Arias Pistons 12.5:1 Compression 82mm Bore Honda B-series on 2040-parts.com

Hyundai increases its European Market share by 10%

Despite a weak car sales market across Europe, Hyundai has managed to increase its market share in January 2013 by almost 10 per cent. As we reported just the other day, the European car market is in a bit of a mess with sales down by 9.6% in January 2013 and even the mighty sales of the VW Golf – Europe’s best-selling car – dropping by 17.8 per cent. But despite the European car market falling back, Hyundai has managed to increase its market share in Europe by almost 10 per cent, from 3.3 per cent in January 2012 to 3.6 per cent in January 2013.

Call for reform over road repair funding

FUNDING patterns mean most road maintenance is being carried out in "less-efficient, cold and wet" times, a report from a Government spending watchdog has said. The current pattern of funding, combined with the need to spend money within the financial year, means that most maintenance work goes on between September and March, said the report from the National Audit Office (NAO). It went on: "Although this is less disruptive for road users, it is less efficient than carrying out the work at other times of year because materials can be more difficult to handle in cold and wet conditions, and daylight hours are shorter." The report went on: "As a result of the additional funding for emergency repairs, which is made available at the end of the financial year, almost all highways authorities need extra capacity from the market at the same time, which makes it less likely that they will get value for money." The NAO report said there was a "lack of predictability" over road spending adding that historically, local highway authorities spent more revenue on maintenance, but were now carrying out fewer routine activities such as clearing gullies which are essential to preventing water seeping into roads' sub-structure.

Pioneer App Radio officially unveiled

Pioneer has officially unveiled the App Radio that AutoWeek told you about earlier this month. Now that it's willing to talk, Pioneer claims that the radio and audio system is "the first in-vehicle product designed to utilize the processing power, storage capacity, network connectivity and apps of the iPhone and iPod Touch as the primary source for its information and entertainment capabilities." That does sound a lot like what Mini Connected and, in a more platform-agnostic sense, Ford Sync are doing. Pioneer said it couldn't speak to the similarity of those systems, but Ted Cardenas, director of marketing for Pioneer's car-electronics division, briefed us on installation of the device and what Pioneer is doing to minimize driver distraction.