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Kia Sportage and Soul recall – affects 7000 UK cars

5,787 UK Kia Sportage models (pictured) are being recalled. Recalls are a fact of life for car makers, but at least the industry now tries to respond to problems as they arise, and before they cause damage to people of vehicles. This latest recall comes from Kia in the UK, which is recalling a total of 5,785 Sportage models and 1.432 Soul models to address a problem that ha been identified with the seat belt pre-tensioner mechanism.

New 2012 Mercedes SL costs from £72,495

New Mercedes SL 350 costs £72k The new Mercedes SL arrives in the UK next month (June) and will cost from £72,495 for the SL 350. Mercedes revealed the all new SL roadster – the first new Mercedes SL in a decade – just before Christmas, but it’s taken almost six months more to find out what it’s going to cost in the UK. With the first SLs arriving on our shores in June, Mercedes couldn’t really have left it much later to let customers know that the entry-level point for the new SL goodness is going to be £72,495 for the BlueDIRECT 3.5 litre V6 SL 350, rising to £83,445 for the 4.7 litre BlueDIRECT V8 SL 500.

Hot seats: from design to delivery [sponsored]

As the user demands on car interiors are increasingly influenced by their growing design consciousness, so suppliers like Lear strive to bring better-engineered seating to satisfy. 2013 was another big year for Lear, as Jeanette Puig-Pey, its global fabric & leather design manager, enthuses: "At our ‘Design2Perform' event we celebrated the unveiling of our brand new collection, with special emphasis on color and texture and our TeXstyle Enhance product, perfect for customization. Laser etching is part of this offering, it is exclusive to Lear Corporation and can be used to add refined design elements to cloth and leather." A mix of fabric and leather in seating is not new but is often seen by the consumer as a cheaper alternative to full leather.