Live Q&As

Yes, I've driven it. You bought your wife a small station wagon that marketers prefer to call a "crossover."

I am thinking this is an older car. I have a 1993 Lexus and the lights would flicker on and off, the gas gauge wouldn't show how much fuel I had in it. Once I had new sensors put in it everything came back to life.

There maybe someone near you, that isn't a dealer, that could look at the problem. I like to work with mechanics that are Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) certified.

I've yet to see the new Kia Rondo. I suspect that it will be better than the first Rondo, which was a boring as you can get for something with four wheels and an engine. Kia  being kia, I expect better styling inside and out and better infotainment/communications technology on the new one.

Dubious distinction, don't you think?

It would be hard to say without some hard statistics from the people buying the cars.

We do know that people have been holding onto their cars longer, which means more of them are at the breaking point and need to be replaced, or they are being passed on to the next generation in the household.

Another factor is financing. In the downturn financing all but collapsed and if you didn't have a cash downpayment and a good FICO score and a job you couldn't get financing. There are more companies willing to finance people with what is called subprime loans. These loans are usually given to someone with a FICO score of less than 680.

I would say those two reasons are higher on the list than an improving economy.

Good Morning Conservative Engineer

It's interesting to my husband and myself, in the morning on the odd days that we drive at 5 am on the highway the vehicles going the fastest (and I mean over 80mph) are the big trucks. Not the 18-wheelers, but the 1/2 tons and 3/4 tons.

The 18-wheelers know what you're saying is correct, though it's not because of emissions, but gas mileage. Their profit line lives and dies, in many cases, on how much gasoline they have to burn.

Having said all that, I haven't heard any talk about lowering the mph on the highway. In fact, I think I heard of one state recently upping their mph on the highway to 70.

It's one of the last vestiges of freedom people seem to have, the ability to get out on the open highway. 

When the cheapest disc brake is cheaper than the basic drum brake. It's a production cost issue.

The new Tesla is neat, but still too expensive. Yes, the technology will cost less in time. It will migrate to less expensive vehicles. We seem to be willfully ignorant of history. We now carry computers, once an exclusive defense industry marvel, in our purses and pocket books.

Here is my problem with the X1 and similarly costly crossovers: I can get all of their utility, comfort, most of their technology, in less expensive wagons. I'd take the Volvo V60 over that one anytime.

Good question, I struggle with that all the time. It's not the most sold, the Chevy Volt wouldn't have received it if it was.

It's the sense of the most overall value.There is also some incorporating in of the newest technology in engines.  Car manufacturers are going to have to comply with the CAFE requirement of 54.5 mpg by 2015. Fuel economy is becoming an important part of all cars, but that needs to be combined with driving performance.

There are years where the manufacturer really goes out on a limb to bring out a great car, even if that car has been out before (like many names you see on the list) has that car been really refined to meet all the needs of the car buyer today?

There are 50 journalists that drive each of these cars and vote on the car of the year. It will be interesting to see which one wins.

His car is a 2008 smartfortwo.

Thanks for the tip for him, I'll pass it along.

MyFord Touch and similar technology is changing cars, what we think of cars and driving, all of that. That's the reality. Can you drive the Explorer hard and put it away wet? As I said in the piece, yes, you can do all of that in the new Explorer. But the reality is that most consumers expect the Explorer and most other vehicles to double as a mobile communications pods. It's not just about zoom-zoom anymore.

No firm answers on that one, yet. Lou Ann, what do you hear?

Did you see the guy that said buy a fuel filler cap from the dealer and clean the surface of the filler neck?

Have you tried calling the Mercedes dealer and asking them? Sometimes if you call the service department and speak to a mechanic it is a known problem and they can help.

It's something I've been thinking about, something I'm facing personally as I age--intellectual honesty. With no attempt here to evangelize, I've been reading all of the great religious  books--Bible, Torah, Koran, et cetera. If we were intellectually honest, Christians would be socialists; Jews and Arabs would have no real reason to hate one another; Democrats and Republicans would stop playing games and put the country back to work. Don't even get me talking about our treatment of our own mothers, sisters, daughters and wives. We are habitual liars about what we think, why we think it, how we really live.

But the unemployment rate is a measure that has been consistent and there is a meaurement there.

I agree that the unemployment rate is a false measurement of the unemployed, but it is still used you can't disregard it when the same system is used to measure it.

There are very few cars that have the handling experience of a BMW. I think what Warren was referring to was the nomenclature of a station wagon. Both are station wagons, both are excellent cars in their own right.

The enclosed compartment has me stumped. I was going to say a Hyundai Santa Fe or a Ford Escape, but I don't know about an enclosed compartment.

I will put it out to our readers. Any suggestions my fellow chatters?

I'm glad VW is not timid about diesel technology. The new Golf, i'm told, will be available in that. Small four-cylinder gasoline engines will be the mainstay. What's your take, Lou Ann?