THE DAILY BLADE: Imported From Detroit
The new Chrysler 200 commercial defiantly states: “We will not be asking you to lower your standards to buy a car made here. We will, in fact, be asking you to raise them.”
It could be that The Stiletto’s particularly persnickety, but a car that catches fire during normal use doesn’t quite meet her standards. That’s just what happened to the carmaker’s 2011 Dodge Durango Citadel during this year’s Cherry Blossom Parade in Washington D.C., reports AOL’s AutoBlog:
A local NBC affiliate reports that the newly designed SUV began to spew black smoke while towing a float on the parade route. After the hood was propped up the black smoke turned into a full-on car-b-que that engulfed the engine bay in flames. The local fire department, which was likely already participating in the parade, later came and doused the blaze, but the incident prolonged the parade by about 15 minutes. …
[H]aving a brand-new SUV burst into flames in such a public way has to have Dodge reaching for the Mylanta. Either way, points to the band for continuing to play on!
Still, considering the competition, there’s nowhere to go but up. The Wall Street Journal blog Driver’s Seat reports that the steering wheel of a Government Motors car actually came off in the hands of the driver:
[I]t happened to at least one driver of a 2011 Chevrolet Cruze compact car last month, and General Motors Corp. is recalling 2,100 of the cars as a result. …
In documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the car maker said it traced the problem with that particular car to a case in which the wrong wheel was put in a car and replaced later in the assembly process with the correct one. But the new wheel wasn’t attached properly, the car maker says.
When the wheel separated from the steering column, the driver was able to get the car to the side of the road safely, and the company says it has tested other cars from the production run and found no similar problems. General Motors says it believes this was an isolated incident.
Chevrolet says it has changed the production process to make sure the machine used to attach the steering wheel can accommodate only the correct one. The company is recalling cars that were built before it made the change.
Meanwhile, you may need to fiddle with the dial that adjusts your standards after checking out this post on Wired magazine's Autopia blog offering a list of cars not imported from Detroit that you cannot bring into the US no matter how much money you have because of government regulations.
Same Thing, Only Different: Part VII
Dennis Quaid On How He Blew It—Straight Up His Nose.
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White-Nose Syndrome Found in Lawrence County"
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Asked And Answered
A Lawsuit’s Unusual Question: Who Is a Man?
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Talking Heads Frontman ‘Feeling Very Manly’ After Winning Song-Use Suit Settlement from Ex-Fla. Gov
- ABA Journal, April 12, 2011
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