2010 Honda Accord Crosstour Review

– Not the design catastrophe you so deliriously predicted

By Danny Chang
Pros

Solid all-around performance
Roomy interior
Spacious trunk with under-floor organizer
High seating position
Cons

Less-than-stellar fuel efficiency
Awkward styling
Busy dashboard
I recently became the father of the cutest baby in the world, so I asked my editor for a family vehicle to test drive instead of the usual Porsches and Astons he throws my way. Then he showed up with this blue Honda Accord Crosstour 4WD EX-L. I’m not sure whether Honda intended the Crosstour for families, I read that they were actually trying to target empty nesters, much like the Toyota Venza. That being said, the Crosstour is still much better for the baby seat than my G35 so I was actually pretty jazzed to try it out for the weekend.

Driving Impressions

You probably heard about how Honda bungled the introduction of the Crosstour by releasing a few spy shots of the crossover on Facebook that received a less-than-friendly welcome from users and bloggers. Its controversial styling and complex angles and surfaces did not show up well in two dimensional pictures on the web and the design was derided and roasted with no mercy. So I wasn’t expecting the like the styling at all, but when my editor pulled up with the Crosstour, I actually kinda liked it. It’s not that weird in person. The tail doesn’t look outlandishly long and heavy, and from the front the car actually looks fairly aggressive. The acceleration is also quite decent with the 3.5 liter V6, and steering feel was actually fairly heavy and solid. On the road the Crosstour feels very confident and smooth, and the high seating position gives a commanding view of the road.

Build

I guess it’s been a while since I rode in my high school buddy’s ‘87 Prelude, so I was really impressed with the quality of the Crosstour. The doors are heavy and feel solid, and they close with a satisfying thud. Interior noise levels were very low even on the highway. The interior materials felt expensive and the leather seats in the EX-L are supporting and comfortable. The plastic buttons feel nice to the touch and are still years ahead of the materials on American cars. All the exterior panels and pieces fit together very well on the tester and the dimpled edge on the bottom of the doors are a nice touch. The halogen projector headlights in the assembly add a touch of sophistication to the car.


Interior Comfort and Ergonomics

I’ve always liked Honda interiors for their simplicity and preference for function over style. With the newer models, however, Honda has been moving in the other direction. Take the center stack on the console in the Crosstour (it’s identical to the one in the Accord sedan), for example. In an effort to make the console look symmetrical with protruding dials down the middle, Honda separated climate control buttons and mixed them up with stereo controls and navigation buttons. The result is a dizzying array of buttons and dials on a center console that looks like it’ll transform into a Decepticon when you’re not looking. I’m not done complaining. There are also too many buttons on the steering wheel. While I appreciate the radio controls and cruise control buttons on the wheel, why are there two sets of buttons for phone and navigation voice commands? They’re right next to each other and seem redundant to me. I also dislike the steering wheel design. The third spoke at the 6 o’clock position is simply too thick and really bugged me how I couldn’t run my hands all the way down the steering wheel.



Now onto the good stuff. Although I just criticized the center console, I do like how the main navigation system dial protrudes from the dashboard and is close to the shifter. I could rest my hand on the shifter and control the navigation system comfortably without reaching forward to reach the dash. The best placement for the dial is still in front of the shifter like on Audis and BMWs. Number two, I liked the big, recessed large display for the navigation system. It’s bright and has good resolution, and best of all, works well in direct sunlight thanks to the little hood over the display. The sliver radio display also works quite well in the sun. Thirdly, I like the bright and simple gauges on the Crosstour. It’s very simple and functional, like the Honda interior designs of yore.

Credit : http://reviews.carreview.com/

2010 Mercedes-Benz C350 Review By carreview.com

By Danny Chang

Pros

M-B star bigger than J-lo’s booty on the grille
Competent performance
Mercedes-Benz safety
Cons

M-B star bigger than Mo’nique’s booty on the grille
Busy center console controls
No nav on a $40k+ car
Disclosure: I’m not a big Mercedes-Benz fan. Despite the solid engineering, performance, and prestige, I am just not a fan of the styling. The peanut headlights years were the worst. So when my editor called about the C350, I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy. But I was curious. The C350 has the bigger V6 and slots in between the C300 and the C63 AMG with the insane 6.2L V8. I wanted to see how it compares to my G35S. Plus my parents were going to visit that weekend and I wanted to impress them at the airport with a Benz, as they call them in Asia.


Driving Impressions
First off, my parents WERE impressed. There’s just something about the Mercedes-Benz brand that even the smallest one managed to earn a high score with the ‘rents. The C350 has a 3.5 liter V6 that produces 268 HP at 6000 RPM, which is adequate but definitely nothing to write home about these days in the crowded luxury sports sedan market. It is mated to a 7-speed Driver Adaptive automatic transmission that gets about 25 MPG highway and 17 MPG city. I averaged about 21 over the weekend.

The tester also has the optional 18 inch AMG 5-dual-spoke aluminum wheels with P235/40R18 in the front and P255/35R18 all-season tires, which definitely gives the car a more aggressive appearance than the standard wheels. Some people actually might mistake this for the C63 AMG if they just pull up alongside you on the road.

The C350 is quick on its feet and feels faster than the 268 horses would suggest. Handling was competent. The steering, however, is very light, and does not really fit the bill of a “Sport Sedan” that Mercedes advertises.


Build
The C350 feels very solid, the doors shut with a solid thud and there are no noticeable creaks as I tossed the car around the curves of the winding Highway 17 on the way to Santa Cruz. Mercedes has done a fantastic job with noise reduction and this is a very quiet cabin for a sub-$40k sedan.

The side view mirrors with integrated turn signals look expensive. The Black Birdseye maple wood panels in the cabin also definitely look and feel expensive, and are what you’d expect in a Mercedes.

Now onto the misses. Cost savings are definitely evident in a few spots. The trunk hinges are missing the hydraulics and now they take up space in the trunk, which isn’t huge to begin with. Worse, the cover over the 5 inch display is not even powered. I mean, I had to use my hand to open and close it. The plastic panels in the cabin also feel a bit on the cheap side.

Worst of all, whereas the signature Mercedes-Benz seat-shaped seat controls are usually located on the doors, in the current C350 this is only true on the driver side. The passenger side seat controls are on the seat like every other car. It’s so very pedestrian.

Interior Comfort and Ergonomics

The leather seats are firm and positioned so low that you feel you’re sitting on the ground. That’s probably one of the most sportive aspect of the C350. The instrument cluster is nicely laid-out, the LCD screen in between the dials are a nice touch but a bit hard to navigate. Steering wheel controls are fairly straight forward and offer good functionality. The buttons feel good to the touch as do the window controls on the door.


The center console, however, is very busy. The designers and engineers managed to fit an entire telephone keypad onto the console, in addition to about a million other small round buttons of the same size that seem to have been added as an afterthought. The tiny 5 inch LCD screen is small and the resolution is lacking. Compared to the larger and brighter displays in other similarly-priced sport sedans, this screen is definitely sub-par. The tester does not have navigation so perhaps the small screen is not an issue, but I hope the nav option comes with a bigger display.


I hate the cruise control wand behind the steering wheel. I keep hitting that when I try to signal turns, since it’s positioned higher than the actual turn signal stick. The C350 has an adjustable steering column that retracts into the dash and moves upwards to ease entry and exit, which is a nice touch, but the movement is so slow that you could do a couple of Facebook updates on your iPhone while waiting.

Credit: http://reviews.carreview.com/

Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera

Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera

We arrive at a photographic studio on a grey and functional Bolognese industrial estate in the kind of weather that manages to siphon off positive emotions and leave you feeling depressed for no good reason. The clouds are off-white, low and thick, heavy with implied resentment, a few desultory flakes of snow slowly spiralling to their inevitable deaths on the concrete. It's rubbish. Rubbish right up until we pull back the roller doors of the studio. At which point our day starts to look a damn sight brighter, in every sense that matters.

Squatting behind said doors is a new Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera, painted blazing yellow, wedge-shaped body parenthesised by black, carbon-fibre bits that stick out all over the place. It has the ‘big wing' option, black wheels, the Reventón's chin. It has Superleggera stripes down the side, a 562bhp direct-injection V10 in the back and a quad of matt-black exhausts the size of storm drains. The man from Lamborghini hands me the key and simply says, "'Ave foon." It takes me a second to translate the heavily accented English, and then I'm advancing on the SL with a boyish gleam and a very uncool grin plastered across my face. Sod the weather, time to get noisy.

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