Centric Parts 123.61025 Rear Brake Drum on 2040-parts.com

Jaguar XF Diesel S Bares its Claws

Jaguar XF Diesel S - more power, less fuel We all know how many problems the world’s car makers are having at the moment, and unless central banks ensure normal lending resumes very quickly we’ll all be in a big hole without a shovel. But when you look at what some of the best car manufacturers now have to offer we should be queueing at their door, and finance companies should be bending over backwards to lend. We’ve seen some great new models, and updates to existing models, come along in the last couple of months since the credit crunch has really started to bite.

Ellesmere Port's bid to build Ampera hits snags

By Rob Golding Motor Industry 09 October 2009 15:02 Prime minister Gordon Brown’s personal crusade to get Vauxhall's version of the Chevrolet Volt petrol-electric plug-in hybrid – the Ampera – built in Britain's Ellesmere Port factory in 2012 is a dream delayed, CAR can disclose today.News that the UK Astra plant is the best in Europe, that the Astra's Delta platform will underpin the Ampera, and that Volt will be on US sale from 2010 had been taken to mean that Vauxhall would be churning out the cars in the north west within three years.But the prospect of an electric car industry growing up around the run-down Merseyside manufacturing site is not imminent, CAR has learned.'No Ampera to be built in Europe before 2015'Vauxhall insiders have made it clear that the car to be known as the Vauxhall/Opel Ampera in Europe will be an import from the US for at least five years. One senior planner told us: 'The US will be the sole source of Amperas until at least 2015.'Bob Lutz, GM's former product supremo who recently came out of retirement as a PR, said that the low value of the dollar made the US an ideal site for the manufacturing of export cars. And with forecast sticker prices of the range-extender electric car standing at a scary £35,000+, every price saving is vital to its marketability.The European market also needs time to get its electricity recharge infrastructure in place before it is worth making cars onshore in volume, GM high-ups point out.

BMW X3 xDrive 18d launched

BMW has introduced a new entry-level X3 - the BMW X3 xDrive 18d [ad#ad-1] I really can’t make my mind up about the BMW X3. It has certainly sold in decent numbers (500,000+), so it must strike a chord somewhere with the great car buying public. But I just don’t get it.