1998 Honda Accord on 2040-cars

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Honda, Mercedes top KBB brand image awards [w/video]

Kelley Blue Book has announced the winners of its 2014 Brand Image Awards, which look at brands with "attributes that capture the attention and enthusiasm" of customers in the market for a new car.
The award is divided up into luxury brands and everyone else non-luxury brands, with a number of sub-awards in each group. There's also a single award for truck brands. Taking the crown for the best everyman brand (for the second year in a row) is Honda, while Mercedes-Benz was the king of the luxury brackets. Ford, meanwhile, had the best image among pickup buyers.
Honda was also named the most trusted brand among shoppers, while Kia, GMC, Mini and Chevrolet also snagged awards for value, refinement, performance and styling, respectively. Secondary winners in the luxury ranks include Lexus, Buick, Porsche and Jaguar. Mercedes was also named the most refined luxury brand.

Japanese spark plug giant NGK pleads guilty to price fixing, to pay $52M fine

The ongoing investigation by the Department of Justice into price fixing in the automotive industry has nabbed one more company breaking the law. Japanese parts giant NGK Spark Plug Company agreed to plead guilty to a felony count of pricing fixing and bid rigging in the in the US District Court in Detroit. Its punishment is a $52.1 million criminal fine and to continue to cooperate with the DOJ's sleuthing into the problem.
According to the DOJ, NGK conspired to fix prices on spark plugs, standard oxygen sensors, and air fuel ratio sensors on vehicles from major automakers in the US, including the former DaimlerChrysler, Honda and Toyota, in a scheme that ran from at least January 2000 to July 2011. The charge claimed that the company and its co-conspirators held meetings where they agreed on bids and price quotes that were submitted to the automakers.
With the latest plea, the DOJ has caught 28 companies and 26 executives for price-fixing and bid rigging in the auto parts industry, and they have collected $2.4 billion in criminal fines. In 2013, the feds brought nine Japanese suppliers down at once, to collect $740 million. Scroll down to read the DOJ's complete announcement of the case.

Honda recalling 25k Odyssey minivans over side curtain airbags

Honda's refreshed 2014 Odyssey (now with 100-percent more vacuum power!) launched last year, but is now being called back for issues related to the side curtain airbags. According to Honda, 24,889 Odyssey minivans are affected by an issue that may cause the Supplemental Restraint System (SRS) warning light to illuminate or, even worse, cause the side airbags to not deploy in a crash.
What went wrong, exactly? We'll let Honda explain:
During assembly of the electrical coupler for the side curtain airbag on the passenger's side of the vehicle, it is possible that the shorting terminal, which is used to prevent deployment of the airbag before it is assembled into the vehicle, may have been damaged. A damaged shorting terminal may illuminate the Supplemental Restraint System (SRS) indicator as well as prevent the side curtain airbag from deploying during a crash, increasing the risk of injury.