1996 Am General Hummer Base Sport Utility 4-door 5.7l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Are orphan cars better deals?

Most folks don't know a Saturn Aura from an Oldsmobile Aurora. Those of you who are immersed in the labyrinth of automobilia know that both cars were testaments to the mediocrity that was pre-bankruptcy General Motors, and that both brands are now long gone. But everybody else? Not so much. By the same token, there are some excellent cars and trucks that don't raise an eyebrow simply because they were sold under brands that are no longer being marketed. Orphan brands no longer get any marketing love, and because of that they can be alarmingly cheap. Case in point, take a look at how a 2010 Saturn Outlook compares with its siblings, the GMC Acadia and Buick Enclave. According to the Manheim Market Report, the Saturn will sell at a wholesale auto auction for around $3,500 less than the comparably equipped Buick or GMC. Part of the reason for this price gap is that most large independent dealerships, such as Carmax, make it a point to avoid buying cars with orphaned badges. Right now if you go to Carmax's site, you'll find that there are more models from Toyota's Scion sub-brand than Mercury, Saab, Pontiac, Hummer, and Saturn combined. This despite the fact that these brands collectively sold in the millions over the last ten years while Scion has rarely been able to realize a six-figure annual sales figure for most of its history. That is the brutal truth of today's car market. When the chips are down, used-car shoppers are nearly as conservative as their new-car-buying counterparts. Unfamiliarity breeds contempt. Contempt leads to fear. Fear leads to anger, and pretty soon you wind up with an older, beat-up Mazda MX-5 in your driveway instead of looking up a newer Pontiac Solstice or Saturn Sky. There are tons of other reasons why orphan cars have trouble selling in today's market. Worries about the cost of repair and the availability of parts hang over the industry's lost toys like a cloud of dust over Pigpen. Yet any common diagnostic repair database, such as Alldata, will have a complete framework for your car's repair and maintenance, and everyone from junkyards to auto parts stores to eBay and Amazon stock tens of thousands of parts. This makes some orphan cars mindblowingly awesome deals if you're willing to shop in the bargain bins of the used-car market. Consider a Suzuki Kizashi with a manual transmission. No, really.

Best car infotainment systems: From UConnect to MBUX, these are our favorites

Declaring one infotainment system the best over any other is an inherently subjective matter. You can look at quantitative testing for things like input response time and various screen load times, but ask a room full of people that have tried all car infotainment systems what their favorite is, and you’re likely to get a lot of different responses. For the most part, the various infotainment systems available all share a similar purpose. They aim to help the driver get where they're going with navigation, play their favorite tunes via all sorts of media playback options and allow folks to stay connected with others via phone connectivity. Of course, most go way beyond the basics these days and offer features like streaming services, in-car performance data and much more. Unique features are aplenty when you start diving through menus, but how they go about their most important tasks vary widely. Some of our editors prefer systems that are exclusively touch-based and chock full of boundary-pushing features. Others may prefer a back-to-basics non-touch system that is navigable via a scroll wheel. You can compare it to the phone operating system wars. Just like some prefer Android phones over iPhones, we all have our own opinions for what makes up the best infotainment interface. All that said, our combined experience tells us that a number of infotainment systems are at least better than the rest. WeÂ’ve narrowed it down to five total systems in their own subcategories that stand out to us. Read on below to see our picks, and feel free to make your own arguments in the comments. Best infotainment overall: UConnect 5, various Stellantis products Ram 1500 Uconnect Infotainment System Review If thereÂ’s one infotainment system that all of us agree is excellent, itÂ’s UConnect. It has numerous qualities that make it great, but above all else, UConnect is simple and straightforward to use. Ease of operation is one of the most (if not the single most) vital parts of any infotainment system interface. If youÂ’re expected to be able to tap away on a touchscreen while driving and still pay attention to the road, a complex infotainment system is going to remove your attention from the number one task at hand: driving. UConnect uses a simple interface that puts all of your key functions in a clearly-represented row on the bottom of the screen. Tap any of them, and it instantly pulls up that menu.

2022 GMC Hummer EV dimensions, clearances and off-road features explained

There are two things that almost everyone immediately thinks of when they hear the word "Hummer." And they are size and off-road capability. Looking at the numbers on the 2022 GMC Hummer EV, it seems the electric pickup has literal truck loads of each. One of the most prodigious numbers is the truck's width. See those clearance marker lights on the roof? They aren't just there for style, they're required by law due its width. At 86.7 inches, it's just a bit wider than a Ford F-150 Raptor, which is itself 6.4 inches wider than a comparable F-150. The Hummer is also 5.5 inches wider than a GMC Sierra. Length is more reasonable at 216.8 inches, which is much less than a full-size crew cab pickup (a Sierra 1500 is 231.7 inches with its 5-foot-8-inch box or 241.2 with the 6-foot-6 one). It's even 3 inches less than the Raptor SuperCab and only 4.4 inches longer than a GMC Canyon with the standard 5-foot-2-inch box. In other words, the Hummer EV is roughly as long as a midsize pickup but is wider than a heavy-duty one.  What does that mean for the cabin? With 38.9 inches of rear legroom, it falls well short of a Sierra Crew Cab's 43.4, but it's important to remember that crew cab pickups have an overkill amount of limo-like legroom. The Hummer's amount is still 3.7 inches longer than a Sierra Double Cab and 3.1 inches longer than a Canyon Crew Cab. Headroom, which was rather pathetic in the old Hummer H2, is 38.6 inches in the back seat – less than both its GMC truck siblings, but not by much. In other words, there should be plenty of space back there. Note that GMC didn't indicate bed length, frunk volume, or importantly, curb weight. We will update this should we find out answers to any of those.  Although it's big, the Hummer has plenty of features to make it nimble off road, both traditional and high-tech. One of the primary features is the height-adjustable air suspension, which offers 13 inches of travel and automatically adjusts damping for driving conditions. It has three main levels, a lowered setting for Aero Mode that helps with improving highway energy use, a default height for the normal driving modes, and a higher setting for the off-road Terrain Mode.