Friday, November 30, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Honda Fit She’s, the world’s only car aimed exclusively at women
Around the world, building and designing cars remains a male-dominated business, and many companies live by an old axiom that women will buy a man's car but men won't buy a woman's car. While a few companies have attempted to bend that rule, only Honda has chosen to embrace it with the Honda Fit She's -- the only model built by an automaker today aimed exclusively at women. Hope you like pink, ladies.
There's a long and embarrassing history of automakers attempting to lure women with ladies-only models. At the turn of the 20th century, electric cars were marketed to wives with the pitch that their lack of hand-crank starting would avoid broken shoulders and/or death. In 1955, Chrysler made a bid for feminine attention with the Dodge LaFemme -- which came in a two-tone pink-and-white paint scheme, along with a storage place for the matching purse and rain hat. Lest you think modern executives learned from errors of the past, in 2000 Ford showed off a concept Windstar minivan developed with Maytag featuring a compact washer/dryer, microwave and vacuum in the rear hatch, because why would a soccer mom ever want to be parted from her appliances?
As women have grown to buy more cars in recent decades -- accounting for about one-third of car shoppers in the United States -- such attempts have given way to more savvy marketing. But in Japan, the gender divide remains more stark; half of all working-age women stay out of the workforce due to more stringent societal pressure to choose homemaking over careers, a major reason Japan's economy has been stuck in a rut for decades. But there's a cohort of younger Japanese women putting work first, and in a weak market Honda sees an opening.
Launched this summer, the Honda Fit She's designers say they wanted to take a regular Fit subcompact and make it in their words "adult cute." That means lots of pink: Pink stitching in the seats and steering wheel and floor mats, matched by pink metallic bezels around the shifter and displays. There's also a few extra shades of pink in the special She's badge, spelled with a heart for an apostrophe. If pink isn't a customer's style, Japanese buyers can also select a Fit She's in shades of brown and white that a Honda executive told the Yomuri Shinbun newspaper match the color of eyeshadow.
To Honda's credit, the Fit She's beauty treatment isn't just skin deep. It also comes with special windshield glass that cuts 99 percent of ultraviolet rays and a "Plasmacluster" air conditioning system that Honda claims can improve a driver's skin quality, all aimed at stopping those wrinkles that turn adult cute into just adult. With a starting price of $17,500, the Fit She's got an attractive price for a home-market Japanese car -- but automakers wouldn't need special editions if taking advice from women wasn't such a noteworthy event.
Source: Yahoo! Autos
Monday, November 26, 2012
Monday Maintenance Tip: How To Clear Foggy Headlights
Fogged headlight lenses not only make your car look tired but also restrict the amount of light illuminating the road ahead of you. Headlight restoration kits are cheap and can produce dramatic results.
Money Saved: About $40
Time Required: 30 minutes to 1 hour
Tools Required:
- Latex glove
- Electrician's tape
- Buffing wheel (optional)
- Sponge
Materials Required:
- Headlight restoring kit
- Newspapers
- Water
In the photo above are two different headlight restoring kits, the Turtle Wax Headlight Lens Restorer (typically sold for about $10) and Sylvania's Headlight Restoration Kit, selling for about $20. There are many other kits available at different prices, including some that include a buffing wheel to eliminate the manual labor.
Most headlight restoration kits include an abrasive compound and sandpaper (in grades of varying roughness) to remove the outer layer of yellowed, oxidized plastic and clear the lens. Some include a buffing wheel that can be attached to a power drill. One YouTube video even shows headlights being cleaned with toothpaste (which is slightly abrasive) and a clean cloth towel.
One difference between the two kits — and probably the reason for the price difference — is that the Sylvania kit includes a glove, tape and a liquid "UV Block Clear Coat" to protect the lens from refogging once it has been cleaned. I have one gripe with the Sylvania kit, because the clarifying compound comes in a little packet that can't easily be stored. This means this kit will probably be a one-shot deal. The Turtle Wax kit doesn't have the extra goodies, but the pads can be reused and the bottles contain a larger amount of the clarifying compounds.
To be clear (so to speak), what we're actually tackling in this project is the plastic lens covering the headlight bulbs. This plastic lens protects the headlight from dirt and debris blown around on the road. Over time, these lenses become scratched, pitted and clouded by exposure to the sun. Replacing the lenses is expensive, so many car owners opt just to clean them.
Whichever kit you use, make sure you follow the included directions carefully. Use the products in the correct order and keep in mind that the headlights won't look clear until you are finished and the residue is washed off.
I use the electrician's black tape from the Sylvania kit to protect the paint around the headlights from the abrasive compound and to ensure I don't accidently scratch the paint with sandpaper. The electrician's tape is particularly good for this task because it pulls off easily when you are finished without leaving any sticky goo on your car's paint. You might also consider using extra protection and tape some newspaper onto the car to protect the finish. Once you start getting into the project and the how-to zeal takes hold, the compounds tend to fly onto painted surfaces.
I have used the Turtle Wax kit on the left headlight and the Sylvania on the right. I applied the Turtle Wax products in two stages, rubbing on the lens-clarifying compound first to see if that did the job.
If the clarifying compound doesn't get results, you spray on the lubricant and use the abrasive pads. I use both chemicals for this test.
The Sylvania kit called for washing the headlight lens with a surface activator. Then I applied the clarifying compound from the packet to the different levels of sandpaper for sanding and polishing the lens. Finally, I applied the UV Block Clear Coat.
Clearing your headlights is easy, inexpensive and the results are satisfying. Once you do it and see how it sharpens up the look of your car, you'll find yourself recommending it to all your friends with older cars. Even better, there might be a little more from your headlights when you're driving at night.
Source: Edmunds
