Blog Category: Mercedes-Benz

Consumer Reports has released their annual reliability rankings (subscription required to view full rankings), with Japanese automakers, led by the Toyota brands, taking the top seven spots on the list. Ford meanwhile, sank towards the bottom of the list, finishing next-to-last, with their premium brand, Lincoln, only one slot higher.

Toyota, which had suffered some highly-publicized setbacks in recent years, including issues with unintended acceleration, is surely buoyed by these results, with Scion, Toyota and Lexus landing the top three spots in the ratings. Another feather in the Toyota cap: the top vehicle overall was the Toyota Prius C.

Everyone wants to be safe in their car, right? Occupant safety has become a major selling point when shopping for autos, with vast expanses of airbags enveloping us from all angles. But are we protecting our pooches as well as our people?

Bark Buckle Up is a pet travel safety advocate, and they have named their 2012 Bark Buckle Up Top Dog Vehicle awards. Some of the features they look for in a pet-safe vehicle are air conditioning vents for the rear seats to keep canines cool, side airbags, an adequate number of D-hooks for securing extra dog-related gear, and a good quality rear-view camera.

Here are their top picks for 2012, in alphabetical order:

A Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) vehicle is a used vehicle which has been inspected and refurbished to ensure the vehicle measures up to rigorous quality standards. A CPO vehicle is usually backed by a manufacturer’s warranty, often in the form on an extended warranty. CPO cars are not new, they emerged in the early 90s from the luxury car market, with companies like Lexus and Mercedes-Benz releasing used off-lease vehicles that had relatively few miles on the clock.

In every industry, perception and what we think of specific companies, brands and logos goes a long way in contributing to our purchase decisions. When it comes to buying a new car or truck, this brand awareness and perception goes a long way in how we research our vehicle purchases and ultimately in the vehicle we choose to buy.