Purpose

I will try my best to provide detailed info on various cars and what is like to live with them, I have already produced a few for Jaguar-car-forums, I will do my best to be unbiased, but it will be hard for some cars. I will re-produce press releases and copy from other motoring news.

Saturday 6 August 2016

TMW - The Renegade from Jeep is a brilliant car, a great car that is taking the world by storm, and we can see why !

1941 was the year, the second world war was well and truly in full swing and a turn of events that year marked the start of something that would become a world famous name, brand and range of vehicles, now, regardless of where that name came from, that name today is synonymous with off road driving and beating the worst conditions that anyone can throw at it.

That name is Jeep, and the car that we have today is the latest in a long line a great cars, the new Renegade, it is very closely related to the FIAT 500X, with both being built in the same factory in Italy, but where the FIAT has the corporate 500 look, the Renegade is unmistakably a JEEP, you can not mix it up with anything else on the market, because it is those seven slits on the grill, that Jeep's have had since the very first ones, and continue to have 75 years later.


2016 is the anniversary of the first cars and it is the new car that carries the future well and truly on its shoulders, so what is it, well, it is a medium sized two wheel drive car with the 1.4 litre Multiair II engine, pushing out 140bhp, and please, do NOT think that because it is a medium sized car with a small engine that the car has no go, far far from it, Ii was well surprised, pleasantly so, that there is oodles of go in the car, and it keeps on giving, upto and beyond the national speed limit.

The ride is a little hard, well, after all it is a pseudo offroader, but it's not unduly so, and the road noise is nearly non existent, the car grips well on corners, and pulls away with verve, when pushed there is a lovely engine note, thats a little raspy, but it makes it feel like a sporty unit, it also stops really well too,  the car seemed to ooze presence, and in that beautiful blue colour on our test car, it gained a significant amount of looks.

Inside the car and you soon get comfortable, the seats are very firm but keep you in place, you can move the seats and steering wheel about so that you always get a decent comfortable position, with all the buttons and switchgear easily to hand, like most cars these days, a lot of the running of the car is completed via a touchscreen system, and it is no different here, with plenty of options within the screen to play with.

The inside of the car is very airy and you feel like there is a load of space, mainly because there is, the car is box shaped, so you get maximum space, with significant room in the back for three adults to sit in reasonable comfort, the boot space is good too, with the split level you can put smaller items in the bottom, and larger on top, there is loads of nooks and crannies dotted about too, to take bottles, chocolate bars or whatever it is you like to carry around, the glove box is a decent size too, and not forgetting the "secret" under seat storage on the passenger seat, and i dont mean the draw you occasionally get on cars, on the Jeep you can lift up the passenger seat squab, and there is space beneath for items of value, camera's, wallets, purses etc.


Due to the size and nature of the car, you are not going to get very high fuel consumption figures, but the brand claims that this car can achieve :-

  • Urban Cycle             37.2mpg
  • Extra Urban              55.4mpg
  • Combined                 47.1mpg

These figures are achievable, I prefer to see lower figures that you can get, than the inflated pretend ones that no matter how you drive you will still be 30-40% adrift of, the car runs with a 140g/km, not the lowest on the market, but on a par with similar cars, it can achieve with a back wind 0-62 in under 11 seconds, up to a maximum 112 mph, not that we managed to get that high, after all, 70mph is the UK top speed, not that you would know it the way some people drive.
I LOVE THE LITTLE MAN CLIMBING ON THE REAR WINDOW
AND THE JEEP ON THE FRONT WINDSCREEN, IT LOOKS BETTER THAN THE PICTURE SHOWS IT.

The car came with just three options

  • Special Pastel Paint              £600
  • Rear Parking Sensors           £270 
  • Function Pack 1*                   £375     

* The function Pack 1 contains External rear view mirrors with electrical drive folding and defrost, keyless enter 'No Go, Reversible and height adjustable cargo load floor, under seat storage and 230V/50Hz Auxiliary Power Outlet. 

The car we tested with the options added on came to just over £22,000, it equates well against some of it's rivals, but then they do not have the heritage that this brand has, and I suppose it can be classed as America's Land Rover, a quick look on Youtube and you can find some video's of Jeeps doing things that you really could never imagine were possible, where LR's these days you would be nervous about taking your car off road incase it got a little scratch, the Jeep will jump at the chance to show you exactly what it is capable of doing, but remember, this car is only the two wheel drive version, so is less capable than its four wheel drive sibling.

Whether you take the car off road or not, your £22k does get you lots of toys:-

  • 17" Aluminium wheels
  • Ambient lighting
  • Trailer sway damping
  • All Speed traction control
  • Star & Stop
  • 6 airbags
  • Uconnect 5" DAB Radio with touchscreen Sat Nav and Bluetooth
  • Typre pressure management system
  • Electronic Stability control
  • Cruise control
  • Driver seat with electric lumber adjustment
  • Leather wrapped steering wheel
  • Speed limiter
  • Air conditioning
  • ECO Drive
  • Electronic parking brake
  • Electric windows all around

Just to name a few of the options that are featured on the car. 

Over all, the Jeep fits nicely within the range, it is the starter model, and they go up from there until you get to the Cherokee SRT, now thats one car I would love to test, but I digress, the Jeep fills a market it has not been in, and with that it will not compete with itself, but it is hitting the competition, there are loads of these on the roads, I spotted 14 on just one journey, and I may have missed some.

I like the car, very much, I was expecting the usual stereotypes about US cars not able to go round corners, and so on, but this car has smashed those ill founded preconceived notions into millions of pieces, I came away from the car after it went back, wishing I had driven it more, and enjoying the experience a lot more. 

VERDICT

This is a great car, is very capable, bags of room, comfortable, looks like a Jeep should, but performs like a car, and by that i mean, its quiet, frugal, grips the corners, pulls away nicely, and the auto box is brilliantly smooth, as you gently drive along, you can not feel the gear changes, you only know it has changed when you see the rev counter rise and fall, you have awesome amounts of all round vision, some of the best I have been in, to be honest, if your in the market for a capable car, and your budget includes pricing from £17.500, which is the base model price, then you would be getting a brilliant car, just because it is American, do not push it to one side, this is a car to be considered,                                                                                                                                                                        The Motoring World Blog

 Jon Mower                                                                                                                                                                                 


USA SALES JULY - Porsche suffers a humongous 18% drop in sales in July, the SUV's take the brunt of the drop.

  • U.S. Porsche dealers sell 3,878 vehicles in July
After a strong run across the first six months of 2016, Porsche Cars North America, Inc. (PCNA), importer and distributor of Porsche 911, Boxster, and Cayman sports cars, Macan and Cayenne SUVs, and the Panamera four-door sports sedan line-up in the United States, announced July 2016 sales of 3,878 vehicles today. 

This represents an 18 percent decrease in vehicle deliveries compared to July 2015. Year-to-date, sales stand at 30,586 which equates to a year-over-year increase of 2.4 percent.



Sports car demand was strong across the board with Boxster and Cayman model lines each yielding a 36 percent sales increase over last year, with 732 combined sales. The 911 model range delivered 806 vehicles, representing a 3.6 percent gain compared to July 2015.
Collectively, supply changeover from model year 2016 to model year 2017 for SUVs has slowed the ability to meet customer demand – the Macan registered 931 deliveries, representing a 39 percent decrease compared to last year, and Cayenne sales waned by 27.5 percent with 1,067 vehicles delivered. 
Porsche Approved Certified Pre-Owned vehicle sales in the U.S. were 1,426 for July 2016, which is an increase of 13.7 percent compared to the same period last year. Year-to-date CPO sales are 9,792 vehicles, which is an increase of 21.9 percent over 2015.

ModelJuly SalesYear-to-Date

 
2016201520162015
ALL BOXSTER/CAYMAN7325384,0943,726




ALL 9118067785,8335,850



ALL CAYENNE1,0671,4719,0589,474




ALL PANAMERA3423702,5402,862





ALL MACAN9311,5339,0607,781
GRAND TOTALS*3,8784,73030,58629,868

*2015 totals include 918 Spyder sales; 2016 totals include one 918 Spyder sale

USA SALES JULY - The aging range of cars from Mitsubishi just keep on selling, despite recent cheat news.

  • Outlander Sport reported its best July sales ever
  • Total Outlander 2016 sales up 10 percent over 2015
Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. (MMNA) today reported July 2016 sales of 7,890 up slightly from July of last year. Mitsubishi’s family of CUVs, the Outlander Sport and Outlander, led the way with total sales of 5,497, up 10 percent over July 2015.

No matter how aging the range of cars are now, they are still finding record sales, the Outlander and Outlander Sport are the two models that provide the increase, with the Lancer still on "runout" mode, with the final edition of that car doing decent business, the Mirage is a car that has a niche place in the market, for those that want t new car but have no funds to be able to buy anything better, and hybrid model is one that sales in just daft numbers, 20 i-MiEV sales in July is not a decent figure, and that car really needs a big facelift, even Citroen and Peugeot, that also sell a version of the i-MiEV, do not bother marketing them anymore.
The PHEV version of the Outlander large SUV, is the car to own these days, and it does sell in big numbers all over the globe, especially in the UK where it is the biggest hybrid vehicle (by sales volume) and has overtaken the LEAF and Prius.

July
YTD

2016
2015
2016
2015
i‐MiEV
20
12
40
84
Mirage
1280
1553
14453
15054
Lancer
1093
1292
9527
11914
Outlander Sport
3545
3242
20376
21135
Outlander
1952
1769
15428
9225
Total
7890
7868
59824
57412