Motorweek; 2314

This time on a motorway. A German. The biggest Suzuki yet torture test for the so wrong with us. The week TV's original automotive magazine brought to you by Pep Boys we're car people. Motor Week starting. It's my kind of show. It's our kind of show all about cars and trucks and the cool stuff people put on their cars and trucks and there are tips on tires and service and maybe we should just watch. I agree right with you. And buy. What are you looking for. Your host for Motor Week. John Davis home loan welcome again to motor week. We're glad to have you with us. As if nothing is sacred in the auto world in 1998 the prestigious English Bentley brand was purchased by

Germany's Volkswagen. As you can imagine this caused quite a stir with many predicting the future Bentleys would have none of the brands uniquely English character. Well the first Bentley model designed under your stewardship is here. It's the 2004 Continental GTC the car that will finally answer the question can the bugs builder also build a Bentley. Right from the start and sought to calm the tempers of Bentley loyalists rather than move production to Germany as many had feared invested heavily in modernizing the existing production facility in Pru England have been long shared as a junior partner to Rolls-Royce with roles moving to a new factory built by its new owner BMW. There was plenty of room for the first truly unique bit only in 70 years. And the creation of the continental GTC was then left in the hands of Bentley's own

designers. Germany provided engineering assistance and plenty of proven components but not character altering advice. The resulting Continental GTI is a grand touring coupe that is unmistakably Bentley but also the most aerodynamic road car to ever where f Gordon Crosby's famous winged B badge from any angle the continental g t is all Bentley a stunning blend of racing heritage aggression with remarkable grace these long sensuous lines are carried on an all new chassis with an ample one hundred eight inch wheelbase the chassis rides on a double wishbone front and multi link rear suspension with progressive air springs adjustable shocks stability control ABS and brake assist. And meets the road by way of gorgeous standard 19 inch nine spoke alloy. But this stunning winged bee is powered by a very German engine. It's a twin turbo version of the boat's wagon faith and innovative w twell it boasts

five hundred fifty two horsepower and four hundred seventy nine pound feet of torque from six liters of force fed displacement. That power pumps to all four wheels. That's right all four through a new ZF six speed sequential automatic gearbox with a manual shift mode that uses paddles mounted behind the steering wheel and will launch the five thousand two hundred fifty eight pound Continental GTC to 60 in only four point seven seconds. Our first drive along the beautiful roads of southern Spain was exhilarating even as sanity kept us far from the 200 mile per hour top speed. The W 12 engine produces stunning levels of power at any point on the ramp band and does so with levels of refinement which match both bitterly luxury and German engineering traditions. This is a perve engine allows you to quickly heat up serious highway miles with only the rapidly descending needle on the fuel gauge calling out for you to stop. On twisty or pavement like that of the Cory

racetrack the big Bentley really shows its weight Understeer is strong on quarter entry but the high traction levels of the all wheel drive system with its torque sensing center differential allow you to easily drive through it. The body is very stiff and cornering lean is minimal thanks to the suspensions active computer controls the speed sensitive steering lacks feel but still responds in a precise progressive fashion. The overall feel is soft but never flabby luxurious but not alone. It's an incredibly solid package that confidently walks the fine line between English washed and Teutonic firm. Inside however the continental GTI is British the opulent 2 plus 2 interior is awash in fine wooden leather. The instrument panel for goes the classic flat Bentley style for the semi wraparound look of the late 20th century and appropriately to the layout is both intelligent and efficient with persuasion operated controls.

I did more for usability than style. This smart opulence also includes a high safety quotient which side in head curtain airbags standard the broad front bucket seats with Enter grated seat belts are covered in thick Scandinavian leather with a wide range of power adjustments and exceptional comfort and support. The rear seats are just as comfortable though the space that they occupy is naturally a bit short on head in leg room but with 13 cubic feet of space. The trunk will easily swallow an affluent over Packers weekend luggage and while you must certainly be well off to afford a continental GTC you need not be among the truly filthy rich. Base price is a bargain for a hand-built car one hundred forty nine thousand nine hundred ninety dollars. It's part of Bentley's drive to expand its customer base beyond sheiks and lords. Even a hardworking little pop star like Britney Spears can now afford the winged bean. But if Brit does lay out 150 large she'll get a grand

jury that offers all the Volkswagen group's best German engineering but is still as British as high tea at Buckingham Palace. So can boats wagon build a Bentley. Well they didn't have to but with their assistants the designers engineers and workers and crew have built a remarkable motor car. And perhaps the best Bentley. Ever. Coming out. Rolling. Over for the now let's check in with our master mechanic Pat Goss. He's got some cool advice about new Karkare tools. John this time I have a couple of tricks for both professional technicians and do it yourselfers. One of the big problems that we face in the automobile industry these days is when an engine misfires we have an absolute rhythmic misfire to the engine. Well how do you go about testing that without some very expensive test equipment. Well to begin with we'll use this

rate tech digital thermometer from Grio as Garang. Right now what do we do with this. We warm the engine up and it's sitting there missing. We aim it at the exhaust manifold on each one of the cylinders go down the line. Do all four six or eight cylinders and the one that is cold is the one that is missing. OK now we have a misfire we know which cylinder it is but how do we determine if it's a fuel problem or if it's an ignition problem or something else. Well the next tool is this quick probe. Now that's a pretty ingenious little piece. It reacts to the vibrations that a fuel injector makes. So on the affected cylinder you put the probe against the fuel injector. And if the injector is working it will blink and beep like

that. If the injector isn't working no blink no beep. All right. Next thing if the injector is working now we need to see if we have a high voltage spike to the spark plug. For that we need one of these very inexpensive spark testers. You know unplug the spark plug wire and insert the tester into the end of the spark plug wire and then connect the lead that comes with the tester back to the spark plug. Of course the plug would be in the engine. Crank the engine. And if it fly issues well you have spark. If it doesn't you know that's your problem and you pinpoint test the spark producing components for that cylinder. Oh here's another big problem trying to get a real accurate reading on tire pressure. If you've ever noticed you take your pencil gauge and you push it against the valve stem. You get this air coming out of there and you have to do it two or three times. You're actually letting air out of the tire. Well this is a valve

lock tire gauge in the way it works is very simple when you put it over the valve stem. You pull this handle and it locks right on to the valve stem. No leakage. Very accurate reading. If you have a question or comment write to me the address is Motor Week owns Mills Maryland 2 1 1 1 7. Private collections in Mechanicsburg Pennsylvania today at the home of the Rolls-Royce Foundation and the Rolls Royce owners clubs for the entire United States. We're here to talk with Les lifted who's going to show us around his wonderful collection of Rolls-Royce and Bentley motorcar. I'm a fourth 19 0 4 wells of ice at the Manchester hotel in England and form the Rolls-Royce Motor Car Company. The ballet company was purchased in the mid 30s. And represented the second cause was not a cost stable this was

more a raciest sporty a car as opposed to luxury because of those voice. You have to remember that pre-war and this silver Wraith post-war You did not buy a complete car you bought a chassis from those worst companies so what you did is you basically went to the rosaries factory and bought a chassis then went you favor coach builder. They had three or four designs so you can have a custom on. You have to never say really two types of flying ladies. These standing fine lady in the kneeling flying lady depending on the size of you car row source is very specific about the type of flying lady you have to match the grantor of the car. Here at The Rose Weiss foundation we have a sampling of both the pre-war pause in the post-war cost and the mana cost. In addition we are establishing some teaching Chasse's at these a cause that is fifth out of to the chassis right now we have a phantom to solve rate and we use them in teaching

seminars so they can see how the car works without the body into fare. You know everything Automotive is fair game for our motor wheat producers and reporters and there are lots of ways of telling a story. But our reporter Henrico past has a very unique style when it comes to covering a car subject. And as usual this week hes gone a little over the edge. Motor we can reopen as yet the tire rack Sure yeah I mean I know you guys. I mean I drive cars for the show. Never been a professional tire tester before. Tire tester Fredette. Professional tire tester for a day. Oh yeah I'm all for that I'll be right there.

South Bend Indiana headquarters of the tire rack. Now I know you guys know exactly what goes on when it comes to road test in a car or a truck. I mean come on you're watching motor wait. How about tires though. I'm not quite sure myself. Let's go take a look. We begin in the classroom. You can't just jump into a car be a tire tester which at the tire track or track train CELSS says you have to learn about weight transfer traction rubber compounds. It all comes into play behind the wheel after our classroom session. We get into the good stuff. Actual testing. For identical vehicles are rolled out each with different tires. We take turns driving the cars on a five mile course that puts us on roads ranging from country driving to high speed interstate touring. We're looking for how the tires feel. Are they stiff or too soft. How about a road noise. Are they last. Do they make any weird sounds. Everything's taken into account. Would you want the skins on your ride.

Repetition is key. Drive a loop. Change cars. Drive a loop. Change cars until finally well actually it's more testing this time at the ice house. Located a few miles from the tire tracks corporate Batcave the icehouse provides us tire testers with an instant winter setting. Yes we are at an ice rink. This is ice three inches thick. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. The setup here is similar. Three identical trucks three different types of snow tires. It's not every day that I get to drive a sport you know on an ice skating rink and it takes a certain level of suspended disbelief to get in the right frame of mind. It may look funny but serious work is going on here. Timing lights are set up to calculate acceleration performance even cornering grip is tested to see how well the tires handle the deep freeze. All good things must come to it. And then after a couple of cold hours we returned to the tire rack for some high speed track testing. Check this out. These guys have their own test

track right outside their front door. Perfect for getting down and dirty tire tester style. I asked the tire X Matt Edmonds how exactly to go about using his prime field of asphalt. We do the testing out on the track we follow a path that gives us a way to change where they go through a solemn simulates a lane change. They then go into a skip as they have steady state cornering to see how the tire reacts in a steady state when they come through a corner exit at a high speed come to where they can do some threshold braking so they understand how the tire works under extreme braking conditions. We then throw in the extra element of doing that again in the wet about that wet track. Mother Nature not cooperating in the rain department. No problem just fire up the water sprinklers treacherous conditions are yours in just a few minutes. And while all this testing is fun and exciting what it really comes down to is safety. The info gathered here makes its way back to the tyrant's website where consumers can select a tire that best meets their needs and that's what it takes to be a professional tire tester. A little cold a little way and a whole lot of rubber. You know. You might be a

future for me with this tire test. Recently Subaru said that they were cutting production for the Baja crossover vehicle due to lower than in Tissa pated sales. That's a pity since few vehicles are more versatile than this compact crew cab pickup. This son of Brant seats four adults comfortably a family of five in a pinch has enough cargo bed space for most weekend chores and interior access panel for long items all wrapped in sporty outback styling and supported by a reliable all wheel drive chassis. In the year we drove our Baja we tallied eighteen thousand seven hundred mostly short hop miles with fuel economy of twenty three point seven miles per gallon or almost twice what most full sized pickup trucks would manage. Plus during the snows of last winter it was one of a few vehicles we knew would always get where it was headed. All that and no serious mechanical faults too. Yeah the 2.5 leader flat board never missed a beat although it did start to ticket idle towards the end.

And then there are those fog lamp covers that dropped off. But all in all not too shabby for one of the most useful little vehicles we've ever driven. Now the turbo power is also available. Maybe the bajas fortunes will get a well-deserved boost sales is the clear measure of a car designs commercial success. But head turning and pointing tell us if the passion behind a car design really connects with enthusiast and judging from how many people stop us and want to know more about our 2003 Mazda 6 we'd say that connection is being made our 2003 motorway driver's choice winner for best sport sedan proves that a family purveyor can also be entertaining without compromising its primary missions equipped with the sport package turn ins are quite flat with overall crisp reactions. The 220 horsepower V-6 has robust torque and a robust exhaust. Only the somewhat bulky shifter an on off clutch action give us any complaints that after ninety eight hundred miles in seven months we're quite pleased

with the 23 mile per gallon economy and otherwise flawless operation. In short the Mazda 6 is very close to a perfect 10 with us. So how do we rate the Toyota Forerunner. Well we'll tally up the numbers on our next motor week long road just update. Time now to check in with Jessica choccy for all of this week's Motor News. In an age of multiple airbags and mandatory seat belt use it would seem hitting the road is getting a bit safer. But with SUV is a mammoth pick ups crowding the roads small cars are still a big disadvantage in a collision. A recent visit to Hondas to test center indicates Honda may have found a solution with the development of their vehicle body structure architecture called Advance capability engineering or AC Honda has improved the ability of small cars to survive a collision with larger vehicles to diminish. The benefits of a C engineer is that titchy you propel the tiny one thousand eight hundred seventy LB Honda life mini car and a two ton Acura R.L. sedan into each other

at 31 miles per hour. A combined closing speed of 62 miles per hour. The head on collision crushed the nose of the mini car split its windshield and left it off the ground. Even still the integrity of its cabin was not affected. In another test the Honda Pilot SUV and a civic took to the floor and though both cars received significant front end damage the Civic's cabins stayed intact. The new A C E front structure is based on three elements. A bulkhead upper frame and main frame and a lower member. The components work together to reduce the concentrated force of an impact by absorbing the crash energy and dispersing it throughout the car's body. And though the new AC architecture does raise some concern about additional weight and cost the benefits are undeniable. The first vehicles in North America to incorporate the new AC system are expected to be the 2005 Acura R.L. and the next generation Odyssey minivan. And that's it for this week's Motor News. While many car brands boast about building the biggest the fastest or the most

luxurious models Suzuki has built its reputation on providing small highly dependable cars an SUV for even less money. Now this allows Azuki to survive even when their cars were deemed too small for American taste. But now Suzuki is partially owned by General Motors and GM has big plans for this diminutive brand beginning with larger cars like this new mid-sized Corona sedan a car that may finally allow Suzuki to do some big boasting of its own. And why not with the 2004 for Rhona Suzuki launches itself solidly into the intensely competitive mid-size four door family sedan segment. The corona is the largest car ever to join Suzuki's lineup. It's nearly two feet longer than the SUVs compact Aereo hatchback and is accompanied by the compact the rims a sedan also made in Korea by Daewoo. But it's the

visual quality of the corona that made the grandest entrance with us the new sedan exhibits a commitment to extremely high standards of fit and finish much better than previous Daewoo cars. Classic Hits Brill below it's steeply ranked hood to a smooth six window greenhouse to a spoiler style trunk led the Verona boast an energetic yet rather elegant skin. The Verona is available in three trim levels S L X and R E X model h a well-thought-out balance of practical function and affordable luxury. All trim levels are powered by the only standard six cylinder engine among its import brand competitors. But the road on a smallish 2.5 liter 24 valve Twin Cam inline 6 puts out only 155 horsepower. That's less than Camry and accords 4 cylinder but torque or pulling power is stronger at 177 pound feet. All of our owners are hitched to a four speed automatic transmission with a rather bulky gated shifter at the track straight line

performance seems stronger than the numbers indicated a 0 to 60 time of ten point five seconds is just tolerable. The quarter mile pass was equally leisurely. Seventeen point eight seconds at 79 mph despite an inline engine design and this will torque is anemic and. Full throttle exhibits a good bit of buzz but above 4000 rpm is like mini afterburners kickin. That means good reserve power for passing indeed highway driving was a much smoother quieter venue. Verona rides on an independent MacPherson strut front and a multi link rear suspension with speed sensitive steering boost. Like others in its class there is a high level of grip and tight corners but soft springs and wimpy shocks mean plenty of front plough and body roll so you always want to slow down. However the handling limits of this car are quite high. Push it harder in heavy front plow gives way to smooth predictable easy to control oversteer. So overall the Verona delivers a safe solid but not

very exciting driving experience. Breaking news by front ventilated desk and solid rear disgrace stopping distances averaged a good one hundred twenty eight feet. And though the pedal feels soft stopping power proved stable and consistent Arbor only VX and mid-level elex and four channel abs with electronic brake force distribution. The E X also gets electronic traction control slip inside the new Verona and you'll notice that Suzuki and De will work hard to bring buyers the most interior styling comfort they can pack inside a velvet glove. Bar owner rides on a one hundred six point three inch wheel base less than an inch shorter than the Camry. Yet most key interior measurements are superior especially in the rear seat. The Rona is feature rich power windows locks an outside mirrors are standard as are audio controls on the tilt steering wheel are both high quality plastics with wood grain accents comfy eight way power driver seat in leather and a power tilt and slide sunroof. The center stack on all

models is highlighted by easy to use controls for a six speaker cassette CD stereo and air conditioning with dust and pollen filter. The rear occupants find a generous bench seat for three with a center armrest and cup holder. The 60 40 seat back allows access to a thirteen point four cubic foot trunk which is about 10 percent smaller than its rivals yet still wide and will shade good fuel economy is a safe bet although her own up EPA mileage estimates are 20 city and 28 highway expect 24 in a mixed driving load. But real value seekers will like these numbers even more. Face price for the corona S is sixteen thousand nine hundred ninety nine dollars. The electron's eighteen thousand two hundred ninety nine dollars with our Top Of The Line E x coming in at nineteen thousand nine hundred ninety nine dollars or about three grand less than a comparable B6 accord or Camry. So with the arrival of the 2004 Suzuki Verona value savvy shoppers have yet another highly confident choice in the most

popular of car segments. Unlike other recent entrants from Korean factories it gives Suzuki a car big on size a pair of quality and bang for the buck. I hope you'll join us next week for more motorway. Well no task for its new F-150 pick up and Toyota's Camry Solara coupe. I'm John Davis. We'll see you then to learn more about motor week. TV's original automotive magazine. Visit PBS online at PBS dot org. You order a video cassette of this program call 1 800 8 7 3 6 1 5 4. Motor Week has been brought to you by Cowboys where car people. We love cars we live cars we breathe cars. That's why we're such big motor weight fancy cars after all they love cars too proud to support Motor Week on PBS Pep Boys where car people plan to buy.

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