Sunday, January 8, 2017

2017 Mercedes-Benz SLC43 AMG 3.0 L Twin Turbo V6 Review

Starting with the 2017 model year, the naturally aspirated V-8 will be dead at Mercedes. You’ll need to grab a 2016 SLK55 AMG to savor a turbo-free Benz eight-pot; that two-seater’s exclusive M152 5.5-liter V-8 makes that car an absolute hoot and, of course, sounds fantastic. The 2017 Mercedes-AMG SLC43—the SLC-class is the replacement for the SLK-class—swaps in a 3.0-liter V-6 that isn’t made by any master technicians in Affalterbach and is in fact shared with the C450 and GLE450 AMG Sport models. (We’ve learned that those cars soon will be renamed to Mercedes-AMG C43 and GLE43 and follow this roadster into full-fledged AMG-dom.)
The twin-turbo V-6 makes 362 horsepower at 6000 rpm and 384 lb-ft of torque at 2000 rpm, which are down 53 hp and 14 lb-ft versus the V-8 but sufficient to propel the roadster to 60 mph just 0.1 second behind the SLK55, Mercedes says. (The SLK55 hit 60 in 4.1 seconds in our testing.) The new 9G-Tronic nine-speed automatic can take most of the credit, and in the SLC43 it’s tuned for faster shifts than in regular Benzes. Top speed is limited to 155 mph, whereas the SLK55 with the AMG Handling Package could hit 174. This won’t matter on American public roads, of course.
To craft this ultimate SLC, AMG added beefier steering knuckles and new control-arm guide bearings up front, while adding forged-aluminum pieces to the rear and increased negative camber at both ends. Newly optional adaptive dampers on the AMG Ride Control suspension toggle firmness among Comfort, Sport, and Sport+. No doubt the sport exhaust will sound great at full throat, although we’d suggest you not drive an SLK55 first lest you end up the slightest bit disappointed.
The head- and taillamps gain subtle new shapes, while the front fascia brings gloss black and silver finishes on the air intakes and the splitter—they look particularly flattering against a bright red body. More gloss black adorns the mirror housings and the 18-inch wheels. Minor updates to the COMAND infotainment software, optional LED headlamps, and a Night package that brings more gloss black trim are the SLC43’s only other major changes. The naturally aspirated V-8 may be dead at Mercedes, but there could be worse bearers of such news than the SLC43.

Sunday, December 25, 2016

1982-85 Cadillac Eldorado Touring Coupe


Imported luxury performance coupes like the Mercedes-Benz 450 SLC and BMW 630 CSi were becoming commonplace by the mid-1970s. They could even be spotted at bastions of automotive conservatism like the Grosse Pointe, Mich., yacht and country clubs frequented by Big Three auto execs. As was customary of a crowd that the legendary Brock Yates famously called out in 1968 in a column called  “The Grosse Pointe Myopics,” it took them a long time to respond—nearly ten years to be exact. But by the mid-1980s, Detroit had fired its first salvos at Bimmer and Benz. Following are five notable attempts to compete in the high-end performance, personal luxury space:
eldorado tc
1982-85 Cadillac Eldorado Touring Coupe- The Cadillac Eldorado’s eighth generation has yet to get the love it deserves. It’s a genuinely handsome, sharp-lined design that lost the bloated ridiculousness of the huge 1971-79 car and regained some of the elegance and swagger of the high-water mark 1967-70 Eldo. It should receive more attention, particularly the lovely and rare ASC-built convertible. Even more ignored is the Touring Coupe. For the TC, Cadillac started by removing the glitzy trim from the car like the hood ornament and bright rocker trim as well as the vinyl roof. And heresy of heresies, the whitewall tires were eliminated too in favor of wide, raised white letter Goodyear radials mounted on alloy wheels. The real difference was in the suspension—larger diameter front and rear sway bars, stiffer springs, shocks, bushings and torsion bars banished the usual period Cadillac wallow. Sadly (and unsurprisingly), the number of people cross-shopping Cadillacs and BMW 633s was essentially zero. Touring Coupes accounted for just about 4,500 of over 76,000 Eldos built from 1982-85. Fewer than 600 were sold in its final year.
1981-85 Buick Riviera T-type- Like its platform mate, the Cadillac Eldorado, the Buick Riviera got a huge lift from its 1979 re-design. It’s a very good-looking and underrated big Detroit coupe. In many ways, the T-type Riv, particularly in black, channels some of the mojo of the later Buick Regal Grand National. While its turbo V-6 wasn’t as fierce (190 hp) and it was a front-driver, it wasn’t a slouch. Like the Eldorado Touring Coupe, legitimate effort was made to stiffen the suspension and remove the double dose of Novocain from the steering. Later cars (1982 and on) are more desirable because four-wheel disc brakes were added. Production numbers are tough to come by, but surviving Riviera T-types are scarce indeed.
1984-92 Lincoln MK VII LSC- Of all the cars on this list, the MK VII LSC (Luxury Sport Coupe) probably represents Detroit’s most sincere effort to defeat the Germans. With the MK VII, Lincoln finally gave up on previous Mark’s pimptastic styling—blaxploitation films would never be the same. Although clearly sharing much with the era’s Thunderbird, the MK VII was handsome with its flush, composite headlamps and clean aero style. The one nod to previous Marks was the vestigial Continental kit bulge on the rear deck. In spite of the fact that it employed a live rear axle in comparison to the fully independent setups favored by the Germans, Road & Track found its performance and ride to match the Germans at half the price. Later LSCs, from 1990 on, are the ones to own as they feature better seats, a re-designed dash and the 225 hp 5.0-liter V-8 from the Mustang GT. All have anti-lock brakes, and the MK VII was actually the first American car to feature them.
1983-88 Ford Thunderbird Turbo Coupe- I’m actually old enough to remember when these cars debuted, and they were a pretty big deal. The NASCAR aero-inspired design by the very talented (and underrated) Jack Telnack generated its share of double-takes. It also didn’t hurt that its Ford Fairmont-derived predecessor was widely regarded as the absolute nadir of the Thunderbird nameplate, it was the Mustang II of T-Birds. Alone among the cars on this list, the T-Bird Turbo Coupe came standard with a five-speed manual transmission and a limited slip differential. It’s by far the most sporting and edgiest car here. Like most mid-‘80s American cars, things improved as the decade wound down, particularly in the horsepower department. The Turbo Coupe inherited the SVO Mustang’s engine in 1987, the 190 hp version of the 2.3L Ford turbo four.  Combined with the car’s even now impressive aerodynamics, it was good enough for a 143 mph top speed, sufficient to threaten a Porsche 911. Unfortunately, the collector car market essentially ignores this surprisingly good, near-luxury GT because, other than the Buick Regal Grand National, Americans just don’t care about performance cars with fewer than eight cylinders.

1986-92 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo- The Toronado’s fourth generation is the car that finally killed the Toro nameplate. It wouldn’t live even to see the end of the Oldsmobile division in 2004. The car wasn’t without its issues—poorly executed downsizing that saw the car finally go to a unibody platform made it look far too similar to cheaper offerings from Oldsmobile and Pontiac. But the monochromatic Trofeo wasn’t really a bad looker. A stiffer F33 suspension made it handle acceptably well, but the naturally aspirated Buick 231-cid V-6 was nothing to shout about. The Trofeo got a modest restyle in 1990 and the nameplate was split off from the Toronado. Few seemed to care. The last one was built in 1992. Of all the cars on the list, the Oldsmobile effort was the least compelling and probably at least partially explains why the division is no longer around.

2016 Honda Pilot


If a stylish, useful, and trouble-free ride is what you’re after, well—ladies and gentlemen, this is your Pilot speaking. The 280-hp 3.5-liter V-6 powers the front or all four wheels through a six-speed automatic; top-level Touring and Elite trims get a nine-speed. The all-wheel-drive system offers torque vectoring for better handling and modes for snow, sand, and mud. The Pilot’s three rows provide plenty of room for all and a host of active-safety tech is available to keep everyone safe.
WHAT WE LIKE: Seats this comfortable encourage long-distance drives, especially when they’re heated and ventilated, and the Pilot’s 280-hp V-6 makes merging into any traffic just a squirt of gas away. After nearly a year, the styling is starting to grow on some of us. Well, as long as we hold a hand over one eye so we don’t have to look at the minivan-esque nose. But we’ve been noticing some previous-generation versions around. Remember how bizarre they looked?
WHAT WE DON’T LIKE: The variety of ways Honda has found to make the fundamentally inoffensive notion of a three-row crossover illogical and weird. The stop/start system continues to win detractors, its unpredictable behavior meaning that it spends most of its time disabled. Ditto the adaptive cruise-control system, which we tend to turn off so that we have regular old cruise control—which still allows a startling discrepancy between set speed and actual speed. And the throttle mapping, which is so abrupt that we’ve been toggling the system to Econ mode to soften powertrain response. It always sounded exciting to crawl into a race car and have to flip a bunch of switches—for the fuel pump, fan, water pump, et cetera—before pressing the start button. When that sequence is reversed and, after starting, you have to hunt around for buttons to disable a bunch of unsatisfactory systems, it’s a lot less cool.
WHAT WENT WRONG: Hey, nobody ran the Pilot into anything in the past few months! We did carefully drive it to the dealer for a routine 30,000-mile service (oil change, tire rotation, filters for the engine and cabin), which cost $154. More notably, the Pilot was recruited to rescue creative director Darin Johnson when the Land Rover he bought for our off-road beater challenge started making ominous noises 200 miles from home. However, when he arrived at the U-Haul lot to rent a trailer, he realized that although the Pilot has a trailer hitch, it does not have a wiring harness for a trailer. Which is good, because our Pilot also lacks the transmission cooler that would raise the tow rating anywhere near what one needs to accommodate a Land Rover on a U-Haul car trailer. Ever notice how sturdy those things are? Seriously overbuilt. Our Pilot’s hitch, on the other hand, must be intended for 3500 pounds of bicycle racks.
WHERE WE WENT: We haven’t gone anywhere. If we’re being honest, we’ve felt stagnant for a while, like it’s the same grind with different beans, day in and day out. Oh, you mean the Pilot? It’s now out in Montana, spending its last few thousand miles on wild adventures with John Phillips, exploring the deepest reaches of the Bitterroot Mountains and parking-lot corners nearest the tavern’s front door. By the time the Honda makes its way home to Ann Arbor, its 40,000 miles should just about be at their end.
Months in Fleet: 11 months Current Mileage: 36,367 miles
Average Fuel Economy: 22 mpg Fuel Tank Size: 19.5 gal Fuel Range: 425 miles
Service: $442 Normal Wear: $0 Repair: $0
Damage and Destruction: $986
WHAT WE LIKE: Our observed fuel economy is inching upward through summer road-trip season, hitting an average of 22 mpg. When those trips have included more than four people, we’ve come to appreciate the second-row seats, which allow third-row access by folding their seatbacks and sliding the assembly forward at the push of a button located on either the seatback (for third-row passengers) or the side cushion (for those outside the vehicle). And we’ve found that once the Pilot is loaded, its ride quality improves, settling somewhat from its unladen floatiness.
WHAT WE DON’T LIKE: Using the third row for people means there’s precious little space available for those people’s things. It’s a complaint common to nearly all three-row crossovers—and probably the Pilot’s greatest drawback compared with its Odyssey minivan sibling. With the third row raised, there’s just 16 cubic feet of luggage space; the Odyssey can carry 38 cubic feet of luggage.
Jumpy throttle and transmission calibrations are exacerbated by a lousy adaptive cruise control that seems incapable of smooth speed adjustments—and occasionally rushes well above the set speed. But at least you can turn that off and just have regular, non-adaptive cruise control. The auto stop/start system, too, has come under fire for incomprehensible logic, sometimes turning off the engine only after sitting for a long period and at least once shutting it down in the midst of a parking maneuver.
WHAT WENT WRONG: Barely a month after we fixed the damage done to our left-rear quarter-panel in a parking garage, someone backed the same corner into a post on a narrow, winding driveway. Again the bumper cover was scuffed, and again the plastic wheel-well trim was rumpled. We haven’t fixed it yet—and may not, as evidence suggests we can’t be trusted with nice things. But if anyone damages that corner again, we might start looking for a way to blame Honda. We’ve had only one more regular service visit, an oil change, air-filter swap, and inspection that cost $154.
WHERE WE WENT: Its road-trip aptitude means the Pilot has been in high demand for the summer Michigan ritual of weekly trips north, hitting destinations in Gaylord and Muskegon, as well as more-southerly spots like Dollywood and Canada. After passing through Windsor, Ontario—which is indeed south of Detroit—technical director Eric Tingwall ended up in Quebec, where he noted that “even the French-speaking locals make more sense than Honda’s infotainment system.” But other staffers are warming to the touchscreen system, with associate online editor Joseph Capparella going so far as to wonder why more automakers don’t outsource their navigation software (Honda’s comes from Garmin).
Months in Fleet: 8 months Current Mileage: 25,962 miles
Average Fuel Economy: 22 mpg Fuel Tank Size: 19.5 gal Fuel Range: 425 miles
Service: $288 Normal Wear: $0 Repair: $0
Damage and Destruction: $986
WHAT WE LIKE: The space inside the Honda Pilot makes it ideal for hauling all manner of people and stuff. The numerous cubbies are proving especially popular. After driving it to Breaks, Virginia, for a 24-hour adventure race—which sounds to the rest of the staff like a great way to spoil an otherwise lovely weekend in Virginia—tech director Eric Tingwall wrote an ode to the Pilot’s center console: “It’s big enough to stash tens of thousands of calories of snack foods, but not so deep that they disappear into a dark hole never to be recovered. And when it’s time to feast, you close that tambour door and use it as a serving tray, never worrying that something will slide off, because the door is slightly recessed below the edges of the console.” Beyond the Pilot’s usefulness as a mobile snack center, the Honda’s 21 mpg in our hands is pretty good for a seven-seater.
WHAT WE DON’T LIKE: The push-button shifter is maddening and silly. Given how much space is allotted to those buttons, why isn’t it just a regular shifter? Instead, there are buttons of different sizes and shapes situated in different planes for different functions. Push a button for park, drive, or neutral, but to engage reverse, you tug on a switch. And, since the Pilot so strongly resembles a minivan now, the packaging compromises relative to the Odyssey are that much more frustrating. But maybe, as designers try to pack more space into crossovers built on car and minivan platforms, crossovers will slowly start to morph back into their original shapes, and we’ll see a slow migration of buyers toward the uncompromised practicality of the hatchback and the minivan. Or perhaps not.
WHAT WENT WRONG: In the sort of Washington, D.C., parking garage where you might expect to find a Law & Order villain lurking in the shadows, one of our contributors encountered a far more real menace: a pipe obscured by a support column. The pipe scraped along the left-rear fender, with the damage fortunately confined largely to the plastic trim piece around the wheel well, although it did dig into the quarter-panel and the bumper cover. Had more metal been damaged, the bill undoubtedly would have been higher than the $986 the mishap cost us. Our 10,000-mile service, an oil change and inspection, came to just $46; our second service, at 20,000 miles, added a tire rotation and a change of the rear differential’s fluid and set us back $242.
WHERE WE WENT: It was a busy May and June for the Pilot. Copy chief Carolyn Pavia-Rauchman and her family used it to cross the Kentucky Derby off their bucket list. It was home for just a few days before heading down to Washington, D.C. From there, it proceeded to the northern reaches of Michigan and then went straight into a return trip to Virginia, shuttling people and gear to C/D’s Lightning Lap X (coming in the October issue!). On the return trip, it detoured through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, for reasons we’re not quite sure about. By the time it returned from this trip, it had accumulated more than 7000 miles in just one month. We don’t expect the remaining 20,000 to pass quite as quickly, but the Pilot is reserved for road trips most weekends between now and the end of August.
Months in Fleet: 6 months Current Mileage: 16,672 miles
Average Fuel Economy: 21 mpg Fuel Tank Size: 19.5 gal Fuel Range: 405 miles
Service: $288 Normal Wear: $0 Repair: $0
Damage and Destruction: $986
Honda’s Pilot has been among our favorite ways to move lots of people and gear ever since it first appeared shortly after the dawn of the century. And we’ve also always liked the Odyssey minivan, so when the new Pilot debuted for 2016 looking an awful lot like the Odyssey, we immediately put in our order for a long-termer. (Okay, we probably would have wanted one no matter what it looked like.)
There are Odyssey bones beneath that Odyssey-aping skin, but there’s also a new, 280-hp V-6 paired with the first nine-speed automatic ever to pass through our long-term fleet. The nine-speed is standard on the Touring and the top-of-the-line Elite trim levels.
We chose that latter because it comes with a two-place second row that limits occupancy to seven persons—and then only if the three of them in the rearmost seat typically state their ages by holding up fingers. We have concluded that this is the maximum occupancy threshold for maintaining driver sanity.
At a base price of $31,045, an entry-level front-wheel-drive Pilot LX includes a rearview camera, push-button start, a tilting and telescoping steering column, and a stereo that includes Bluetooth and USB connectivity. By the time you’ve ascended to the penultimate $42,070 Touring, you’ve added remote starting, second-row seats that fold at the touch of a button, three-zone automatic climate control, LED ambient lighting, a 10-way power-adjustable driver’s seat, four additional USB ports (for a total of three in the front and two in the second row), leather upholstery, navigation, and a Blu-ray rear-seat entertainment system. The last step up to Elite adds all-wheel drive, heated and cooled front seats, heated rear seats, an extra-large sunroof, and the most feature-heavy version of the Honda Sensing package. Highlights of the latter package are forward-collision warning with automatic braking, blind-spot monitoring, and lane-keeping assist. The total price came to $47,955 after accessories such as a trailer-hitch receiver and roof-rail crossbars were tacked on.

Elite, but Unlucky

We wanted to divert attention from our Pilot’s dad-mobile profile and toward its top-tier status with a vanity plate, “L337,” (see Urban Dictionary if you’re confused) but our loan agreements with auto manufacturers don’t allow it. Too bad, since that might have avoided the awkwardness that followed when we got a parking ticket in the Pilot, went to pay it, and learned just how many people have received and notpaid Ann Arbor parking tickets on Honda press vehicles wearing California manufacturer plates beginning in 3421. (For the record, we’re not the only publication in the neighborhood.)
Aside from that ticket, we’ve incurred no expenses in the Pilot beyond the cost of fuel, which it currently consumes at a rate of one gallon every 21 or so miles. For a luxury-packed seven-seater weighing 4351 pounds, that’s not so bad. On its initial test outing, it hit 60 mph in 6.0 seconds and blitzed the quarter-mile in 14.6 at 95 mph, which will best a V-6 Dodge Challenger. Skidpad grip of 0.81 g is reasonable for the class, and its 172-foot stopping distance from 70 mph places the Honda among the best family haulers.
Subjective aspects that are so far earning praise include seat comfort in the first two rows (nobody old enough to speak complete sentences has yet been convinced to spend sufficient time in the way-back to comment) and a serene highway ride. Negative logbook comments have focused on the infuriating touchscreen infotainment system and a short-sighted adaptive-cruise-control system that brakes abruptly and allows speed to fluctuate more than most systems, including going well beyond the set speed when accelerating. As summer road-trip season gets into full swing here in the next few months, we’ll find plenty more to love and loathe.

Months in Fleet: 4 months Current Mileage: 7740 miles
Average Fuel Economy: 21 mpg Fuel Tank Size: 19.5 gal Fuel Range: 410 miles
Service: $0 Normal Wear: $0 Repair: $0