Paul Tan on the Automotive Industry
Check out this new commercial by Mercedes-Benz touting the safety features of its car. Whether you believe it or not, the creativity of whoever produced the video makes you smile… it shows two guardian angels having a chat, and it’s revealed that one of them has a “dream job”, the guardian angel of a Mercedes-Benz driver.
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When the E90 3-Series first came out, it was not to many people’s tastes. The signature L-shaped tail lamps were gone and the front kidney grilles had a little chrome bar running across the top, a design feature nicked from the 6-Series.
The 3-er had also swelled to proportions nearly the same size as the E39 5-er, so enthusiasts started to worry whether it would lose the qualities that made the E46 so popular. Despite all of this, it sold well of course, and minor design concerns can barely do any damage to the 3-er’s fantastic road-holding and agile feel.
The 3-Series facelift is now in Malaysia, with a new variant, the 323i. We’re not going to touch on that today, instead let’s go into the details on what has changed in the new 3-Series on the overall, as it’s not just a reskin on the outside, but it introduces BMW’s new and much improved iDrive sytem. We’ll also look at BMW ConnectedDrive and the features it offers the owner.
You’ll also read our impressions of a 335i automatic and a 330d manual, which features BMW’s new and improved 3.0 litre single turbo diesel engine.
Have a look at our write-up after the jump.
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Honda Malaysia today announced the extension of the deadline for submission of applications for Honda Dreams Fund (HDF) to April 15, 2009. The original deadline for HDF is 31st March 2009. This is in order to provide more people with the opportunity to apply. The HDF is a non-binding, full scholarship offered by Honda Malaysia.
The Honda Dreams Fund covers tertiary education fees and provides for allowances to meet living expenses for the duration of their courses. It is open to Malaysians aged between 17 – 24 years of age who have at least completed and passed the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) or Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia (STPM) examination. Strong academic results are encouraged but not a deciding factor.
Candidates must not be receiving any bursaries or financial aid from other organizations, agencies or government. To apply, candidates are required to write an essay on their aspirations in realizing their dreams in not more than 500 words. More details at the HDF website, or download the application form.
Currently in its third year, the Honda Dreams Fund was created to give underprivileged young Malaysians a chance to fulfil their dreams and achieve a better future through education. This year, the HDF team travelled to rural villages in Kedah, Pahang and Sarawak as well as to schools located in the Klang Valley in order to extend the reach of the scholarship and to reach out to more people.
Read more if you like after the jump.
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So it was a massively wet race, one that was made worse by the fact that it was an evening one – less light to cut through the heavy torrent. Jenson Button in his Brawn GP F1 car took the top spot again, with second place this time going to Nick Heidheld in his BMW. Barrichello who came in second the last race was in 5th place. F1 big names Ferrari and McLaren continues their woes with Kvalainen retiring on the first lap. Kubica also had to retire thanks to a mechanical problem.
Click for larger results table
The rain was so heavy that the race had to be red flagged, thanks to visibility which had dropped to near zero. The track had also become totally drenched with water. According to Button himself, “It wasn’t like it was a river out there, it was a lake!”. Hamilton said it was one of the most dangerous conditions he had ever had to race in, and all he could do was try to keep the car on track, don’t even begin to talk about actually racing yet.
Only half points were awarded to the point winners in this race.
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Jenson Button does it again, even with Malaysia’s monsoon rain!
If you can’t make time to head to a Honda showroom, Honda will bring the showroom to you with its nationwide mobile roadshow set to be held around Malaysia from March to August 2009. Honda will be showing the new facelifted Civic 1.8, Civic 2.0 and Civic Hybrid, as well as the new City, the Accord, the new Jazz and the new Stream RSZ. The next roadshow (at time of posting) is scheduled for this Friday at Batu Pahat’s BP Mall.
| Date | Town | Venue |
| 19 – 22 March | Mutiara Damansara | The Curve |
| 27 – 29 March | Kulai | IOI Mall |
| 3 – 5 April | Melaka | Tesco, Melaka Central |
| 10 – 12 April | Batu Pahat | BP Mall |
| 17 – 19 April | Kluang | Jalan Durian (opposite Kluang Mall, beside CIMB) |
| 24 – 26 April | Seremban | A&W Seremban |
| 8 – 10 May | Tangkak | Dataran MDT |
| 15 – 17 May | Alor Setar | Alor Star Mall |
| 22 – 24 May | Seberang Prai | Tesco Extra, Seberang Jaya |
| 28 – 30 May | Kulim | Landmark Central Shopping Mall |
| 4 – 6 June | Kota Bharu | Open air car park (next to Tesco) |
| 12 – 14 June | Tawau | Giant Supermarket |
| 19 – 21 June | Labuan | Financial Park |
| 26 – 28 June | Kuching | The Spring Shopping Mall |
| 3 – 5 July | Kuantan | East Coast Mall |
| 10 – 12 July | Temerloh | Open air car park (next to Celcom building) |
| 17 – 19 July | Ipoh | Kinta City Shopping Centre |
| 31 July – 2 August | Teluk Intan | Leaning Tower |
| 7 – 9 August | Taiping | Taiping Sentral |
| 14 – 16 August | Klang | AEON Bukit Tinggi |
I never did understand why Porsche used that weird rocker switch thing for the steering-mounted gear shifters.
Thankfully there are many who share my views, including Porsche tuner Gemballa, who have just released this Gemballa F1 steering wheel for the Porsche PDK dual clutch transmission. It offers some proper paddle shifts with left for downshift and right for upshift.
Nice and ergonomic, just like how everyone else does it! The steering wheel rim is also pretty darn thick for a firmer grip and includes the standard airbag.
The theme for news on this blog today is obviously SUVs. This is the new Ssangyong C200 Aero and Eco concepts, I think you can guess which is Aero and which is Eco, just look at the more “Eco” colour for the Eco. Ssangyong calls this Audi-like machine tyled by Giugiaro ItalDesign a “CUV” or Compact Urban Vehicle when in reality it’s a compact SUV, but if BMW can call their X6 a coupe I suppose anything goes.
The new CUV has a 2,650mm wheelbase and a length of 4,400mm, which is actually smaller than the BMW X3. It’s more of the length of the short wheelbase latest generation RAV4 with the wheelbase of the long wheelbase RAV4.
The Ssangyong C200 Aero uses a turbocharged 1.8 litre engine while the C200 Eco uses a 2.0 litre turbodiesel. Both are mated to a 6-speed automatic by default but Ssangyong says they will also make available a manual for those who prefer to do their own cog-shifting.
More shots after the jump including one of the interior.
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Mitsubishi will debut the vehicle above at the NYIAS 2009. It will be called the Mitsubishi Outlander GT Prototype, essentially what looks like an Outlander with a Lancer face up front, which makes it look more aggressive.
Of course for an American show debut you mustn’t talk about anything being a performance model without at least a V configuration engine so it uses a 3.0 litre SOHC MIVEC V6 engine, never mind the fact that the 4-pot in the Evo or even the Lancer Ralliart is more powerful.
The Outlander will also reportedly gain a new feature called Idle Neutral Logic, which basically shifts your auto transmission into neutral automatically when you stop. This really isn’t something new I think, heard of it years back but I forgot which car… but new for the Outlander I guess.
Stay tuned for more details when the MYIAS rolls along in a few days time.
The all-new monocoque Kia Sorento XM is here, unveiled at the 2009 Seoul Motor Show and soon to hit Malaysian shoes when Naza Kia brings it in.
The new Sorento is longer, with the A-pillar and dash moved forwards and tailgate moved rearwards (70mm) to increase cabin room in the interior. It seats 7 in 3 rows. It is 10mm lower and thanks to the new unibody chassis its center of gravity is 54mm lower. Headroom is up by 64mm, legroom by 102mm. It measures 4,685mm long, 1,885mm wide, 1,710mm tall with a wheelbsae of 2,700mm (equal to the Santa Fe).
The MacPherson strut and multi-link design has been carried over from the outgoing model (I’m really surprised they admit this, could have easily said new) but with improvements including a more direct steering requiring less turns lock-to-lock.
A choice of 3 engines are available – a 2.7 litre V6 petrol from the Mu family (165 PS and 244Nm of torque, also supports LPI liquid natural gas), a 2.4 litre petrol (from the Mitsubishi-Hyundai-Daimler GEMA engine family) and a 2.2 litre inline-4 turbodiesel from the new R family. which makes a peak of 197 PS and 435Nm of torque. Of course the power hungry American market will get one more engine option likely to be the most popular there, a 3.5 litre V6 petrol with 277 PS and 335Nm of torque.
There is an all-new 6-speed automatic available, and Kia says the unit is more compact and lighter because it uses a new “flat” torque converter which allows it to be 54mm shorter with 62 fewer parts, 12kg lighter and boost economy by 12%.
The new XM Sorento is available in either 2WD or 4WD configurations. Naturally the 2WD version will be lighter and offer better fuel consumption, but 4WD will be avaliable for those who need it. The Sorento also has Down-hill Brake Control which can limit vehicle speed to 5 mph on steep decline. Front approach angle is 25.1 degrees and departure angle is 23.1 degrees.
Look after the jump for a whole gallery of images.
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There’s no denying that purists will have a field day trashing these two SUVs that have joined BMW’s M line-up. The fact that they both debuted together like this probably shows that BMW considers the X5 and X6 internally to be two different bodystyles of the same car, like the E90 and E92.
In any case, the reason these two siblings exist is because of the ML AMG and the Cayenne Turbo. People buy them. Both the new BMW X5 M and the BMW X6 M carry many firsts for the M division. First off is the fact that they are the first set of all-wheel drive M cars. They are also the first to be fitted with a torque converter automatic transmission. They are the first M cars to use run-flat tyres (even the latest M3 uses regular tyres). And they’re also the first to feature a twin-turbocharged V8.
BMW calls the engine under the hood the M TwinPower Turbo engine. It’s a 4.4 litre V8 (likely derived from the xDrive50i engine) that produces 555 horsepower between 5,750rpm to 6,000rpm and 680Nm of torque between 1,500rpm to 5,650rpm, thanks to 1.5 bars of boost. There’s no official word on the engine code yet but it being called S63B44 should be likely? Like the non-M N63B44, it features the two twin-scroll turbos in the middle of the V bank. Both the X6 M and X5 M are EU5-compliant.
The M engine has its own specific cooling system designed to sustain the higher boost levels. The water reservoir is dropped in the V-bank to reduce the amount of coolant and weight of the system. There is a second radiator, and an additional electrical cooling pump with an after-run function for the turbocharger bearing mounts so they continue to be cooled after switching off the engine. The engine also has its own M pistons and camshafts. Compression ratio has been dropped from 10.0:1 to 9.3:1.
0 to 100km/h takes only 4.7 seconds and this applies for both of the cars. The car goes up to 250km/h but this is electronically limited. If you buy the M Driver’s Package you get an additional 25km/h of top speed. The engines sip only 13.9 litres per 100km in the EU cycle, and puts out 325g/km of CO2 emissions.
The transmission is called the M Sports Automatic transmission and is likely supplied by ZF, like all its other automatic transmissions. It has a special aluminum oil sump with a finned structure for M usage. 6-speeds are swappable either by letting the gearbox do its own thing or via aluminum paddle shifters on the steering wheel – left for down and right for up. The transmission can briefly cancel out fuel injection and ignition to achieve extremely short gearshift times. There is also a launch control mode that can be activated in the M Mode.
BMW uses a specific M Servotronic system that switches between two control maps. Low speeds use one mapping which increases steering assistance, this allow comfortable parking while there is another map that provides better feedback at higher speeds. The sporty map can also be called up using the EDC or M Drive button.
A system called Integrated Chassis Management controls various stability functions such as xDrive all-wheel drive, Dynamic Performance Control, Dynamic Stability Control, Adaptive Drive and even the above mentioned Servotronic system. The suspension uses a double wishbone design with electronically adjustable dampers, and the rear shocks use air suspension with self-levelling. The X5 and X6 M are 10mm lower compared to the non-M models.
Of course being an SUV there will be people using these two M cars for towing so the X5 gets a towbar with an electrically swivelling ball head, while the X6 gets an optional towbar with a removable ball head. The max trailer load is 3 tonnes.
Other than the fact that these are M SUVs, there is another WTF that springs to my mind – for one, look at the interior. The front seats barely have any side support, and even the M-Sport models (which aren’t really M cars) have this in cars like the 1-er and 3-er. Is this car not supposed to go very much sideways?
Look after the jump for many very high-resolution photos for your enjoyment – they’re all huge and are very suitable to be cropped down to be used as wallpapers. There is also a video allowing you to hear the new turbo V8 in all its glory. Enjoy!
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