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Honda, Mercedes top KBB brand image awards [w/video]

Kelley Blue Book has announced the winners of its 2014 Brand Image Awards, which look at brands with "attributes that capture the attention and enthusiasm" of customers in the market for a new car.
The award is divided up into luxury brands and everyone else non-luxury brands, with a number of sub-awards in each group. There's also a single award for truck brands. Taking the crown for the best everyman brand (for the second year in a row) is Honda, while Mercedes-Benz was the king of the luxury brackets. Ford, meanwhile, had the best image among pickup buyers.
Honda was also named the most trusted brand among shoppers, while Kia, GMC, Mini and Chevrolet also snagged awards for value, refinement, performance and styling, respectively. Secondary winners in the luxury ranks include Lexus, Buick, Porsche and Jaguar. Mercedes was also named the most refined luxury brand.

Honda fixes Fit flaw, improves performance on key crash test [w/video]

The Fit's grade on the small-front overlap test improved from "marginal" to "acceptable."
Back in March, safety engineers at Honda were disappointed when the much-anticipated 2015 Fit received a substandard grade on an important crash test conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Honda To Expand Takata Air Bag Recall Nationwide

Under pressure from federal regulators, Honda is expanding a recall of driver's side air bags to all 50 states. The air bags, made by Japanese supplier Takata Corp., can explode with too much force, sending metal shrapnel into the passenger compartment. Takata insists that current recalls covering 8 million U.S. cars in high-humidity areas are sufficient. But the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wants the recalls expanded nationwide after some incidents outside the high-humidity zones. Rick Schosteck, Honda's executive vice president for North America, told House lawmakers Wednesday that Honda will expand the regional recall it began in June, but will continue to prioritize high-humidity areas. He also said Honda is working with other air bag manufacturers to make sure it has enough parts. Related Gallery Consumer Reports Least Loved Cars 2014 Recalls Honda Safety NHTSA list