Shameless Self-promotion

2012 Hyundai Veloster - AJAC's Best New Sports/Performance Car (under $50,000)

You can find my Wheels coverage of the Best New Sports/Performance (under $50,000) category of AJAC's Canadian Car of the Year TestFest here.

2012 BMW X3 xDrive35i - AJAC's Best New SUV-CUV (over $60,000)

You can find my Wheels coverage of the Best New SUV-CUV (over $60,000) category of AJAC's Canadian Car of the Year TestFest here.

AJAC's 2012 Canadian Car of the Year and TestFest

Category Winners - AJAC's 2012 Canadian Car and Utility Vehicle of the Year

The Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) holds an annual event dubbed "TestFest" during the last week of October at which every new or substantially redesigned light-duty vehicle has an opportunity to compete. For the past six years, this has taken place at the Niagara District Airport, whose runways are shut down and used as a road course.

Competition occurs first within groups of its peers (categorized as best as possible), and then for the title of overall Best New Car or Best New Utility vehicle. Scores are based on an amalgam of subjective votes by the journalists, test vehicle pricing, and measured scores derived from on-site performance testing. TestFest and the Canadian Car of the Year process are constantly being refined, and this is the only event of its kind in the world.

For several reasons, you won't find models that have either already competed (whether they won or not), been on sale for more than one year, or that have received only minor changes for this coming model year. The most critical of those reasons is logistics; there has to be at least three examples of each competitor on site and available for evaluation, and each must be driven by each voting journalist on the same day for their votes to count. Just getting through the "new and improved" crowd is tough enough - this year's larger categories had 7 entrants (there have been 10 car categories in past years), with the assigned drive route and off road or on-track testing for each car taking approximately 40 minutes just complete. That doesn't count time juggling keys, which are expertly handled by students from Georgian College.

This year (as in years past), journalists were expected to complete their 3 assigned categories, as well as as many additional complete categories were required to bring their total to a minimum of 18 vehicles altogether. That's over the course of the two primary testing days, Tuesday and Wednesday, and votes must be submitted early Wednesday evening. It's tougher than it sounds.

On Thursday, while the category votes are tabulated, journalists are free to drive other vehicles in other categories. (This year there were several electric vehicles available for brief drives in addition to those competing.) Thursday is a chance to drive models you might not otherwise be able to experience, and also a chance to try and guess winners from other categories that you weren't able to complete.

That's because on Friday the category winners are announced, and each journalist is required to drive whichever category winners they haven't yet tested. The votes for overall Car and overall Utility Vehicle are submitted by that evening. The final winners are announced in February at the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto.

Five of this year's eleven category winners were Korean, with the Germans claiming all but one of the remaining spots. The Dodge Journey was the sole "domestic" winner, but before you cry "foul", please note that last year's results included five domestics, two of which - the Chevrolet Cruze and Ford Edge - went on to claim overall Car and Utility Vehicle wins.

Here, in the order of the photo above, from left to right, are your eleven winners:

• Hyundai Elantra - Best New Small Car (over $21,000)
• BMW 1 Series M Coupé - Best New Sports/Performance (over $50,000)
• Kia Optima LX - Best New Family Car (under $30,000)
• Mercedes C-Class C350 4MATIC - Best New Luxury Car
• Dodge Journey - Best New SUV-CUV (under $35,000)
• BMW X3 - Best New SUV-CUV (over $60,000)
• Volkswagen Touareg TDI - Best New SUV-CUV ($35,000-$60,000)
• Kia Optima Hybrid - Best New Family Car (over $30,000)
• Mercedes S-Class S350 BlueTec 4Matic - Best New Prestige Car
• Hyundai Veloster - Best New Sports/Performance (under $50,000)
• Hyundai Accent - Best New Small Car (under $21,000)

As for which ones claim the title, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the Kia Optima LX takes overall Car, and either the Dodge Journey overall Utility Vehicle, though I'd not be surprised to see the VW Touareg or Hyundai Elantra in those places instead. We'll have to wait until mid-February to find out if I'm right.

In the meantime, click this link to read Wheels comprehensive coverage.

Knee-jerk Politics

Earlier today a 25 year-old man lost his life after he crashed his Honda Accord in what police believe was a street race that went wrong. This is unfortunate, and it tends to happen several times per year in the Greater Toronto area. The Toronto Star's article on this (available here) says that 34 people have died in incidents like this in the GTA in the past six years. Without trying to trivialize that or detract from the significance to those involved and their families and friends, that's less than 6, on average, per year. For perspective, 241 people were murdered last year in Toronto. I don't have access to the numbers, but I'll bet that many more than 6 people die each year as a result of inadequate driver training and testing standards.

Why this issue bothers me so much is that politicians and high-ranking police officers with political aspirations (Mr. Fantino, I'm looking squarely at you) leap at this as an opportunity to show how much they care about the safety of the public and taking positive action to do the right thing. That's when we get asinine laws passed like Bill 203, Safer Streets for a Safer Ontario, which resulted in Ontario Highway Traffic Act Regulation 455/07, commonly know as the Street Racing Law. If you have several minutes, you should read it here.

The act contains some good ideas, but also many that are not as productive. The biggest negative is the ability for an officer's discretion to result in your vehicle being towed and impounded for a week, on the spot, while you lose your license for the same period. Additionally, fines from between $2000 to $10,000 apply, and it's possible to face jail time. The towing and impound fees themselves are almost guaranteed to total into the four digit range on their own. Don't own the vehicle? The lucky owner gets to pay the towing and impound fees; it's up to them to get you to pay them back.

Even if you go to court and the charge is dismissed, you are not reimbursed for the towing and impound costs. Have a nice day.

This puts far too much power and responsibility into the hands of the officers, and as far as I'm concerned, violates my right to trial before prosecution. Speeding 50 km/h over is a bit more clear cut, but it should be pointed out that laws already exist that cover many of the actions described in this regulation, and police already had charges like Careless Driving to use their discretion on. What should have happened is that the penalties for those charges should have been increased to meaningful levels, not taken to the political spotlight level that occurred instead.


The latest to jump on the road safety bandwagon is Jim Karygiannis, MP for Scarborough-Agincourt, who according to the Star "released a statement today saying he will introduce a federal bill on limiting speed. Karygiannis wants manufacturers to install a device that will limit the maximum speed of any car to 150 km/h. He proposed a similar bill previously but it died when the election was called last May."

I have a major problem with that. Do I think that we should all be blazing along at over 150 km/h on the 400-series highways? No, I don't, even if I do think that the 100 km/h maximum is antiquated and needs rethinking. That's what greater enforcement and stricter penalties are for. Governing cars to 150 km/h isn't going to prevent deaths such as occurred this morning either. Mr.Karygiannis claims on his website (here) that the two cars were going about 180 km/h. I'm skeptical that the Honda Accord pictured was doing that speed when the driver lost control. Besides, his proposed legislation won't keep morons from doing 80 km/h through residential streets or speeding through school zones. Sure sounds "tough on crime" though. Way to go.

Happy 25th Birthday, Wheels!

Wheels' chief scribe Jim Kenzie with a copy of the first Wheels section (Dave Cooper/Toronto Star image)

You can find Wheels editor Mark Richardson's article regarding the 25th Birthday of the Star's Wheels section here. While there, you'll also find additional links to looks back and looks forward from several regular contributors and the automakers themselves.

I'm personally proud to have been associated with this section, and am looking forward to as many more years as they'll have me. Wheels' contributors and staff are a good bunch of people who really do share a passion for automobilia and writing, and I think that it comes through in the final product. As the saying goes, "imitated, but never duplicated!"

So here's to another 25 years - at least - of Wheels. Congratulations!

When Engineers Get Bored

Actually, this entry falls more into the "When Engineers Get Stupid" category, though you could argue that to be completely accurate I'd have had to title it "When Engineers Try Stupid Things To Try And Impress Someone In Accounting By Saving The Cost Of Three Fasteners".

Heater fan motor - pre-replacement

From an assembly standpoint, incorporating the heater fan motor assembly into the heater case itself makes a certain amount of sense. Unfortunately, these things do fail. I won't say "occasionally", because in certain applications, it isn't. Consequently, some provision has to made to service it (translation: replace it). In the case of this particular design, you actually cut the heater case open to access the motor assembly.

Now, to their credit, the designers of this farce have made cutting the case open fairly simple - there's a clearly delineated circle where you're meant to cut, and the plastic is molded thinner at this point to accommodate the process. A good sharp utility knife will do it, if you're careful not to snap the blade. As this particular part lives on the underside of the heater case, beneath the passenger side of the instrument panel, and is accessed from the passenger side foot-well (a common location for these things), it would help to be triple-jointed or perhaps a retired circus performer.

Cut here... carefully. Getting light-headed yet?

OK, so you've cut the blasted thing out. The problem is, now you've got to somehow install the replacement part. A hot glue gun won't make it happen. (Well, it might, but only if you're truly desperate.) If you've already quoted the customer on this job and the parts counter staffer missed the little footnote on the listing for the fan when you called, you just might consider that option. (Fortunately, we hadn't priced the job yet - we'd just been told to fix it.)

Something's missing here...

No, you need the $62 kit, which is comprised of a stamped steel ring that bridges the gap between the heater case and the piece of the case you cut out earlier (that the fan motor itself bolts to), eight self-tapping screws, a couple of strips of foam (to seal the opening), and an instruction sheet. At least for that price the adapter comes painted.

...that'd be it

Tada! You may now reinstall the new motor assembly and bask in the return of functional heating and cooling.

Fini.

In most vehicles, this sucker is held in by screws already. Undo them, remove the motor, reinstall, simple. In this one, someone at Delphi re-invented the wheel. It's half asinine, half brilliant. After all, not only do you have to buy a motor, but the adapter too! It's obvious that the whole thing is designed with this in mind - note the pre-molded screw holes. So deviously clever that I just can't bring myself to give it a Jackass Award.

Probably not too many of these cars out there.

So, what vehicle family might you find this in? That would be GM's Epsilon cars; this one was a 2007 Pontiac G6, but I'd bet that the Chevy Malibu and Saturn Aura of the same generation use the exact same setup. Probably not too many of those running around.

Shameless Self-promotion

Press Conference; BMW Stand, Frankfurt Motor Show 2011

You can find my Wheels coverage of the latest high-end exotic and sports concepts from the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show here.

Shameless Self-promotion

2011 Ford Explorer XLT

You can find my Wheels review of Ford's 2011 Explorer XLT here.