William Maley

William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com August 20, 2012 Over the weekend, Fisker announced a recall of over 2,000 of its Karma plug-in hybrid sedans due to risk of fires. The recall was issued a couple weeks after a fire engulfed the driver's front side of a Karma sitting a parking lot. Fisker called on the help of Pacific Rim Investigative Services Group to figure out the cause of the fire on August 10. The investigation found the ignition source was a low temperature cooling fan, which “had an internal fault that cause it to fail, overheat and start a slow burning fire.” To keep this from happening again, dealers will replace the cooling fan with an updated one. Also, dealers will add an extra fuse to the system for protection. This is the second fire that has claimed a Karma and the third recall since December. The first recall dealt with a coolant leak for 240 Karmas. Then, 600 Karmas were recalled due to a battery defect. Source: Wired's Autopia View full article

William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com August 20, 2012 Ford's decision to end Ranger production and move towards an expanded F-150 lineup could cost it about half of its Ranger owners, a new report says. Ford ended production of the Ranger last year and closed down its St. Paul, Minnesota, assembly plant where the truck was built. Ford said that the market for small pickups was dwindling and the decision was made to not continue with the Ranger. Instead, Ford is pushing Ranger owners to the F-150 or other Ford vehicles. "We are retaining some Ranger buyers, with the bulk of them moving to F-Series and Escape. As for the compact pickup segment, it has become a much smaller part of the overall industry over the last 12 years," said Erich Merkle, Ford's U.S. sales analyst. Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry analysis for TrueCar.com says Ford overestimated the number of Ranger owners who would be willing to step up to the F-150. "We do know that a good portion of would-be Ranger buyers are going to different brand. Ford may have been too optimistic in their assumption of how many Ranger buyers want to buy an F-150." Reasons as to why Ranger owners aren't snatching up F-150s are the higher price-tag and the large size of the F-150 compared to the Ranger. What are former Ranger owners looking at? The Toyota Tacoma and Nissan Frontier. Source: The Detroit News View full article