L.A..'s Arizona Boycott Could Mean End Of Red Light Cams

Los Angeles is among the cities boycotting Arizona's new immigration enforcement law. But where does that leave the city in its dealings with the Arizona-based supplier of its red-light cameras? The story from KABC-TV.

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California License Plates May Go Digital, Display Advertising

California is considering a digital license plate. Yes, digital. Stop for four seconds or more and the letters and numbers disappear, replaced by....advertising (and Amber Alerts).

The revenues (higher plate fees, plus ad dollars) would supposedly help the Golden State dig out of its financial hole.  The full story from KABC-TV.

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Chrysler Recalls 700,000 Vehicles

Ouch.

And bad timing, too...just after the first uptick in sales in what seems like forever.

Troubles? Two years worth of minivans where the sliding door wiring harness was improperly routed and could cause a fire and sticking or binding accelerator pedals on Dodge Caliber and Jeep Compass models.

 

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Mercury Dies So That Lincoln May Live

We pretty much did our post-mortem of Mercury five days early...running down the cause(s) of the impending death.

So what happens now? Well, Ford says they're going to devote their energies into revitalizing their Lincoln brand.

On paper, this makes a bunch of sense. The successful model for car sales is one mainstream brand, one luxury (think Toyota/Lexus)...with no definable space for a "middle" brand (GM is bucking that wisdom by keeping Buick).

But where exactly is Ford taking Lincoln? Part of the problem is that for all the talk of how Mercury was done in by being nothing more than some re-badged Fords, it's hard to say Lincoln's in much better shape (the MKZ is a Fusion, the MKX an Edge, the MKS a last-gen Taurus and the MKT a Flex...though those last two are pretty well disguised).

Unique products? Well, there's the Town Car...but that's a dinosaur headed to extinction with no plans for a replacement. Oh, yeah...and they still sell the Navigator. Just not many of them.

Ford says a small car (based on the next Focus) that was supposed to be a Mercury will now be a Lincoln.

Depends on how they do that...but it sounds a little down-market for where Lincoln needs to be.

The TireKicker take? Lincoln needs to take serious aim at Cadillac. They need one car at least as good as the CTS. A CTS-V competitor would have to follow. And, you may have noticed, the CTS is not a re-badged Chevrolet. They need a larger sedan to do battle with the DTS/STS replacement that's coming. They need a crossover to compete with the SRX.  And, if there's a market for a premium sedan below the CTS in the U.S., Lincoln needs to play there, too.

Until and unless the Ford Expedition becomes as good as or better than the Chevy Suburban, Lincoln doesn't need to go chasing the Escalade (especially not the pickup version).

All this means engines, materials, and enthusiasm well beyond what we've seen from Lincoln before...plus a promotion budget to get the message across to buyers (it's been 10 years since Cadillac claimed "Breakthrough" with Led Zeppelin and they're just starting to see the results). And that's going to be way more than combining the money devoted to Lincoln now with what they would have spent on Mercury.

The situation calls for a world-class luxury brand. And until and unless Ford gets that, Lincoln's in danger of being a more expensive Mercury.

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Mercury Deathwatch: News Conference at 3PM, Eastern Time

The Detroit News is reporting that Ford has called a news conference for 3PM EST to discuss "brand and product strategy".

Expectation is that means the official announcement that Mercury is joining the scrap heap of once-prominent American car brands, and that a new compact Merc will end up a Lincoln.

Details as they're available.

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Feds Probing Floormats In Ford Fusion/Mercury Milan

Doesn't matter what the brand, a poorly installed or wrong-sized floormat can trap accelerator pedals.

NHTSA says it's recieved three complaints that Ford's "All Weather" floormat can trap the gas pedal when laid on top of the standard floor mat.

Read the full consumer advisory here.

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Elderly Driver Hits Gas Instead Of Brake, One Dead

A tragic accident in Peoria, Arizona (suburban Phoenix). An 87 year old driver parking at a Walgreens hits the gas instead of the brake, jumps the curb, hits and kills a store employee on break.

Two remarkable things...the car was a Honda, and there was no discussion of unintended acceleration...just an admission from driver and police that it was a case of standing on the wrong pedal.

This incident has a lot of similarities to all the Toyota incidents that have fueled the unintended acceleration frenzy the past few months. And when properly investigated, the end result is the same. If floormats aren't trapping the gas pedal, it's usually driver error.

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