Dodge Power Wagon - M37 - 1952 - No Reserve on 2040-cars

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Big rig gets blown over on Wyoming freeway, flattens police cruiser

A big rig navigating a stretch of windy Wyoming highway last week was blown over by high winds and landed on a Wyoming Highway Patrol cruiser. According to CBS News, three Wyoming Highway Patrol troopers responded to an accident along Interstate 80 near Elk Mountain on February 7. While the troopers were out of their cars assisting the crash victims, a white Volvo semi-truck lumbered up I-80 toward them. Wind gusts in that part of Wyoming were clocked in at up to 90 miles per hour on Tuesday, and one of them caught the semi as it neared the parked cruisers. Video from one of the cruiser's onboard cameras showed the big rig drift to the right as a big gust hit the trailer. Slowly, the whole rig tipped over and flattened one of the parked cruisers. The truck then slid a few feet on its side and came to a stop just aft of the cruiser. None of the troopers were injured in the incident, and two people in the truck came out of it unhurt as well. Patrol Lieutenant David Wagener told KGWN that that stretch of I-80 was closed on Tuesday to lightweight, high-profile vehicles. The truck driver was cited for the incident. High winds are no joke, and vehicles getting blown around or even clean off the road is a pretty common phenomenon. Way back in 2011, a truck got blown over in Utah. Then there was a train that got blown off a bridge in Louisiana in 2015. Related Video: News Source: CBS News, KGWN Auto News Dodge Volvo Driving Safety Truck Commercial Vehicles Police/Emergency Sedan semi truck rollover wyoming

Dodge engineers trying to shoehorn Pentastar into Dart?

The fact that the Dart's launch has been a pretty dismal affair isn't what we'd call secret. Judging by its mounting inventories and poor critical reception, Dodge's successor to its unloved Caliber has struggled since it hit the market. And while both of those are difficult problems to address, at least their cause is well known - the powertrain.
Even Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has acknowledged that the powertrain options in the Dart are substandard, admitting at January's Detroit Auto Show that the powertrains are "less than ideal." Leading with the 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder found in the Fiat 500 Abarth left a bad taste in the mouths of consumers thanks to the laggy engine and dead throttle response (to say nothing of the manual and dual-clutch gearboxes that needed more refinement). The addition of the 184-horsepower 2.4-liter Tigershark in the Dart GT has helped matters some, but apparently Auburn Hills doesn't think it's quite enough.
If rumors are to be believed - get that salt ready - a possible solution may be in the works. A report from Allpar is claiming that Dodge is considering fitting a Pentastar V6 into the Dart's engine bay. As the Mopar-obsessed website points out, the critically acclaimed Pentastar is available in three different sizes - 3.0 liters, 3.2 liters and the original 3.6 liters. We don't get the 3.0 here in the US, but the 3.2 can be found in the new Jeep Cherokee and the 3.6 has been seemingly fitted to every model Chrysler can shoehorn it into.

Detroit 3 small cars lay an egg in latest Consumer Reports reliability study

Consumer Reports has released its Annual Auto Reliability Survey and the results are, in a word, interesting. While we already covered the score-damaging effects of infotainment systems, there's another big angle to the data that's getting some attention - the utterly dismal scores of the Detroit Three's small car offerings.
The turbocharged Dodge Dart and Chevrolet Cruze, as well as the Ford Fiesta were their respective brands' lowest-scoring models, a stat that's made worse by the fact that the American automakers finished 25th, 21st and 23rd, respectively.
That's not acceptable for The Detroit Free Press' auto critic, Mark Phelan, who has penned a scathing critique of the D3's small car reliability scores, arguing that GM, Ford and Chrysler are "out of excuses."