1998 Ford Mustang Gt Convertible 2-door 4.6l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

2015 Ford Focus

Sitting down at the pre-drive briefing with Ford engineers ahead of sampling the refreshed 2015 Focus, water bottles clinked as we wet our whistles before Q&A. While pouring a glass, we noticed something stamped on the bottle label: "1L." One liter. We were palming the exact displacement of the EcoBoost engine our group was about to drive. This was undoubtedly coincidence (such bottles litter every conference and dinner table in Europe) but it served to drive home just how small the total swept volume of Ford's wunderkind powerplant really is. It's tiny.
Of course, this isn't our first run-in with the little triple - we've sampled its turbocharged charms before in Ford's smaller Fiesta. At that time, we found it had plenty of poke for the subcompact, but the larger C-segment Focus carries around another 450 pounds or so and pushes a wider profile through the air. Would the three-cylinder have the stuffing to make the most of the Focus' athletic chassis, or would it be a letdown? Would it be the same as it was when we tested it in a Euro-spec Focus a couple of years ago? There was nothing left for it but to head out on the bucolic roads surrounding Versailles the day after the Paris Motor Show and find out for ourselves.

2015 will be the biggest year ever for cars at CES

Like the SEMA Show, major automakers are paying increasing attention to the CES, with 2015 expected to be one of the most auto focused yet. Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota, General Motors, Hyundai, Mazda, Audi, BMW and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will all be in attendance when CES 2015 kicks off next week, taking up a record-breaking 165,000 square feet of space at the Las Vegas Convention Center. "We've come a long way from a single car on a carpet," Ford's Alan Hall told Bloomberg. Unlike SEMA, or a more traditional auto show, like the upcoming festivities in Detroit, CES doesn't necessarily focus on entire cars or the way they perform, but on the way our technology will interact with vehicles, and in how those vehicles will deliver information to drivers. "CES has become a major launch point for a lot of the big automakers," IHS tech analyst Mark Boyadjis told Bloomberg. "CES is a way for them to get on a global stage for technology." As for what kind of wares automakers will trot out in Las Vegas, we already know that BMW will show off an autonomous i3 electric car that can navigate its way through a multistory car park and can be hailed via a smartwatch app. According to Bloomberg, Hyundai will show off its own smartwatch app for the Genesis sedan, while Audi and Mercedes-Benz will show off autonomous vehicles next week. Automakers won't be the only companies looking to capitalize on CES. Tech firms, like chipmaker Nvidia, are becoming increasingly involved in the automotive game and will be in town showing their wares off to OEMs. "Two years ago, our booth would have been filled with PCs and people playing video games," Danny Shapiro, Nvidia's senior director for automotive business, told Bloomberg. "This year we made a strategic decision to shift the focus of the booth on automotive and de-prioritize some of the other things." Needless to say, you can expect to see a lot of news out of Las Vegas come next week. Stay tuned. News Source: BloombergImage Credit: Julie Jacobson / AP CES Audi BMW Chrysler Fiat Ford GM Hyundai Mazda Toyota Volkswagen Technology CES 2015

Ford and Lincoln recall about 170,000 vehicles over defective rear-view camera

Ford and Lincoln have jointly issued a safety recall that includes nearly 170,000 vans and SUVs built between the 2018 and 2023 model years. The vehicles included in the campaign are equipped with a rear-view camera whose image can cut out while the driver is backing up. Assigned recall number 23V-598 by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the campaign includes the following cars: 7,649 units of the 2020-2023 Aviator fitted with the standard rear-view camera and built from October 19, 2019, to August 17, 2023. 70,600 units of the 2018-2021 Navigator fitted with the 360-degree camera and built from March 16, 2017, to December 23, 2021. 66,740 units of the 2022-2023 Transit fitted with either camera system and built from February 26, 2021, to August 17, 2023. 24,468 units of the 2021 Bronco fitted with the 360-degree camera and built from September 23, 2020, to December 22, 2021. Ford explains that the defect is present in all of the 169,277 vehicles included in the campaign. While these are different cars equipped with different technology, they all suffer from the same problem. The company explains that "customers may intermittently experience either a rear camera blue image or a full blue or black image on the SYNC [infotainment system] screen when the vehicle is placed in reverse, or when the 360-degree view is selected and available." It adds that losing the camera's image while backing up increases the risk of the crash. The cause of the problem varies from model to model. Ford has narrowed it down to the camera hardware, the wiring retention, and the Image Processing Module - V (IPMB) software. It adds that "fretting corrosion causes tin oxide formation on the internal camera connector due to [a] thermally-induced micro-movement between the tin-plated contact surfaces," and that the rate of tin oxide accumulation depends on factors such as the temperature and the humidity. It has also traced some of these issues to a problem during the manufacturing process. Ford will begin notifying owners of affected vehicles by mail on October 2. When parts are available, owners will be asked to bring their van or SUV to an authorized dealer so that a technician can replace the rear-view camera. Transit models included in the campaign will also receive a software update. Owners who have already paid to fix the problem can claim a reimbursement until June 30, 2024. This isn't Ford's first rear-view camera-related recall.