This Is Cadillac: The 2020 Cadillac XT5 Sport AWD

The 2020 Cadillac XT5 Sport AWD.

The car you see above is Cadillac's best-selling vehicle. That's right. A mid-size crossover SUV is the current king of the hill for Cadillac. It's a sign of how things have changed---not only for the automaker that was regarded as the "Standard of the World" in the 20th century---but for the way we use cars.

For all its pursuit of European-style performance the past 20 years, what the XT5 says is that, ultimately, Americans with the means to consider Cadillac want room to carry people and things, and to do so in quiet and comfort.

Good Thing, Small Package: The 2019 Lexus UX 250h F SPORT

The 2019 Lexus UX 250h F SPORT.

"Little" and "luxury" have a hard time co-existing in American minds. Houses, cars, diamonds, boats---bigger means more expensive and more expensive means luxury.

Or so it went. There's a new generation of luxury buyers coming into their peak earning years who realize that luxury is an experience, not a physical measurement. If a small crossover SUV that gets good gas mileage makes sense for them, then why can't there simply be a luxurious version of that?

That's where the 2019 Lexus UX 250h comes in. It is the smallest of Lexus' three crossovers---the big RX, the medium-sized NX, and now the UX---and there are a lot of good things that come in this small package.

Emphasizing The "Sport" In Sport-Utility: The 2019 BMW X2 M35i

The 2019 BMW X2 M35i

Small crossover SUVs are a thing right now---and most of them lean to the "utility" part of "Sport Utility Vehicle". There's a cure for that, and it's the 2019 BMW X2 M35i.

Why The Hyundai Santa Fe Is Bigger Than It Used To Be

The 2014 Hyundai Santa Fe.

For all its rapid advancement in the automotive world, the one place where Hyundai hasn't been able to score and score fairly big is in the 7-passenger crossover category.  The Veracruz, on sale from 2007-2012, was decent and competent, but in that incredibly competitive segment, those are less selling points than they are damning with faint praise.

But now, Hyundai appears to have hit on a strategy.  Take the strong-selling 5-passenger Santa Fe, give it the name Santa Fe Sport, and then put the Santa Fe badge on an all-new 7-passenger crossover.

Why The 2014 Mitsubishi Outlander GT Deserves A Test Drive

Can the 2014 Mitsubishi Outlander GT save an entire car company?

New car buyers, you have a new address to remember.

Your local Mitsubishi dealer.

Yes, it's been a long time, if ever, since you considered the triple-diamond brand for anything with four wheels.  Long enough that the very survival of Mitsubishi as an automotive manufacturer in this country has been in question the past few years.

But this...the 2014 Mitsubishi Outlander GT...shows the company is still capable of making very good vehicles.  And ones targeted at the American driver, at that.

New Car Review: 2013 Toyota Highlander

It's an interesting automotive phenomenon....how certain cars are invisible until you start driving one, and then you notice all the others like it on the road.

For most people it only happens with rentals or every few years when it's trade-in time, but for professional TireKickers like yours truly, it's a weekly occurrence, with an ever-changing group of invisicars drifting into and then falling off the radar.

Which brings us to the Toyota Highlander.  The Highlander has been with us for almost 13 model years now...and part of its relative invisibility might be that it changes relatively little.  For Hyundai and Kia, 13 years would bring at least four full re-designs...but the 2013 Highlander is the Gen 2 model...rolling on essentially unchanged since 2008.

And it's a groundbreaking vehicle, too...the first of the car-based crossovers...intended to eventually replace the truck-based 4Runner (which, rumor has it, may actually happen in the next year or two).

New Car Review: 2013 GMC Acadia Denali

Full disclosure:  20 years ago, I signed on the dotted line for five years worth of payments on a brand new 1993 GMC Suburban.  We had a small child, another on the way, Mrs. TireKicker didn't like to fly and so with a week or two worth of vacation clothes, a double stroller, a Pak N' Play and all the rest, the big 'Burban seemed like a sensible family vehicle.

As I said, that was 20 years ago.  Since then, GMC has renamed the Suburban the Yukon XL, and while it's still in production along with its identical cousin, the Chevrolet Suburban, those vehicles have gone back to their roots as vehicles for folks who really need that sort of size and capability.

The mass market for SUVs has found its way into crossovers. You can get seating for seven and double-digit cupholders in surprisingly small packages these days.

Which makes the original big crossovers, which seemed tidy and compact when they arrived six years ago, seem big now.  But big is as big does.  And GMC's done a great job keeping the Acadia Denali on top of its game.

New Car Review: 2013 Nissan Pathfinder

If you surf around on the web, Googling things like "2013 Nissan Pathfinder review", you'll find more than a few autojournalists bemoaning the fact that the Pathfinder is no longer about rugged off-road utility and has become a carlike crossover.

That's true...but here's a little secret gleaned from driving a few Pathfinders as news vehicles in television:

The last generation wasn't the best vehicle for that kind of thing (off-roading) anyway.  It had become too big, too ungainly.  For the past nine model years, the best choice for adventure where the pavement ends at your Nissan dealer was...and still is...the Xterra.

Time to either kill off the Pathfinder or re-invent it.  And given that crossovers are a thing, killing it would be leaving money on the table.

New Car Review: 2013 Lexus RX 350 F Sport

Among enthusiasts, Lexus has something of a bad reputation. Despite stunners like the LFA supercar and the recently-reviewed-here IS-F sedan, the image is stil that of isolation chambers on wheels.

And out of the Lexus lineup, the vehicle that gets singled out for perhaps the greatest amount of abuse and derision among the smugly superior driver's set is the RX crossover.  It is, intentionally, the least sporting Lexus, designed to be a supremely comfortable conveyance appealing primarily to middle-aged and well-off females.  And it's been selling like hotcakes for well over 15 years.

But Lexus is on a mission to be taken seriously, and so this year, there's an F Sport edition of the RX 350.  Unlike the IS-F, there's no engine swap, just a much-appreciated upgrade of the transmission, suspension and some nice trim bits.

New Car Review: 2013 Lexus RX 450h

You have to give Lexus credit. They were early to the party (first, in fact) when it came to putting hybrid power in luxury vehicles, opening up a market among buyers who had extra money to spend.

They started 8 years ago with a hybrid version of the RX crossover (it was the 400h then). There have been changes along the way, but this year, there are several significant revisions:

The basic RX design has remained constant for 15 years, but 2013 brings a freshening that gives all RX models the signature Lexus spindle grille, a new bumper and headlamp design, LED daytime running lights, updated tail lamps and four new colors (Silver Lining Metallic, Claret Mica, Deep Sea Mica and Fire Agate Pearl).

New Car Review: 2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek




The 2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek.

I have only one complaint about the 2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek.

The one they sent me was painted the same shade as Walter White's Pontiac Aztek.

New Car Review: 2013 Nissan Juke SL




The 2013 Nissan Juke.

About a year and a half ago, we did our first review of the Nissan Juke. Bottom line was it was a ball to drive and spacious for people, useful for their things.

But I could never get my brain wrapped around the styling.

Well, I still can't.

But a second week in a Juke...this one a six-speed manual as opposed to the Continuously Variable Transmission in the first car. And now I think I understand the Juke a lot more.

New Car Review: 2013 Ford Flex




The 2013 Ford Flex.

I parked the new, mildly facelifted 2013 Ford Flex next to a 2012 in a shopping center parking lot a few days ago. By coincidence, the woman who owned the '12 and I came out of the store at the same time. She saw me opening the '13 and asked:

"Where did you go to get your Flex customized like that? I LOVE it!"

That, my friends, is the sign of a successful freshening. Most of the time, you still can't tell last year's model from this years. With a shape as distinctive as the Flex's, that risk is increased. But the new grille and "I didn't know you could make them like that" headlamps transform the Flex.

New Car Review: 2012 Jeep Compass Latitude 4X4




The 2012 Jeep Compass Latitude.

As that great poet, philosopher and automotive journalist Jim Morrison of the Doors once said, "Been down so G-----n long, looks like up to me."

Jim died 41 years ago, and he was never one during his four short years of stardom to sell his songs for ad campaigns, but in the case of the Jeep Compass, he just might have made an exception. For in six years on the market, the Compass has largely been reviled as cheap, crude and worst of all...not really a Jeep.

News: Ford Recalls 11,500 2013 Ford Escapes; Fire Hazard; Tells Owners To Stop Driving Them

Ford wants 11,500 of its 2013 Escapes with the 1.6 liter EcoBoost four-cylinder engine in the shop right now...and is telling owners not to drive the car. That's rare...recalls are usually "bring your car to the dealer at your convenience".

Three fires have been reported due to a fuel line that can split. Full story from the Detroit Free Press here.  Owners are being asked to call their Ford dealers, who will deliver a loaner car and collect the Escape to take it in for the repair (presumably on a flatbed tow truck).

New Car Review: 2013 Kia Sorento

The 2013 Kia Sorento.

Meet the all-American midsize crossover.

Yep, it's a Kia.

I'll spare you all the roaring up in the rearview mirror analogies that seem so unavoidable when writing about Kia's huge and so far unfailing strides from punch line to today's version of what Honda was in the 80s. Short version is this is now and so is the Kia Sorento. It's a right-sized crossover SUV, made in America for Americans and it hits the bulls-eye dead center.

New Car Review: 2012 Honda CR-V





The 2012 Honda CR-V.

Expectations.

That's the problem Honda has at the moment. I've read a few mediocre to bad reviews of the 2012 Honda CR-V, and after a week and 500 miles at the wheel, I can tell you, they're wrong. And it stems from expectations.

Those of us of a certain age watched as Honda went from building underpowered motorbikes to two-door rollerskates like the Honda 600 to world-beating sedans like the 1980s Accords and Civics in what seemed like the blink of an eye...and maintained the edge in quality, reliability and even innovation.

For the past decade or so, Honda's been operating with different priorities, and it shows. Their cars are no longer cutting edge. The simplicity and flawless ergonomics have given way to a fascination with electronics and buttons in the cabin. I've even said it...in a lot of ways, Kia is now building what we (of a certain age) expected from Honda.

But that doesn't mean that their cars are bad...or even less competitive in their categories.

New Car Review: 2012 Nissan Murano



The 2012 Nissan Murano.

There is a drawback to getting it right the first time. You change at your own risk. It's often better to sit still. But then you sort of fade from consciousness.

Case in point: The 2012 Nissan Murano, which looks an awful lot like the 2002 Nissan Murano...because, well...because they got it right ten years ago. In fact, the Murano really showed the way for the entire crossover segment. To tamper with it would be to mess with success, so Nissan has simply refined the Murano constantly along the way.

New Car Review: 2012 Lincoln MKT




The 2012 Lincoln MKT.

It's been nearly a year since our review of the Lincoln MKT (that one with EcoBoost), so we requested another, this one with the standard 3.7 liter Duratec V6, from Fiesta Lincoln in Mesa, Arizona.

The differences? You give up 87 horsepower (getting 268 instead of 355), get one mile per gallon more in both the city and highway EPA estimates (17 and 24) and keep $1,995 in your pocket (paying a base price of $44,300 instead of $46,295).

New Car Review: 2011 GMC Terrain




The 2011 GMC Terrain.

As easy as it is to take potshots at badge engineering (taking one vehicle, putting a different grille, taillights and nameplate on it and calling it something else), think about what it must be like to be a corporate cousin of a big volume brand like Chevrolet. You need product or your brand won't survive, and the fact, even prior to the great recession and Carpocalypse, is that the bucks aren't there to build unique vehicles for each brand. Platform sharing...and the more blatant badge engineering...are the only way to go.