Harley Touring Road King Street Glide Boom Audio Pouch Ipod Itouch Iphone Itunes on 2040-parts.com

Crunch watch Dec 08: the auto industry in crisis

By Tim Pollard and Simon Stiel Motor Industry 31 December 2008 14:05 Wednesday 31 December 2008• GMAC, GM's finance arm, said it would immediately revise its criteria for providing loans, after the US government bail-out of the General's credit arm. It will now supply credit for anyone with a score of 621 or more on the Fico scale, the scale used to assess Amercian customers' creditworthiness (Financial Times)• The news means that 80% of US consumers would now qualify for a loan from GMAC – which should improve sales in the depressed US market (Detroit News)• Chrysler is being lambasted for taking out full-page adverts in the American national press thanking the nation for supporting its auto industry. But critics point out this is a fresh waste of bail-out resources, as pages in the Wall Street Journal – one of the titles in which the ad ran – reportedly cost up to $264,000.

Mulally says fixes coming for MyFord Touch

Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally vows that revised versions of the Sync and MyFord Touch infotainment systems will be simpler and more reliable and says more improvements are coming. He also says Ford has tightened its quality-control process for developing those systems' software.

Mercedes S-Class AMG Sport Edition – it’s another S-Class run-out special

The Mercedes S-Class AMG Sport Edition is another ‘final’ S Class model with extra equipment as the W221 comes to the end of its shelf life. The current Mercedes S-Class (W221) has been with us since 2006, despite which it’s still a fine car (and a great secondhand buy), but it’s about to be replaced by an all new S-Class. That’s why S-Class sales are falling and why Mercedes has rolled out the S-Class Grand Edition and CL Grand Edition to persuade buyers that a new S-Class (or S-Class coupe, in the case of the CL) is still a good place to park a sizeable chunk of change.