Safety first

Vehicle safety has been a prominent topic in the news media this year, mostly from the Toyota recalls related to unintended acceleration. There are many things to consider with safety so let me highlight a couple areas to look at:

Crash Protection
One of the most important components to vehicle safety is how it can withstand an impact. There are many designs engineered to help protect vehicle occupants like air bags, crumple zones, and reinforced frames. Air bags are just that, bags that inflate to help cushion the body against impact. Many new models have two front airbags, side airbags in the seats and now curtain airbags that to across the interior roof of the car. These dramatically improve the injury prevention rates, according to consumer reports. Crumple zones are areas of metal, designed to absorb the energy of an impact and give away first, locating the destructive forces to certain areas of the vehicles. This helps by keeping the damage located to specific areas of the car and away from the vehicle occupants. Reinforced frames are nothing new in vehicles, but are very important. Basically there would be extra frames in the doors and/or body of the car. This is an added shield to help take the damage of the force in an impact. All of these things combined can help keep the damage away from occupants and keep drivers and passengers from taking more injuries than necessary. IIHS has some easy to read crash ratings, I recommend looking at their testing and reading about how vehicles performed in testing if you are considering a new vehicle.

IIHS


Emergency Handling
This is sometimes an overlooked area of safety. A martial arts concept is the best way to avoid an injury is to not be there. Well, in the case of cars if you don't have to rely on the crash protection then that is better than taking the hit! Newer technology like Stability control is available on most vehicles and will be required in the 2012 model year. Stability control is a wonderful option which helps keep a car on its intended path. In slippery conditions for example, if the rear of a car kicks out the brakes can be applied to individual wheels to redirect the car on its path. Sometimes cutting speed to individual wheels is the best way to course correct. Another key feature found in many vehicles now is traction control. This will cut power to the wheels if slippage is detected by the main computer and will only allow enough power to move the wheels slightly. This is great in the snow and can help you from being stuck in adverse conditions. It also works in motion and can possibly prevent slippage in snow or ice.

There are many things to look for in a vehicle but by creating your checklist in advance you can narrow your options in the research phase, even before you leave your home. Be safe, and happy (controlled) driving!

-Jason

The Search

I was in discussion with a peer today and we got to talking about how research for cars is far different now than it used to be 20 years ago. I can remember my parents going to the library to check out a copy of NADA for trade in values, buying copies of the Sunday paper to look for deals and going lot to lot on a Sunday to find out what was available. Now with the internet things got a lot easier. You can read reviews, find trade in values and search inventories in minutes without leaving the home office. I personally am a huge fan of this because it saves so much time and gas from having to go to all of these places. I wanted to share some resources for doing some of this research as I think it makes the whole buying process easier:

Trade in Values

This is a big one, you can search databases to find out average trade in values of a car. One note though, these sources don't do well with outliers like very old cars, very high mileage or very low mileage. These sources should only be a ball park figure or range to expect, do not take them as gospel. The only real value for something is what someone is willing to pay. Here are a couple guides worth looking at:

NADA

Kelly Blue Book

Edmunds.com


Another good place is to read reviews of vehicles to find information and how vehicles performed. I'm a huge fan of Consumer Reports as they test the reliability of past vehicles and I also like Edmunds.com because they test vehicles in real world conditions. Here are a few sources for some well written reviews:

Consumer Reports

Edmunds.com Inside Line


These will be great sources of information on reliability, pricing and overall performance. The buying process is certainly far different than it was 15 or 20 years ago so take advantage of the new technology and available resources! It will save you quite a bit of time.

-Jason

The importance of good tires

It's just about winter here in Wisconsin and last night I was reminded of an important lesson as the first real snow fall hit us. Good tires on the car!!! I was moving a 2010 Genesis Coupe (2.0T with 6 speed manual and Track package) from one end of the lot to the other. I knew this one would be a challenge to do as the Track package gives it 19 inch summer tires. I got stuck twice in the lot despite traction control and I kind of knew it would happen. It reminded me of a great write up that Edmunds.com did last year when they tested a Honda Civic Si with Summer tires, All season tires and then Winter tires. Story can be found here

The results are pretty staggering if you read them, I was most stunned by the summer tire results for 0-60 in the snow and the 60-0 stopping distances.

When I bought my 2001 Celica GT, the front tires were good but the rear ones were pretty bad. The following day we got some bad snow and as I drove in to work that day, the car spun out once I hit 34mph on the snow covered roads. Yes a Celica is FWD but without any grip on the rear the whole car became unstable.

I even let a set of tires get pretty low one winter on my WRX. Despite the AWD drivetrain on the vehicle, I still had troubles with starting at stoplights in the snow. That also put me at risk for decent stopping ability in an emergency situation. ABS can only do so much for a vehicle where 1.5 tons of mass is in momentum.

So I encourage everyone from a safety standpoint to check the tread on your tires, make sure you don't have summer tires on a car during the white stuff and seriously consider winter tires in the northern climates. It could save your car or your life. Or someone else's life. Think about it from that perspective.