Warranty Direct Reveals UK’s Least Reliable Engines, 3 German Brands Among the Worst

Cars are complicated machines made out of thousands of parts that, even when their owners take great care of them and follow the user and service manuals religiously, sometimes go wrong. After all, that’s what warranties are for.

Of course, warranties at some point expire, and while a light bulb or something equally minor may be of little concern, the engine is a completely different, much more scary and costly issue.

“Engine failures are the biggest fear for any motorist as they’re the ones that can lead to the most astronomical costs because of their parts and hours of labor required to fix them”, said UK’s Warranty Direct managing director Duncan McClure Fisher.

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Survey Shows Carmakers Remain Skeptic about EV Sales, will Invest in Internal Combustion Engines

It seems that, despite all the noise they make about their hybrid, plug-in and all-electric vehicles, carmakers still expect the internal combustion engine to dominate sales until 2015.

According to a survey conducted last November by audit, tax and advisory company KPMG, which surveyed 200 global automotive executives, including 22 in North America, automakers believe that sales of electric vehicles will not account for more than 15 percent of global sales for at least a dozen more years.

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NHTSA Lays Out Minimum Sound Requirements for Hybrid and All-Electric Vehicles

Following up to the 2010 Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act (PSEA), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proposed establishing a federal motor vehicle safety standard that would set the minimum sound requirements for electric and hybrid vehicles.

The rule applies to EVs and hybrids that have an electric-only propulsion mode whether they are cars, light trucks, heavy-duty trucks, buses or motorcycles.

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Polk Forecasts U.S. New Vehicle Market to Reach 15.3 Million Sales in 2013

The U.S. auto market has rebounded from the low figures of the 2009 pre-bailout crisis in spectacular fashion. It’s a trend that is not going to fade away any time soon: after Edmunds.com, automotive analyst firm Polk also predicts that new car sales will continue to rise in the States.

For 2013, Polk forecasts new vehicle registrations in the U.S. to increase by 6.6 percent over 2012 to 15.3 million units, helped by the improving state of the economy and the manufacturers’ increasing capacity in their local plants.

Key to this increase will be the drastic increase of new and redesigned vehicles. For the year that has just begun, automakers plan 43 new vehicle launches, which represents an impressive 50 percent increase compared to 2012, and no less than 60 redesigns.

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Carscoop's 10 Most Viewed Stories of 2012

No doubt, it's been an interesting year in automotive news. Besides an abundance of important new model presentations such as the VW Golf Mk7, we also witnessed the rebound of North American sales, the rapid decline of Europe's auto market amidst the euro currency crisis, and even announcements on the re-birth of brands like Datsun, just to mention a few of the things that took place in 2012.

But which stories captured the attention of CarScoop's readers the most in 2012? Well, to answer that question, we compiled a list with the 10 most read articles of the year, and let's just say that, while some entrants were to be expected, many caught us by surprise with their presence in the Top 10, especially the ones from previous years. Naturally, the same can be said for those missing from the list…

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Ford to Sell 2.2 Million Vehicles in the U.S. this Year, Has 3 Best Sellers in the World's Top 10

The Blue Oval has announced that U.S. sales of its Ford brand will surpass the 2.2 million mark in the year that ends today, adding that it has three vehicle nameplates in the global top 10, according to the latest vehicle registration data from research firm Polk.

This is the second year in a row that the Ford sells more than 2 million vehicles in the States, the only brand to do so since 2007.

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The Top 10 Cars Most Likely to be Targeted by Thieves in Britain

General insurance company Swiftcover has released a list with the top 10 vehicles that are most likely to be stolen in Britain.

The company states it analyzed more than 2,300 theft claims among the UK vehicles it insured from February 2011 to February 2012, while taking into account the estimated numbers of cars on the road and removing models with less than ten cases of theft per year.

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Analysts Predict U.S. New Cars Sales to Grow to 15 Million Units in 2013, Used Car Prices to Fall

New light-vehicle sales in the States are gradually recovering from the slump that began in 2007 with the global credit crunch and will continue to grow in 2013, albeit at a slower pace than previous years, according to most automotive analysts.

Edmunds.com projects 15 million new car sales in 2013, a four percent increase over 2012, which is expected to end with around 14.5 million units. It will be the first time since 2007 that the U.S. market will surpass the 15 million sales mark.

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Ford Comes in Second Last in Consumer Reports’ 2012 Auto Reliability Survey [w/Video]

Two years ago, Ford was included in the Top 10 of Consumer Reports’ (CR) annual reliability survey, with more than 90 percent of its range rated average or better.

In the 2012 survey, however, you’ll have to look a long way down to find the Blue Oval: it occupies the next-to-last place as it finished 27th out of 28 brands rated, and its Lincoln luxury division is just one place ahead.

"Ford's bumpy road can be seen in the numbers. Sixty percent of Ford-branded models and half of Lincolns were below average in predicted reliability and none placed above average," said Jake Fisher, director of automotive testing for Consumer Reports.

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The Sales Network: Facebook’s New Features Help Carmakers Shift More Cars

Initially, Facebook was available only to Harvard students, then to other Ivy League institutions, companies like Apple and Microsoft and as of September 26, 2006, everyone in the world who has a valid email address and is at least 13 years old.

As of last month, the social network has over one billion active users worldwide. California-based web analytics company Quantcast reports that in May 2011, it had 138.9 million monthly unique visitors in the U.S.; that’s close to 45 percent of the country’s population.

A billion users, half of them accessing the social media through their mobile devices, which means that they can be reached at all times: it’s a marketing team's wettest dream.

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