By: Jake Lingeman on 9/27/2011

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration awarded Takata-TruTouch some $2.25 million to continue to develop its In-Vehicle Alcohol Detection test, the company said. Takata, a safety and technology company, and TruTouch have created a vehicle start button with an integrated infrared sensor that can measure your blood-alcohol content. If the reading exceeds legal limits, the system can disable the starter. As the technology advances, it could help eliminate drunken driving, according to TruTouch. The system could be a reality within a decade. "Together with Takata, our mission is to help eliminate alcohol-impaired dangers on the road," said Richard Gill, president and CEO of TruTouch. "This NHTSA award will help expedite the work to adapt the technology for use in automotive applications." The device produces accurate results in seconds, according to the company, and has a biometric system to prevent tampering. The system is more accurate--96 percent--than the breath test administered by police, according to the company.

By: Katie Labarre

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced last week that it is investigating the Ford Freestar and Mercury Monterey minivans for three deaths involving their service jacks. The particular jacks being investigated come with the car so that the owner can change a tire if necessary. The agency is probing 205,661 minivans from model years 2004 and 2005 as a result of one death and three injuries that may have been caused when the van's jacks failed. Reportedly, the death and injuries occurred when the jack's hinges failed, causing the minivan to drop onto a person working underneath. "NHTSA said the jack should only be used to change a tire," cautions Automotive News, since changing a tire does not require a person to get under the van while it's jacked up. At this point, the Ford and Mercury vans are still under investigation, so NHTSA won't know whether to recall them until the probe has been concluded. Until then, if you're concerned your minivan may be affected, be sure not to use the van's jack for serious under-car work. Instead, use your own hydraulic jack, or take it to a repair shop. To find out more about NHTSA's investigation, or to see if your minivan is included in the investigation, keep an eye on the agency's website. In most cases, automakers will notify car owners if their vehicle has been recalled.

By: Steven J. Ewing

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has announced a recall of over 200,000 Hyundai crossovers -specifically, 178,685 Santa Fe and 26,548 Veracruz crossovers- all from the 2007 and 2008 model years. The problem? Airbags that may not deploy in the event of an accident. According to NHTSA, the clock spring contact assembly for the driver's airbag may become damaged over time. NHTSA continues: The driver's airbag electrical circuit will experience a high resistance condition, potentially causing the driver's airbag to not deploy.

By John Neff

Pour a 40 out, dance a dervish or do whatever your people do to celebrate the dead, because yesterday, the final Ford Crown Victoria rolled off the assembly line at St. Thomas Assembly Plant in Ontario, Canada. Workers from the plant have been documenting the wind-down on a Facebook page, and you can check out some choice build pictures of the last-ever Vicky in our gallery. The final Crown Victoria was a white model with tan interior and optional rear-seat air conditioning for a customer in Saudi Arabia. With the long-serving LINCOLN Town Car also ending production, only 250 of the plant's roughly 1,200 workers will be kept through December to help decommission the facility.

On sale for roughly 32 years, the Crown Victoria was a mainstay of the Ford lineup that refused to modernize. Aside from the LINCOLN, it was the only rear-wheel-drive, body-on-frame sedan left on sale in America. You could get it with a column-mounted shifter. You could order two bench seats and seat six comfortably (front bench seats in passenger vehicles are now officially dead in America). It rode on the oldest continuously produced platform on sale in America, Ford's tough-as-nails Panther platform that was first used back in 1979. Lastly, it always offered a V8 no matter what gas was going for at the corner station.

Perhaps the biggest testament to the Crown Victoria's significance is how many different vehicles it will take to replace it in our daily lives. Since 2008, the Crown Vic has only been sold as a fleet vehicle to its bread-and-butter customers: police officers and taxi drivers. With its death, law enforcement is flush with options for the first time in decades. Dodge had already been stealing market share away from Ford the last few years with a cop-spec version of the Charger that's been redesigned for 2011, and General Motors is re-entering the fray this year with a long-wheelbase version of Australia's Holden Commodore (formerly our Pontiac G8) that fittingly resurrects the Chevrolet Caprice name. Lastly, Ford is hoping that law enforcement embraces its own replacement for the Crown Vic â?? an all-wheel-drive Taurus Interceptor with beefed up mechanicals and a twin-turbo EcoBoost V6.

Like the police, taxi and livery companies are also going to miss the Crown Vic's innate simplicity, sturdy construction and wealth of replacement parts. There are many companies waiting in the wings to fill the Crown Vic's role as taxi cab, including Ford itself with a taxi version of its Transit Connect Van commercial van. A mandate by some large municipalities saw hybrid vehicles like the Toyota Prius and Ford's Escape Hybrid begin to chip away at the Crown Vic's ubiquity on city streets, and the largest municipality of them all, New York City, has chosen the Nissan NV200 van as Gotham's next official ride to the airport.

All of this is to say that even though the Crown Victoria was a dinosaur, what it lacked in refinement, efficiency and style it more than made up for in utility, ruggedness and sheer volume. An era has truly ended.

How To: Polish Your Car Like a Pro

No need to go broke making your car look like a million bucks.

BY MIKE SUTTON

Keeping your car's finish looking new doesn't require a paycheck's worth of equipment or a professional detail shop. "Wheeling" -i.e., polishing a vehicle with a rotating wheel, just like a pro detailer would-works by temporarily heating the paint's clear coat until it softens into a viscous liquid that fills in and dissipates blemishes. To prevent permanent damage to the paint, limit this method of polishing to once a year and wax your car every couple of months. Follow these steps, and your ride will have a like-new shine in a matter of hours.

STEP ONE: Start by washing your car by hand in a shaded area. Rinse the vehicle thoroughly but do not dry it.

Technique Tip: Wheeling is a messy process, so cover items (such as other cars, pets, and nearby walls) that you don't want to clean afterward. Use softer pads and polishing compounds on dark-colored cars, as they are especially sensitive to swirl marks. More-aggressive compounds and
pads can be used on lighter hues.

STEP TWO: Place a clean, slightly damp pad on the polishing wheel and put a moderate amount of compound on one body panel. Spread the polish with the wheel, using a medium speed. The key is to keep the spinning pad parallel to the car's surface to avoid swirl marks. Apply constant pressure and work back and forth over the entire surface of the panel. As the clear coat heats up and the paint becomes warm to the touch, scratches will begin to disappear. When the compound and water are thrown aside and absorbed by the foam pad, the brightened finish will become visible. Stop. Move to the next panel and repeat.

Technique Tip: Keep the area wet and use just enough polish for each panel.

STEP THREE: As necessary, stop and rinse off the foam pad with a hose or a power washer to prevent it from becoming saturated or gummed up with compound.

Technique Tip: The outer edge of the pad moves faster, generating more friction than the center, and it usually carries less polish-a recipe for a burned finish. So be especially careful around intricate trim areas, such as washer nozzles, mirrors, emblems, and complex bumper contours that can be polished using only the outer edge of the pad.

STEP FOUR: Wash and rinse the car again by hand when finished, including the door, trunk, and hood jambs. Dry thoroughly.

STEP FIVE: Applying a coat of wax to the paint will help mask swirl marks and cover up most remaining surface imperfections. Mount a soft foam pad on an orbital sander and apply an approximate 60:40 mix of paste wax and a fine finishing polish onto the pad. Use the sander at a medium speed to spread the wax onto the vehicle in a back-and-forth motion and with light but steady pressure. Leave just enough of a waxy haze to be visible when dry.

STEP SIX: While the wax is drying, clean the other areas of the car (windows, interior, etc.) and then remove the wax with a microfiber towel-bath towels or rags may mar the surface. Apply touch-up paint to chips and any lingering scratches as needed. Move the car into sunlight for a final inspection. Crack a cold one and enjoy.

There are plenty of dogs that love to ride in the car. Surely you've seen Fido, Spot and Ubu with their heads out the window, gloriously long hair and ears flapping in the breeze, taking in all the sights, sounds and smells of a lovely spring day. But what if man's best friend wants to be a little more... open to the elements? Well, there are sidecars that can accommodate a four-legged friend, and, though we certainly don't condone it, we've seen a few pups in the backs of pickup trucks, as well. At least one man and his dog, though, found a somewhat different way to travel: on two wheels. According to The Asbury Park Press, Gyula Szatmari of Tuckerton, NJ, was pulled over on his way home from work with his pet pug on his lap. He was riding a motorcycle. The local law enforcement cited Szatmari with careless driving and the improper transportation of an animal. According to the rider, he has been riding dog-in-lap for years and the dog apparently doesn't mind... though he's been warned by the police in the past that it's not legal to ride in this manner. We're not entirely sure what the law dictates when it comes to transporting animals, but something tells us riding a motorcycle with a pug on your lap isn't the best way to get it done.

By Chris Shunk - Autoblog.com

It has been a tough year for recalls at Honda. Just last month, the automaker recalled 1.51 million vehicles in the U.S. for an engine stall issue. In May Honda recalled another 833,000 vehicles for an airbag issue. Now Honda is adding another 86,000 vehicles to the tally for a pair of issues. The Detroit News reports that the automaker is recalling 80,111 2006 CR-V vehicles to replace the power master switch. The recall comes after the U.S. government had five reports of driver door fires that resulted from faulty switches, and Honda says the issue occurs when the switch allows residue from interior cleaners to accumulate. The cleaners could eventually wear out electrical contacts, which would lead to a fire. Honda also announced that 5,626 2011 CR-Z models with manual transmissions are being recalled to update electric motor controls software. Honda has received complaints of roll-away problems that occur when the battery is low on juice and the engine is stalled. When this happens, it's possible for the electric motor to rotate in the wrong direction, and when the brakes aren't engaged, the vehicle can roll backwards even when the transmission is in a forward gear. Sounds confusing - and dangerous. Honda will reportedly begin notifying owners of the affected vehicles sometime in September

By: Jake Lingeman - Autoweek.com

We have no shortage of ideas here in the United States about how to power our cars. We've seen gasoline and electricity, and we've heard about fuel cells powered by water. The nuclear option is the only thing left to discuss. According to Txchnologist.com, a General Electric-sponsored blog, inventor and entrepreneur Charles Stevens of Laser Power Systems (LPS) is working to build a turbine-electric generator powered by a thorium laser. The laser isn't the conventional kind that shoots a beam of light. It consists of an element that heats up and gives off energy. Thorium is a mildly radioactive material that is as abundant as lead, according to LPS. It is sometimes used as a stand-in for uranium in nuclear reactors because its fission is nonsustaining. Stevens says the technology could effectively power a car forever, completely emissions-free--a lofty goal, to be sure. The heat flashes from the thorium would create pressurized steam to turn an electric generator. A 335-hp engine would weigh about 500 pounds, according to LPS. As far as fuel, the company calculates that one gram of thorium equals the output of approximately 7,500 gallons of gasoline. Based on that math, eight grams of the stuff would power a car for about 300,000 miles. There still are a few problems to solve, according to Stevens. "We can build the laser, but the biggest problem has turned out to be integrating it efficiently with the turbine and generator," he said. The company is working on a bladeless turbine that uses the steam to rotate discs. LPS makes big claims, and critics have noted several problems with the theory. But the concept is intriguing. One additional question is whether the government--and car buyers--will be OK with millions of radioactive lasers on the road.

By Zach Bowman - Autoblog.com

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has announced that BMW is recalling 241,000 3 Series models for potentially faulty rear lamps. According to NHTSA, certain 2002-2005 325i, 325xi, 330i and 330xi models built between September 1, 2001 and March 1 2005 may experience increased resistance at the electrical contacts. This resistance may eventually lead to the failure of tail light, brake light or turning indicator lamps over time. That failure could impede a driver's ability to warn other motorists of his or her intentions, potentially leading to an accident. BMW dealers will repair the electrical components free of charge once the recall gets underway in October of this year. Previously, BMW issued a technical service bulletin concerning a certain eight-pin connector which would overheat and melt under extreme electrical load. BMW dealers corrected the issue by adding additional grounding to the circuit. It's unclear whether this remedy will also be applied to the recall. Hit the jump for the full recall notice.