Motorweek; 1810

This time on motor week on new discovery. How fast is the prancing horse and Mercedes newest dropped off. So come drive with us next. Week TV's original automotive magazine brought to you by Castro's super clean or cleaner cleaner that says brake dust and grime from all types of wheels on contact no matter what age your car. Castrol super clean all wheel cleaner and by Michelin. Makers of the zero pressure Michelin. Designed to let you drive up to 50 miles at 55 miles per hour with out air pressure just what you expect from Michelin. Your hopes to promote. John Davis. Well hello and welcome again to motor week. We're glad to have you with us. Land

Rover is one of the most prestigious names in the sport utility market. Its vehicles evoke images of English gentlemen farmers head hunting on the Scottish wars. Well while the name is respected and its legendary off road prowess on question on road refinement has frequently lagged behind that of less illustrious competitors. So Land Rover set out to make its most popular SUV the discovery as good at gathering groceries as it is climbing over logs. So how genteel can that Gentry's favorite sport ute now be. Well let's put it this way. The 1999 Land Rover Discovery series two with a redesigned suspension system delivers a more supple highway ride. So much so that gingery can now sip their cup of Earl Grey at speed without spilling a drop. As the Discovery's notorious pitch and roll is mostly a thing of the past and fact it shouldn't take more than a quick trip around the block in the Discovery series to

disinterred owners scrambling back to the dealers to trade up for the new and improved ride is made possible by scrapping the old suspension and starting from scratch. The solid axles remain at the front and rear but are now the same as those found on the posher Range Rover. The new series to track is wider than last years with an increase of 2.1 inches in the front. Two point nine inches at the rear. Giving this Brit SUV are far more stable stance. Longer steel radius arms in a Panhard rod keep the front axle in place while single coil springs twin tube shocks and an anti roll bar even out the right the radius arms coil springs twin tube shocks and 80 rollbar are also present in the rear. Although the cause springs are multi rate and a Watz linkage is used to laterally locate the rear axle. Our tester was also equipped with the optional active cornering enhancement. Our base system excuse is the Landrover. The system features two hydraulic piston lever units that apply torque to the body to counter lateral movement. Replacing the anti-roll bars piston levers are

triggered by two accelerometers one mounted high in the body and one lower in the frame. The result is virtually elimination of all body roll up to four G's which is especially nice if you're a backseat passenger with or without that cup of tea. Changes have also been made to the discoveries for by four system. But fear not. The land rover is legendary off road prowess has not been compromised. Still full time four wheel drive series 2 has replaced mechanical differential locks with a four wheel electronic traction control system similar to the Mercedes M L. It uses great pressure to control wheel slippage and direct Tor to the wheels with the most traction. Once you get to the top of the mountain another Landrover exclusive Hill Descent control will help you get safely to the bottom engaged along with low range h DC automatically uses the wheel brakes to aid engine braking when descending steep grades as long as there's no pressure on the accelerator stepping on the brake. Also override the system if an even slower descent is required.

But you won't need any extra help coming to a stop on level pavement as though 4 wheel disc ABS equipped brakes do a fine job of bringing four thousand five hundred seventy five pound heavy weight down from 60 in an average 125 feet nosedive is prominent. But pedal modulation is just right. A new electronic brake distribution system that modulates brake bias between the front and rear wheels also helps keep things in line. Propelling you up to 60 is a new generation of discoveries. Trustee for leader for be a nice name for the new Thor and duction system that sits atop the all aluminum heads in block and with its longer induction tracks improves air flow at lower engine speeds which in turn gives the torque rating a much needed boost. It's now two one pound feet up from 233 and horsepower is up from 182 to 186. The Thor V-8 also uses a Bosch motor chronic 12:55 engine management system similar to the one found on the BMW 750 l sedan. But in spite of all these changes they

still weren't enough to keep our our mad drivers from screaming more power they flog the Discovery series to down the track to 60 and a rather relax ten point eight seconds and on through the quarter mile and seventeen point eight seconds at 77 miles per hour. There's no doubt the engine is stronger and it pulls steadily through first and second gears of the new speed electronically controlled transmission but loses steam when it hits third. Even with the accelerator to the floor. But you won't be drag racing. Other sport utes in the real world for around town cruising which is where you'll see most discoveries. The powerband is acceptable and it's highway manners are downright pleasant. There's still a little Dardanus due to the solid axles the Land Rover has done a wonderful job of hauling its genteel heritage into the modern world. Although the smoother exterior styling is still a classic Landrover. The grill remains wide enough right but until I tab it raised for better visibility to those behind the roof line is slightly lower and most

body dimensions have been increased. The series 2 is now 6.5 inches longer while the wheelbase remains at 100 inches inside the makeover is more thorough and much more upmarket. The available way Leatherface buckets are wider and more supportive. The super thick leather steering wheel faces a taller windshield and a new gauge cluster. The stack now houses oversized stereo and climate controls. They're both more ergonomically friendly and easier on the eyes. A 6 CD changer can be mounted under the front passenger seat space in the series two rear seats is still tied however and getting to them can be a struggle as the majority of the extra body space found its way to the cargo bay behind them. Their room is up to sixty one point three cubic feet. About a third larger than last year's discovery. Now that's enough room for plenty of gear and the optional jump seats they now face forward but still hold to the sides when not in use. There's also a retractable rear step to help you climb into them although not in show rooms until late November.

The series to base price of thirty four thousand seven hundred seventy five dollars reflects a three hundred fifty dollars decrease over last year's discovery. But our heavenly option Tester still tipped the scales at a stout forty five thousand five hundred dollars while the Land Rover Discovery is a longtime favorite of the British elite. It is also carved out a significant niche among the more genteel Colonials here. The many improvements in the 1999 Land Rover Discovery series to only make a blue blood sport you'd better. And it should become an even more common sight. Coming up the prancing horse runs for record. You know there are a few individuals more important to a car lover than a good mechanic and they are not better than motor weeks own. Pat Goss John this time we're going to talk about a very very common problem with lots and lots of cars experience this is what I'm talking about is carbon deposits that build up

inside the engine. Take this intake valve. For instance if you look at the amount of carbon that has built up on it it's pretty significant. And that's a routine thing. It comes from the various chemicals that are in gasoline's and the way that the gasoline burns inside the engine. Well it has to be cleaned. See what this will lead up to is poor performance rough idling hard starting sometimes stalling after startup. Poor gas mileage. All kinds of things. Now the way the scenario usually goes is that you have the performance problem and you may even have a check engine light that comes on or you may fail the missions you take the car to the repair shop. The technician who looks up has sophisticated diagnostic machines such as we have over here. Well once they hook that up they go through all of the tests and sure enough nothing is wrong. Can't find anything that shows up bad on the tester. So when that happens you want to suspect that there

is a possibility of carbon deposits. Now even if you've been doing things correctly now what's correct. Well you should pick one of these in-tank type of fuel injector and carbon depleting chemicals and use it on a regular basis follow the label directions. More is not better more could be damaging to the car. Well that'll help keep these things under control but you'll still get some of them. Well periodically when you have one of these problems or about every 30 to 45 thousand miles you want to look for a shop that has a piece of equipment such as we see over here some electric motor vac system. Now this uses a very strong chemical and gasoline is a mixture to run the car and it does an amazing job. We've used it in my shop we've torn the cars apart. And what we come up with is something like we see here. This is about what it looks like after we're done. Now if you look down here you can see a side

by side comparison of two cylinders. One that is clean one that isn't. And believe me this makes a world of difference in how the car runs and how long it will run that way. The other thing is right here fuel injectors. All cars today are fuel injected. Well fuel injectors also succumb to these deposits the chemicals and the motor vac they'll clean these injectors up keep the car running for a long time. It will save the expense of replacing fuel injectors and they're outrageously expensive. So it's something to keep in mind if you have a performance problem even if you don't you should do it periodically. If you have a question or a comment write to me if I use your letter on the air I'll send you a motor week T-shirt. The address is Motor Week. Owings Mills Maryland 2 1 1 1 7. Cars of the week are in 1964 Chevrolet Impala owned by Dave Webster of

Swiftwater Pennsylvania and an equally impressive 1970 Chevelle SS 396 owned by his wife Wendy. Together they competed regional dragstrip and run their own semi annual charity races to benefit terminally ill children. Now these are our kind of motorheads. If you have a great car Sammet good color photos to motor week. Owings Mills Maryland 2 1 1 1 7. A big part of selling cars is selling performance and auto makers sell that performance by demonstrating it on racetracks all over the world. Even exotic names like Ferrari feel a need to strut their stuff for the record books from time to time. And as Lisa Bell reports when the prancing horse decides to stretch its legs the rest of the herd can get left in the dust. Ferrari 550 Maranello. Land Speed Record attempt production car. Technical research center 7.5 mile level East

Liberty Ohio October 12th 1998. Friday means speed. Ferrari's formidable challenge is to break the production car speed record in the 100 kilometers 100 miles in one hour category's previously set by a Corvette LDS. Course this attracted a lot of attention from the Italian media. Driving for the attempt to Helio Truffaut I-talian racing veteran and director of Quanto road racing school. See no because I feel that all I can manage to. Yes he's the first time that I tried to make a speed record attempt and I'm very happy to do. And show Jedda professional test driver and editor in chief of Car and Driver magazine. Last summer Carlo Fiorini the Ferrari's public relations person in the United States and I were discussing a bunch of new models and what we could do with them and I'm not

sure if was his idea or my idea. But we started talking about setting some sort of speed record with the car. And before we knew it we had the makings of a program and we're out here today to finally get it done. The event is officiated by SCCA Proracing. We have a group of four people here are the technical administrator will review the safety aspects of the car and the engine size. My role here is verifying that the 550 that they are using for the test is in fact a production 550. We're measuring the born stroke varified the engine size. Just some basic simple checks the way we were able to do it with the tools that I have. We don't need to take the engine apart and then we have some timing and scoring people also that will obviously do the initial timing and then convert timing to kilometers and so forth. Well of course so we will have the day at all cage for safety. We fitted the tire and finally had the sense of the temperature over the time.

Just to be so the driver can know at every time that Tim put us all over the tire and that we fitted the car with the fuel system. Pricing Crescence by Ferrari crew and technicians set up a pit just as if it were an official race. Tires are mounted and balanced and pressure is exactingly checked as well using today. All five of the six in the series so you should see for the performance style from metallic plates. Exactly the same kind of diode you can buy at the low running at speeds well over 100 and 90 mph. The drivers need to keep a clear head and steady hand. I will probably run within two or three feet of the guard rail around on the bank. One pitstop is made after a half hour of driving to change drivers refuel and change tires. I think that Ferrari breaks this record it will say a lot for the basic engineering and design of this car because running for an hour flat out where you don't lift at all is just an

incredibly severe test. 191 the hour is up and it's time to bring the 550 in. Unofficially it looks like Ferarri has broken the records. Car and great car and like a train. No problems whatsoever with it. It turns out the crew did have reason to celebrate all three records were broken at one hundred kilometers at an average speed of one hundred eighty nine miles per hour. One hundred miles at 190 miles per hour average. At one hour at an average one hundred eighty four miles per hour. And the driver of the. Final victory post. And Ferrari goes down in history as the fastest production car in the world. We've taken delivery of two new sedans the first being this Mitsubishi Kalat

GTC. We were so taken with the Gehlot last mid-sized family sedan we tested a few weeks ago that we asked Mitsubishi to let us try the GTC performance version. They complied with this eye catching Ford or the trades most of the chrome OVL for body color as a rear deck spoiler white face gauges. And what counts most a sport tune suspension. Now this aggressive looking sedan really performs like one. The three liter one hundred ninety five horsepower B-6 is the same one we praised in the LS even though there is no manual transmission. We still find the TTC most enjoyable to push hard and still come home with the groceries GTC mileage at this early stage is twenty four point two or about what we got during our routine testing. We expect this very distinctively styled sedan to perform well for us over the next year and we'll keep you posted as we go along. Good initial impressions are also behind our selection of this infinity G-20 to join the motor week long term test fleet.

We applaud infinity for bringing back its entry level sedan. The G20 is most of the high end attributes of larger infinity models. Yet it is affordable enough to move younger buyers into the prestige ranks early and once you own a luxury car it's hard to settle for less. Our G20 is much like the first touring model we tested earlier complete with sporty rear spoiler and fine sports sedan handling prowess. We do wish for more than a one hundred forty horsepower four cylinder engine. Yet it seems quite adequate in all but high speed passing situation. We'll know more as the miles rolled by. Next week we take one final look at the Toyota Sienna minivan on our next motor week long term road test update. New cars and trucks are what motorways is all about. And for the newest on the market here's leagues of Barrow and all the latest motor news. There are nearly 50 breeds of domestic cats worldwide including the automotive variety. And soon you can add another breed to that list as well. It's the new Jaguar S-type and

although it draws heavily on the original S-type and Martu for exterior inspiration underneath its classic feline styling this new luxury sports it n packs plenty of thoroughly modern technology like a fully independent suspension with double wishbones and coil springs and plenty of aluminum components to trim weight under the bonnet is either a three leader for dirges derived V-6 that produces 240 horsepower and 220 one pound feet of torque or Jag's own 281 horsepower. Age 8 that scratches out two hundred eighty seven pound feet of torque. Inside are plenty of classic Jaguar touches as well with copious amounts of wood and leather throughout the cabin. In addition to optional voice activated climates stereo and telephone systems with prices expected in the forty to fifty five thousand dollar range. Jaguar is hoping the new S-type will be more appealing to a new generation of buyers. The site will begin stocking showrooms in spring of 99 as a 2000 year model. And that's it for this week's Motor News.

Mercedes Benz has a company that really knows how to build big cars. But recently it's been their smaller works that have really impressed our motor week staff when they first introduced the C-Class sedan for 1994. We call it outstanding. When they followed that with the C Ok coupe we said that it had success written all over it while we simply call the limited edition seen 14:3 our favorite Mercedes. Well now there's a C L.K. cabriolet. And what more can we say. Well for a start the 1999 Mercedes Benz C Ok 320 cabriolet is not just a coupe minus it's. In back on the windshield back extensive Jazzie changes and its own unique body panels mean that they Cabrio is almost a whole new chassis. And by modern Mercede standards a very handsome one. Granted its wind tunnel tune styling lacks the visual glare of the great bends embryos that preceded it but its solid Continental look has proven popular with buyers

of its hardtops sibling. But style aside were disappointed with the poor rearwards top visibility caused by the top wide stretches of unbroken fabric and tiny rear window. But like most convertibles it looks and works best once you get the power to control and stow the waiti three layered top beneath the hard tonneau cover with its bench style headrest bearings. Be aware that lowering the top cost you almost all of your trunk space so leave some back seat room for long distance luggage but tops it also opens up the Luxuria superbly equipped interior to the fresh air and interior with safety features that include dual front airbags side impact airbag like to see OK Koopa cabriolet features superb leather wrap bucket seats and they now get 10 way power adjustments versus last year's aith the telescoping steering column is also new to the C-L k. Other standard features include dual zone automatic climate controls and a Bose cassette stereo with weather band capability why. KS And unlike most

of the Cabrio rear seat is easy to access thanks to Mercedes power operated easy entry system and offers the same almost sedan size head and leg room as the hard top see OK plus headrest that cover Popoff rollover bars while the see. Both a new V8 engine for 1999 the cabriolet offers only the proven 3.2 liter V-6 it's 215 horsepower and 200 £29 of torque come from features like single overhead cams three twin plug heads and a dual resonant intake manifold which is all linked to a 5 speed driver adaptive automatic transmission which features both sport and weather modes. With over 300 lbs more to move we naturally expected the cabriolet to run a few tenths of a second behind the coup. But despite feeling very strong off the line it's best 0 to 60 time of 8.4 seconds was well over a second slower the quarter mile past and sixteen point five seconds at eighty seven miles per hour.

That's slower than competitors like the Saab 9 3 convertible and the BMW 328 convertible. And while we never expect the handling of a convertible to exactly match the coupe that it springs from the sea. Ok didn't feel as precise on Ternan as we'd hope that was mostly due to the vague feel of the power ball type steering yet the suspension tuning is perfect for what the OK cabriolet is public mission really is cruising and being seen as a totally comfortable open air tour and can easily handle any normal driving demand Perona. Now Mercedes brakes never disappoint. Cabriolet braking is actually a bit better than the 116 feet from 60. Stability is top notch with plenty of pedal feel. Add in the benefits of advanced features like brake assist system keeps panic braking pressure on even if you don't have available electronic stability control and the 320 cabriolet is a regular automotive security blanket. In fact automobile magazine called it the new undisputed class leader as far as active

and passive safety are concerned. Now if you're interested in this posh combination of safety in open air style Mercedes is your only option and it will cost you a minimum of forty seven thousand two hundred dollars. With option our test car comes to 48 thousand five hundred forty five dollars but the cabriolet like the court feels like a vehicle built to a price and that's something that older Mercedes owners are having a little trouble getting used to. Still to us the minor compromises seem to be a reasonable price to pay. So more people can enjoy the Mercedes experience and the 1999 Mercedes Benz C Ok 320 cabriolet is a handsome refined and luxurious open air experience. One day we'd love to enjoy every single day. I hope you'll join us next week for more motorways. We'll test the new Acura 3.2 T.L. and Cadillac's first truck fiasco. Lisa Barrow examines the art of the motor cycle while Pat

Gause clears up the subject of windshield repair. Plus we'll have another long term road test update and all the latest motor news. I'm John Davis. And to learn more about motor week TV's original automotive magazine visit us at PBS online at the Internet address on your screen. Motor Week has been brought to you by Castro's super clean all wheel cleaner. The cleaner that releases brake dust and grime from all types of wheels on contact no matter what age your car. Catterall super clean all wheel cleaner. And by Michelin makers of zero pressure Michelin designed to let you drive up to 50 miles at 55 miles per hour with out air pressure. Just what you expect. From Michelin. To order a videocassette of this program. Call 1 800 1:56 0 0 6 for. Us.

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