2008 Saturn VUE Green Line Hybrid Review - The General Goes Green, Sort Of, by Alex Kramer, www.reviews.carreviews.com

Pros:

• Excellent ride quality
• Snappy new exterior style
• Upscale interior design
• Spacious front seats

Cons:

• Tepid acceleration
• Hefty 3800 lb curb weight
• Less than hybrid worthy fuel efficiency
• Marginal rear legroom and smallish trunk

2008 has been a tough year for American auto manufacturers. Faced with high gas prices and strong competition from overseas, sales have plummeted, especially in the traditionally lucrative light truck and SUV segment. Much like in the 1970’s, the pain at the pump has driven consumers to smaller, more efficient models, many of which are made in Japan. Although the Big Three already have some fuel efficient compacts and hybrids for sale, or in the works, is it too late to convince the American consumer that Honda and Toyota aren’t the only ones meeting the MPG challenge?

The folks at Saturn would undoubtedly answer this question with a definitive “No!” Saturn was founded as a company dedicated to small, reliable, efficient cars. Although that mission changed a few years ago and Saturn now offers an array of different sized cars and SUVs, the brand is at the forefront of GM’s effort to go green. Green Line versions of both the VUE compact SUV and AURA mid-size sedan made their debut in 2007, but due to their “mild” hybrid systems and minimal fuel-efficiency gains, interest has unfortunately been mild as well.

After undergoing a significant makeover, the VUE Green Line returns for 2008 with a fresh new exterior, upscale interior, revised road manners, but the same minimally augmented powertrain. For a full hybrid, consumers will have to wait until the 2009 VUE Green Line, which will feature a version of GM’s two-mode hybrid system. Until then, this modest attempt at fuel sipping should convince at least a few consumers to sign at the dotted line, but definitely won’t cause Honda or Toyota executives to lose any sleep.

Driving Impressions

Like other hybrids, the hybrid system in the VUE Green Line consists of a standard gasoline engine mated to an electric motor and a rechargeable battery. Unfortunately, the VUE’s electric motor only puts out about 5 horsepower and is limited to mildly boosting the output of the 170 hp 2.4 L Ecotec engine. No silent running on electric power here, although the system automatically kills the engine when stopped and seamlessly restarts the motor when you release the brake pedal. The end result of this modest attempt at hybrid technology is a decent increase in fuel efficiency over the gas-only VUE: 25 mpg in city and 32 mpg on the freeway, compared to 19 city and 26 fwy for the base 4-cylinder version (EPA ratings).

Combine this minimalist hybrid system with a conventional 4 speed automatic transmission with widely spaced gear ratios and you get some seriously sluggish acceleration. Whatever boost the electric motor gives is hardly felt and the gas engine feels even less potent than its 170 hp suggests. 0-60 takes an agonizing 11 seconds, a full 3 seconds slower than a Nissan Rogue, which amazingly has the same horsepower rating (but does feature a CVT that helps maximize performance). Once up to speed, the engine does a decent job of keeping the car rolling, but forget about any driving excitement. Freeway passing requires a clunky downshift into second gear, after which the engine slowly crawls to its 7,000 rpm redline. This is the car Mr. and Ms. Slowsky would buy.

Part of the blame for this sluggishness must also go to a healthy curb weight of over 3,800 lbs., which is fully 500 lbs heavier than much of the competition in the small crossover segment. This extra heft does give the VUE a very composed, buttoned-down ride and the suspension does an excellent job of balancing ride quality with enough firmness to keep the VUE firmly planted on the road. GM’s borrowing from its European Opel division for the Saturn lineup seems to be paying off big in the ride department (in Europe the VUE will be sold as the Opel Antara). Steering response is also quite good and the brakes are solid with excellent pedal feel.

Build

Build quality is definitely a notch above the typical GM rattletrap from 10 years ago. If anything, the engineers went overboard in giving the VUE a solid foundation, given its high curb weight. The chassis is unflappable over rough roads and the body panels, doors, and windows are solidly put together. When it comes to safety features, Saturn didn’t skimp, with ABS, traction control, stability control, and a full complement of airbags all standard equipment.

Interior

Slide inside the VUE Green Line and you instantly notice the higher quality of materials used throughout. The dashboard and interior panels are made from a smooth, soft plastic material that is quite unlike the hard, shiny junk still found in so many cars. The seats are upholstered in cloth, not leather, and feature a somewhat clumsy manual adjustment instead of the increasingly common power settings, but they are reasonably comfortable. The Green Line comes with relatively few interior options, but does feature a 6-speaker sound system with CD and Satellite Radio that produced surprisingly clean, full-bodied sound.

Interior space is excellent from the perspective of the front seats. There is plenty of leg, head, and arm room and all the controls are well placed. Move to the back row and things shrink quite a bit, with somewhat limited legroom, especially with the front seats moved back. The trunk is also a bit on the small side, which is partially due to the tucked-in design of the rear of the car, but the rear seats fold down very easily for extra room. A few other interior oddities:

• The steering wheel is quite large, almost awkwardly so, which initially required some getting used to.
• The parking brake handle is placed right next to the driver’s seat and has an odd, wrap-around shape that feels a bit weird every time you grab it.
• The front seats have enough lumbar support to make any chiropractor happy, but you’ll need to dial it back for anything resembling comfort.

Exterior

The newly redesigned exterior is quite smart and snappy looking, with the streamlined, teardrop profile that is so popular among the new breed of crossover SUVs. The overall shape is a bit reminiscent of some of the recent designs coming out of Korea and rumor has it that GM consulted with Daewoo on the overall design of the car. Chrome accents are liberally, yet tastefully applied, including on the window trim, front grill, and eye-catching 17” alloy wheels. About the only miscue is a pair of faux air vents placed ahead of the front doors. Like on the 2008 Ford Focus, these just look weird.

Value / Who Should Buy It

Like the Saturn ASTRA that CarReview recently reviewed, the VUE Green Line is a frustrating car to drive due the inconsistency between its mediocre powertrain and surprisingly refined road manners. It’s almost as if someone married the engine/transmission of a cheap rental car with the ride/handling of a mid-size luxury sedan. Some customers will undoubtedly cut the VUE Green Line some slack due to its improved fuel efficiency, but even here the results are less than stellar. After almost 400 miles of casual driving, most of it taking place on the freeway at 65 mph, we recorded 28 mpg, well below its freeway rating of 32 mpg.

Compared to other hybrids on the market, most of which achieve superior mileage without sacrificing any performance in the process, the current VUE Green Line’s minimal hybrid technology will be a hard sell. Although it is competitively priced and is generally a well-built, nice looking car, customers looking for the real deal in a hybrid crossover SUV should definitely wait until the 2009 VUE Green Line, with the two-mode hybrid system, arrives on the scene.

Lifted from this source: http://reviews.carreview.com

Test Drive: 2008 Saturn Outlook XR AWD, by Bryn McKinnon, www.edmunds.com

Used to be, to accommodate their specific vehicular needs, medium- and large-size families were relegated to penalty-box minivans with questionable styling, or behemoth full-size SUVs with trucklike handling and abysmal fuel economy. The introduction of midsize and large crossovers, like the 2008 Saturn Outlook, has changed all that. Now, soccer moms, NASCAR dads and everyone else with a brood to chauffeur (and cargo to move) have a viable and — dare we say — desirable domestic alternative to the family mobiles of the past.

The 2008 Saturn Outlook is kin to the other General Motors crossovers based on the same Lambda vehicle platform: the Buick Enclave, GMC Acadia and the newest member of the family, the 2009 Chevrolet Traverse, all of which effectively take the place of minivans for the automaker. Even though the base Outlook XE starts out as the least expensive of the three (at roughly $28,000), once you step up to the higher XR trim level (which is what our test car was), add all-wheel drive (like our test vehicle) and start ticking off must-have and like-to-have options packages (also on our test vehicle), the ticket price blows through the $30,000 range. We decided to see how this $42,000 crossover from Saturn shaped up.

Performance

Our all-wheel-drive 2008 Saturn Outlook tester's 3.6-liter V6 engine puts out 275 horsepower and 251 pound-feet of torque at 3,200 rpm. That six-cylinder engine is mated to a six-speed automatic transmission with manual shift control, and they work together to get the 5,067-pound crossover to 60 mph in 8.7 seconds during performance testing. That's not all that an impressive number when compared to the Outlook's competitors, but it's nothing to be ashamed of for such a large, heavy people carrier. (The Toyota Highlander gets from zero to 60 in 7.5 seconds, the Mazda CX-9 does it in 7.7 seconds and the Buick Enclave takes 8.8 seconds.) The Outlook stopped in a respectable 127 feet in our 60-0-mph braking test, thanks to ventilated disc brakes at all four corners, and handled like a car (albeit a big car) courtesy of its unibody frame and comfort-tuned suspension.

During highway driving, we found the transmission often reluctant to downshift on its own. This was most apparent when merging into traffic and trying to get up to speed quickly, or when we needed a quick downshift to pass at speed. It felt like there was power there to tap into, but the six-speed transmission, obviously tuned for maximum fuel economy, was sometimes painfully slow to react to our pedal-based requests. This is a known issue for GM's Lambda platform crossovers, and there is an ECU reflash available through dealers to reportedly remedy the problem. The other way to fix the issue is to use the manual shifting option, activated by a rocker switch on the shifter.

Comfort

One of the biggest benefits of a crossover SUV built on a unibody platform (as opposed to a truck-based SUV) is a smooth ride quality and carlike demeanor. This holds true for the Outlook; it's well-mannered, predictable and easy to drive. Due to firmer suspension tuning, it's less floaty and boatlike than the Outlook's Buick Enclave sibling. Even loaded with seven adult editors of varying sizes, our Outlook test vehicle never seemed sluggish, and it exhibited minimal body roll when cornering considering its size. Freeway hop when cruising over expansion joints is fairly pronounced, but not so bad as to make the ride uncomfortable.

The eight-way-adjustable driver seat (with memory as part of the Enhanced Convenience Package) and height-adjustable seatbelts make it easy for people of many sizes to find a comfortable and safe driving position. The front passenger seat is four-way-adjustable and has power lumbar adjustment, allowing the person riding shotgun to dial in their seating position, too. Both front seat cushions are firm and wide, yet gentle side bolstering and decent thigh support help to keep even those with narrow or long frames comfortable on longer trips.

The leather-wrapped steering wheel feels good, with just enough thickness and cushion to keep road-weary hands comfortable. It also tilts and telescopes to adjust to drivers of different sizes and position preferences.

The second-row bench seat is roomy and comfortable, with copious legroom. Outboard seat cushions are firm with prominent side bolstering, but the center seat is very hard and narrow. The third-row seat, however, is where the 2008 Saturn Outlook really shines. Many crossovers or traditional SUVs have very cramped third-row seats. Yet adult passengers who end up in the Outlook's flat third-row bench will have little to complain about. Legroom can't be characterized as abundant, but average-size adults won't be eating their knees back there either. Rear-seat audio and climate controls with vents in the second and third rows are appreciated when things heat up.

Function

One of the best attributes of this eight-passenger crossover is the acrobatic second-row bench seat, which splits, tumbles, flips forward and slides easily to allow wide-open access to the third row or provide room for more cargo. Second-row captain's chairs are optional for increased seating comfort but reduce capacity (to seven).

With all rows of seats in use, the remaining cargo area is a usable 19.7 cubic feet, enough for a few pieces of luggage or a week's worth of groceries for a large family. Should you want to use more of the Outlook's generous 117 cubic feet of maximum cargo capacity, putting down the third-row seats is an uncomplicated process thanks to a simple lift-to-release lever and pull-to-raise strap, though it requires quite a bit of effort: The third-row seats are rather heavy and a 5-foot-7-inch editor had to climb into the cargo area to reach the levers and straps.

One of our few complaints is that, for a family-focused vehicle, there is a surprising lack of just-right medium-size storage bins, though there are many small storage compartments. Another gripe from the driver seat is that the small, similarly shaped buttons of the climate and audio controls are attractive and symmetrical, but these very qualities make them more difficult to use. The optional touchscreen navigation system now includes a rear back-up camera, which helps with rearward visibility in a vehicle of this size, but it comes with a hefty $2,340 price tag.

Our Recaro Como child safety seat was fairly easy to install on the outboard second-row seat (we installed it on the 40 side of the 60/40-split-folding seat to make access to the third row through the 60 side easier without having to remove the child seat). You'll find LATCH anchors on the second-row outboard seats only.

Design/Fit and Finish

Our test car's Garnet paint, a deep glittering red reminiscent of the gemstone for which it is named, was quite attractive and rich-looking up close, but dissolved to "non-descript dark" from any distance farther than a few feet, especially in bright sunlight. The Outlook's exterior design is friendly and clean, but less visually interesting than its GM brethren.

Interior materials are of good quality, and while not quite the premium feel of the Buick Enclave, they definitely don't feel cheap. Panel gaps were minimal on our test vehicle, and the entire interior felt solidly built, with nary a squeak or rattle. The light tan leather on the first- and second-row seats — part of the pricey $3,570 Luxury Package — was comfortable and attractive, but we noticed it already starting to look dirty after our test Outlook's 2,300 miles. Hard plastic on the backs of the front seats makes scuff removal easy but takes away from the upscale feel of the leather upholstery.

Who Should Buy This Vehicle

Carpools, family road trips, extended visits from extended family, big box shopping sprees: If those all sound familiar to you, the 2008 Saturn Outlook could be the understated minivan alternative you're looking for. If you like what the Saturn offers in terms of standard equipment, options and the like, it's a solid choice in the midsize or large crossover SUV segment, though we'd probably skip the pricier options if it were up to us.

Source: www.edmunds.com

2009 BMW 750i / 750Li - First Drive Review, by Dave Vanderwerp, www.caranddriver.com

A somewhat less honorable way to stand out is to purposely hold back at first and then impressively show huge improvement. Has BMW done just that with its 7-series?

Even though the new, fifth-generation 7-series follows suit as the technology pacesetter by adding a bunch of high-tech features including active suspension damping, rear-wheel steering, night vision with pedestrian detection, lane-change warning, and side-view cameras, the biggest news is BMW’s backpedaling from some of the previous 7’s, uh, “breakthroughs.” Last time around, BMW rethought the whole business of ergonomics and moved the shifter from the center console to a somewhat confusing lever on the column. It has now been moved back. The seat controls on the previous 7 were moved to the center console and operated in a way that made them about 10 times more difficult to use. For ’09 they’re back on the outboard side of the seat and operate conventionally, as on every other BMW.

Easier-to-Use iDrive

Furthermore, the 7-series’ most controversial piece of technology, iDrive, with its multifunctional central control knob that has been copied to varying degrees by Mercedes, Audi, and Honda, has been completely revamped and rethought. In fact, continuing to call it iDrive is almost an insult to the new system’s vastly improved menu structure and control strategy. There’s no more convoluted nudging of the iDrive knob in one of eight directions to choose a submenu; now you simply scroll through a straightforward list and click the knob to select it. Nudging the knob to the left always takes you back one menu. Also, there are a number of shortcut buttons around the knob’s periphery to ease the learning process, and the climate controls have been removed from iDrive’s clutches altogether and are now more easily operated by buttons and knobs on the dash.

Has all of our complaining finally paid off? We’re cautiously optimistic that BMW understands that complexity does not necessarily equate with sophistication.

Serious Chassis Complexity

But that’s not to say the latest 7-series isn’t complex. In what must be a tuning nightmare for chassis engineers, the new car features standard active dampers that vary compression and rebound characteristics independently in an attempt to maximize handling without sacrificing ride, in addition to the active front and rear anti-roll bars that are a part of the Sport package. Also new is rear-wheel steering, which is bundled with the optional active steering that varies the steering ratio. The new car features an unequal-length control-arm front suspension—a first for a BMW sedan—as well as a redesigned multilink rear.

Lifted from this source: http://www.caranddriver.com