevrolet and Mazda.
Follow the link to see all the winners and read about why they were chosen.

GM cars and SUVs recalled for leaking transmission fluid

General Motors is recalling more than 194,000 vehicles from 2018 to 2020 due to transmission fluid leaks. The leaks stem from an auto stop-start component that may have been installed with loose or missing bolts. The leaking fluid can affect the transmission's performance, and if it leaks onto a hot exhaust component, could potentially cause a fire. GM says that to date, it knows of no accidents or injuries related to the defect. The issue affects models from all four GM divisions. From Chevrolet, the affected vehicles are: 2018 Malibu, 2018–2019 Cruze, 2018–2020 Equinox, 2018–2020 Traverse, 2019–2020 Blazer At Buick, the following models are included: 2018–2019 LaCrosse, 2019–2020 Encore, 2019–2020 Enclave, At GMC, the recall includes: 2018–2020 Terrain, 2019–2020 Acadia Cadillac has two affected vehicles: 2019–2020 XT4 and 2020 XT6 The recall is scheduled to begin in mid-December. Owners of the affected vehicles will be contacted. Dealers will inspect the transmission accumulator, and replace those with loose or missing bolts.

2016 Chevy Camaro performance figures released

If you want to make a car faster, there are two sure-fire ways to get the job done – add power and/or reduce weight. Chevy has done both for the 2016 Camaro, putting as much as 455 horsepower into its muscle coupe and shaving a few hundred pounds from every trim. That range-topping power comes courtesy of a 6.2-liter V8 engine, and it's enough grunt to push an automatic-equipped Camaro SS to 60 miles per hour in just 4.0 seconds flat (4.3 seconds with a manual) and down the quarter mile in 12.3 seconds at 116 mph (12.5 at 115 for the stick). Not coincidentally, those acceleration specs, at least on paper, put the V8-powered Camaro SS just above the Mustang GT on the muscle-car pecking order. When the road gets twisty, Chevy claims the Camaro SS can generate as much as .97 g on the skidpad. And, thanks in part to its Goodyear Eagle F1 summer tires, the SS can stop from 60 in as little as 117 feet. We look forward to finding out how nimble the new Camaro feels when compared to its primary competitors. <p>Your browser does not support iframes.</p> Moving down one notch to the 335-hp 3.6-liter V6, properly equipped 2016 Camaro coupes can hit 60 in as few as 5.1 seconds and cover the quarter in 13.5 at 103. Perhaps even more intriguingly, the 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder and its 275 horsepower (the only configuration quicker with a manual transmission, incidentally) can propel the Camaro to 60 in 5.4 seconds and through the 'ol 1320 in 14 seconds flat. That's seriously quick, but buyers comparing the Camaro to the Mustang will find that the EcoBoost 2.3-liter is a bit more powerful (310 hp and 320 lb-ft) and quicker (5.1 seconds to 60). Chevy is making lots of noise about the efforts its engineers went through to shed weight from the 2016 Camaro, going so far as to shave down suspension bolts so that no thread went unthreaded. The weight-saving obsession pays off – base Camaro models are down 390 pounds while the SS model drops 223 pounds over the 2015. The 2016 Camaro SS boasts a power-to-weight ratio of 8.1 lbs per pony, a 14-percent improvement over the last-gen. Even though weight is down, chassis stiffness is said to be up by 28 percent over the fifth-gen Camaro coupe. Also of note: The Camaro is now lighter than the Mustang across the board when comparing like-to-like configuration levels. The 2016 Chevy Camaro starts at $26,695 (including $995 for destination).