THE CHAMP IS BACK
Scott Hargrove returning with OpenRoad Racing at Toronto.
New cars your mom will love
Mother’s Day may now be behind us, but there are always moms on the hunt for new vehicles.
OpenRoad Racing's Scott Hargrove gears up for another win
Champion race car driver, Scott Hargrove sets his sight on another win at the Porsche Ultra 94 GT3 Cup Challenge during the Honda Indy Toronto, June 12-14.
OpenRoad launches #DriveforCancer
OpenRoad launches #DriveforCancer with plans to give a local family the drive of a lifetime during the Diamond Rally
Porsche Centre Langley Grand Opening Press Release
OpenRoad Showcases Porsche’s Iconic Heritage and Premium Culture at the Grand Opening of Porsche Centre Langley. More than 400 VIP guests attended the marquee celebration which featured a spectacle of live stallion horses, interactive staging elements, and an exclusive performance by Juno-award winning artist, LIGHTS.
Lexus RC F party: An evening of smoking tires, dynamic design, and high society
You’ve heard of planes, trains, and automobiles. But how about planes, Lexus supercars, and hockey?
Read our recap of OpenRoad Lexus Richmond’s Lexus RC party!
Demystifying prepaid maintenance plans
Reliability is often one of the top buying points in people’s minds when it comes to new car shopping. These days, all new cars come with strong warranty plans to offset the cost of unexpected repairs.
However like all things mechanical, in order for that great reputation for reliability to hold true, regular maintenance still needs to be performed.
If your new car does not come with a free scheduled maintenance plan, such as what BMW Canada offers on their new cars, your dealer’s service department may still offer a pre-paid scheduled maintenance plan.
Prepaid maintenance plans make it easy to keep your vehicle running at its best by ensuring it gets the recommended scheduled maintenance as outlined in your vehicle’s owner’s manual.
By by pre-paying, you can take advantage of the significant savings compared to a pay-as-you-go approach.
But are these plans right for you? Let’s take a closer look at some examples.
This is not an extended warranty
First of all, it’s important to understand that a prepaid maintenance plan is not an extended warranty. Typically, prepaid maintenance plans cover only the regularly scheduled maintenance listed in the vehicle’s service manual. Unless specified, wear-and-tear parts (such as brake pads, rotors, or clutch) are not covered.
If the prepaid maintenance plan you purchase is for 60,000 kilometres and three years, then you have prepaid for just what is listed in the plan’s contract — usually comparable to the maintenance listed in the owner’s manual.
It can save you money if you drive enough
This convenience and piece of mind factor is one of the key benefits as to why these plans are increasingly popular.
A pre-paid maintenance contract can often be rolled into the monthly payment, spreading fixed maintenance costs across the life of the car loan or lease.
If you expect to reach the mileage that is covered by the prepaid plan, it makes sense to invest up front and pocket the savings over the long haul.
Additionally, by prepaying for all the required maintenance, you never have to worry about paying for an oil change or budgeting for any other maintenance item for the duration of the maintenance plan.
Since the cost of the plan is fixed, you also are sheltered from any parts or labour rate increases.
BMW Service Inclusive and Service Inclusive Plus
All new BMW vehicles purchased from an authorized BMW Retailer in Canada are covered by No-Charge Scheduled Maintenance or four years or 80,000 km, whichever occurs first.
Coverage begins on the date of the first retail sale, or the date the vehicle is first placed in service as a demonstrator or company vehicle, whichever is earlier.
If you plan on keeping your BMW past the four year or 80,000 km mark, BMW’s “Service Inclusive” extension option allows you to prepay for the same scheduled coverage up to eight years or 160,000 kms.
BMW’s “Service Inclusive Plus” kicks it up another notch by also covering wear-and-tear parts, including wiper blades, brakes, and the clutch, up to the same eight years and 160,000 kms.
BMW Canada’s website offers a handy cost calculator for their maintenance plans. Prices will vary depending on the model.
Audi Care
Audi Canada’s Audi Care Plan also covers the manufacturer-required regularly scheduled maintenance services at 25,000 km, 40,000 km, 55,000 km and 70,000 km, or five years from the original vehicle in-service date, whichever comes first.
The plan may be purchased any time within 12 months of the original vehicle in-service date or 20,000 km, whichever comes first, after you purchase your Audi.
All scheduled maintenance services covered under Audi Care must be completed within 5 years of the original in-service date of the vehicle.
Here is an example of the savings that are offered:
On on a 2015 Audi TT Quattro (S-tronic transmission) if the customer chooses to pay for the maintenances separately, the total cost will be $2,314.00+tax versus $945.00+tax (price of the package). The savings will vary based on the model but are still significant ones.
Infiniti Elite Prepaid Maintenance Plan
Infiniti Canada offers two levels of coverage within their Elite Prepaid plan.
The first level includes basic oil and filter changes and tire rotations which you can prepay up to 7 years or 112,000 kms, whichever comes first.
Upgrade to their Platinum pre-paid plan and the benefits are a lot more comprehensive.
In addition to the basic plan’s oil and filter changes, and the Platinum plan also covers wear-and-tear parts, rental car coverage during servicing, and includes a tire road hazard warranty coverage of up to three years or 36,000 kms.
Top Reasons to purchase a prepaid maintenace plan
- Can save you money if you plan on driving the mileage or owning the car for the duration covered by the plan
- No budgetary surprises if parts or labour rates rise
- 100% backed by the manufacturer
- Honoured at authorized dealers in Canada
- Regular schedule maintenance serviced by factory-trained technicians using genuine OEM parts
- Helps to ensure that your vehicle is maintained properly by keeping up with your vehicle’s regular maintenance needs
- Depending on the manufacturer, if you sell your vehicle, the remaining prepaid maintenance coverage may be transferred to a new owner, which can add to the resale value of your vehicle
- Zero deductible in most cases
- May be included in your finance or lease contract in most cases
Top 3 reasons why you should change back to summer tires ASAP
After a typically rainy and somewhat snowy Lower Mainland winter, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and spring is finally in the air.
With temperatures consistently above the 7 degree Celsius mark, it is now time to change your winter tires over to your summer or all-seasons tires.
Whether you do it yourself in your garage, or take your car into your dealership’s service department, here are the…
Top 3 reasons why you need to swap to summer tires
1. Winter tires are all made for a lower temperature range than all-season or summers tires.
All tires start life with differently engineered rubber compounds, each designed for specific temperature ranges.
Whereas summer tires turn hard as hockey pucks in the winter, all-season tires lose grip below 7 degrees C and are virtually useless on snow or ice below 0 degrees C.
Conversely, winter tires are designed to have flexible tread below the freezing mark. This means that they have a lot more sipes and tread blocks for gripping on snowy or icy surfaces. But not for consistently dry and warm pavement.
2. Your winter tires will wear much faster above 7 degrees Celsius.
As the aforementioned sipes and tread blocks come into contact with the dry and warmer spring pavement, heat is created as the rubber blocks are compressed.
This is because the sipes rapidly open and close as they come into contact with the dry pavement with nothing to cool them down. And too much heat is the worst enemy of a tire.
3. You won’t be able to brake as quickly or avoid collisions as effectively.
By design, winter tires are designed to be more flexible to dig in for traction in the snow. Compared to a good all-season tire, a winter tire will have 2-3 times as many tread blocks and significantly more sipes.
On dry and warm pavement though, this flexible-by-design construction can make stopping distances significantly longer.
Regardless of the type of tire, too much heat makes a tire’s tread blocks too flexible and therefore squirmy. The tire will get a greasy feel because it is chemically dissolving. And obviously greasy tires do not grip!
Final Tip
When you are swapping your tires, be sure to take a look at the amount of tread left on your winter tires. For the best traction in snow, tire manufacturers recommend a minimum tread depth of 6/32 of an inch. For comparison, most tires come with new with about 11/32 to 12/32 of an inch tread depth.
If you do not have the recommended amount, now is a good time to plan ahead to save money for new winter tires well in advance of the next winter season.
360 degree Surround View Cameras prevent parking mishaps
The rate at which technology is changing personal transportation is astounding. But the rate at which it is accelerating is even more impressive.
Just a few short years ago, rearview cameras were optional extras reserved only for luxury cars. These days, you can even get them on inexpensive compact sedans.
As auto manufacturers rush to cram in more premium features into their entire vehicle line-up (including Bluetooth audio streaming, collision mitigation braking), cars that are only five years old might as well feel like they are ten years old from a technical features standpoint.
Automotive camera technology
Camera technology, in particularly, has jumped leaps and bounds. Just a few years ago, even the highest end luxury vehicles had low-resolution, grainy images from a single perspective.
These days, the latest camera systems boast high quality images in day or night and even from multiple angles.
In this article we’ll take a closer look at 360-degree panoramic camera systems, the next evolution of active safety camera technology.
What is it?
360-degree camera systems create a virtual all-around view of your vehicle in order to show any obstacles surround it in order to ease fears of parking.
The key to these systems are four fisheye cameras that are mounted at the front , rear, and in the rearview mirrors to provide a complete perspective, also known as a bird’s eye view.
Special software then stitches all of the images together into a single video feed displayed in the vehicle’s infotainment system, giving the impression that there is a camera mounted 50 feet above the roof of your vehicle pointing downwards.
Advantages
The development of intelligent surround view systems for cars and trucks makes parking in tight spaces a cinch, and practically guarantees a perfect parking job each time. More importantly, these systems help to prevent collisions with pedestrians.
Many systems offer the driver the ability to zoom into a specific perspective, such as the curb-side view or rear view, which is particularly useful in dark and rainy nights.
360-degree camera systems also take the upcoming US federal mandate to a new level. This mandate specifies that all new vehicles under 10,000 pounds have to have backup cameras by mid-2018. While Transport Canada has no such regulations as of yet, Canadians still get to benefit from in-line changes that many vehicle manufacturers have implemented.
The US Congress called for these rules in 2008 after a spate of highly publicised accidents in which parents driving cars or trucks backed over their young children, tragically killing them.
Who has them?
Infiniti and BMW have both been leaders in surround camera systems. Infiniti introduced the world’s first Around View Monitor system back in 2007, and virtually all Infiniti models now have them as standard or optional equipment.
Infiniti’s latest version has been further enhanced with Moving Object Detection, alerting the driver to moving objects detected within the display image. A rear cross-traffic detection system called Backup Collision Intervention (BCI) also helps to detect crossing vehicles and can brake to help avoid a collision.
BMW arguably has the highest quality cameras and video processing hardware in the business, with photo quality-like video integrated with its Surround View system
Like Infiniti’s system, BMW’s also provides a 360-degree panoramic view around the vehicle with help from cameras in the exterior mirrors, a wide-angle camera in front, and the rear view camera. The system is activated when the car is put into reverse or at other predetermined activation points.
BMW’s Cross Traffic Assistant further assists the driver by first displaying yellow bars on the side edges of the image as well as a yellow warning triangle in the presence of crossing traffic.
The Side View function is automatically deactivated when the car reaches 15 km/h. The driver can then choose to activate the Rear View camera, Top View or Panorama Side View.
Top 5 Luxury SUVs at the 2015 Vancouver International Auto Show
The 2015 Vancouver International Autoshow is bigger than ever before this year. Now in its 95th year, the show boasts 25 per cent more floor space and even more vehicles at the Vancouver Convention Centre.
If you’re in the market for a new luxury SUV, here are my Top 5 Luxury SUV Picks for you to visit before the show shuts down this Sunday at 6pm.
2016 Land Rover Discovery Sport
The new Land Rover Discovery Sport makes its regional debut at this year’s Vancouver autoshow. It stands out from its posh compact-ute rivals for one simple and moderately compelling reason—it can actually go off-road, at least sometimes.
Based on the same platform as the wildly popular Range Rover Evoque, the Discovery Sport can’t match the ground clearance of its LR4, Range Rover, or Range Rover Sport siblings for pure wilderness-challenging ability.
However, the Disco Sport’s 8.3 inches of ground clearance is more than respectable for the occasional jaunt to the campgrounds or the country cottage. Land Rover also claims approach, departure, and breakover angles of 25, 31, and 31 degrees for the Sport, plus a wading depth of 23.6 inches.
In other words, that’s better offroadability than your typical BMW X3, Audi Q5, Mercedes-Benz GLK competitors.
Land Rover is also setting the Discovery Sport against its German rivals with the option of “5+2″ seating, with the ability to carry up to 7 passengers. No other compact luxury SUV offers such a feature. The “+2” is essentially a child-only fold-down third row that slides beneath the cargo floor when not in use.
2016 BMW X5 M / X6 M
The BMW X5 has the distinction of being not only one of the first true luxury SUVs, but also one of the first seriously fast SUVs.
Now BMW is launching the second iteration of the X5 M, which is based on the third-generation X5, alongside its less practical X6 M Sport Activity Coupe sibling.
With a twin-turbocharged 4.4-liter V-8 rated at 567 horsepower and 553 lb-ft of torque, the X5 M (and X6 M) is even quicker to trot than its predecessor with its official 0 to 100 km/hr sprint taking just over four seconds. That’s faster than many pure two seater sports cars!
Like the X6 M, the X5 M wears massive 285/35 tires up front and 325/30 rubber in the rear; 21-inch wheels are standard equipment.
As is usual in the latest BMW M models, the driver can fettle with the adjustable shocks, steering, transmission program, and throttle mapping through multiple modes using dedicated buttons for each.
Inside, the X5 M and X6 M both feature bespoke M-specific bits from the steering wheel and seats to the onscreen M Drive menu.
The exteriors of both vehicles also wear unique M front and rear styling cues, setting them apart from their more pedestrian non-M models.
2015 Lexus NX200t / NX300h
And now for something smaller (and more affordable).
With the new Lexus NX, Lexus is looking for a younger demographic than its RX mid-sized SUV.
The mid-sized RX is too big and pricey to attack the growing number of compact luxo utes and this is where the NX fits in.
Instead of the rounded and conservative silhouette associated with the RX, the NX breaks through with its brand-identifying Lexus “spindle” grille and aggressive body creases and folds.
There are two models available, the NX200t and the NX300h, available with front or four-wheel drive.
The 200t marks Lexus’s first turbocharged gas engine, in this case a 235-hp 2.0-liter four. It also will be available in mildly sportier F Sport guise.
The 300h is a hybrid with a gasoline 2.5-liter four cylinder engine and an electric motor combining to deliver 194 horsepower. You can even test drive the Lexus NX300h yourself in the Green Drive program running outside the Vancouver Convention Centre till this Sunday.
2015 Infiniti QX80 Limited
The Infiniti QX80 was substantially updated for the 2014 model year and remains as one of the few full-sized SUVs on the market with the ability to tow up to 8,500 lbs while still being able to transport 7 or 8 passengers in luxury.
Recently introduced is the QX80 in a new “Limited” trim level, offering subtle exterior upgrades and a sophisticated interior evocative of an executive boardroom.
Available in limited numbers only starting from May 2015 and exclusively as a 7-passenger model, the QX80 Limited’s exterior features dark finished, 22-inch aluminum-alloy wheels, dark chromed exterior trim, and unique stainless steel running board caps with rubber grips.
This vehicle certainly takes the word “premium” to another level.
The luxurious interior includes semi-aniline Truffle Brown leather appointments with an exclusive quilted pattern, open pore matte finish ash wood trim, an Ultrasuede headliner and pillars, leather-appointed grab handles and speaker grilles, unique floor and trunk mats, and unique silver switchgear trim on the centre stack.
2016 Audi Q7
Among three-row vehicles, few can match the Q7 in terms of style. It is as chic as it is spacious.
The 2016 Audi Q7 debuts as an all-new vehicle with Audi’s next generation styling and impressive weight savings to the tune of 717 pounds. This should pay dividends when it comes to fuel economy and performance.
Even though the 2016 Q7 is virtually the same height as the old one, clever visual tricks like the matte-aluminum trim surface between the front and rear wheels, the gently tapering roofline, and the powerful fender flares make it look lower, wider, and longer. In fact, the new Q7 looks more wagon-like than ever.
The low-rider vibe isn’t merely visual though. Audi’s relocation of the engine lower in the chassis has yanked the Q7’s center of gravity down by a claimed 2 inches, helping to improve its driving dynamics.
Audi has been well known for its impressive use of the latest lighting technology and the 2016 Q7 continues on with that trend. The headlights’ LED daytime running lamps now form pairs of arrow-shaped elements, as do the LED tail lights out back.
As you would expect with most luxury SUVs, there is a load of the latest active safety technology to compliment the latest in driving dynamic enhancements.
Carried over from Audi’s sports cars are systems such as a brake-based torque-vectoring system and an electronically controlled center differential. The latter can vary the all-wheel-drive system’s torque split from the standard 40/60-percent front-to-rear to 70/30 or 15/85 as conditions dictate.
Optional rear-wheel steering promises to enhance stability at higher speeds by slightly turning the rear wheels in concert with the fronts. At low speeds, the rear wheels turn opposite to the fronts to greatly improve parking lot agility on such a large vehicle.
