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Automakers tussle over owners of 'orphan' makes

When General Motors put down several of its brands in recent years, it also let loose thousands of brand-loyal customers who will eventually need another car.
R.L. Polk Associates estimates there are more than 18 million cars from 16 discontinued makes on the road today. Those "orphan owners" have sales-hungry competitors seeing dollar signs. GM is offering Saturn owners $1,000 cash toward a Chevy Cruze, Cadillac CTS or a GMC Acadia. Ford is giving its Mercury lease customers a chance to get out of their contracts with no early-termination penalty and offering to waive six remaining payments if they drive off in a Ford or Lincoln.
Edmunds.com research shows the efforts are paying off somewhat for GM, with 39 percent of Pontiac owners, 37 percent of Hummer owners and 31 percent of Saturn owners taking delivery of another GM-branded vehicle. But that leaves as much as 69 percent of owners going elsewhere. Ford, Honda and Toyota seem to be attracting many former GM owners.

Oh look, it's the 2017 Lincoln Continental

Sorry about the super-low-res photo, but what you're looking at here is the 2017 Lincoln Continental ahead of its official debut at the Detroit Auto Show next week. The image appeared online courtesy of Ford Inside News, showing the production version of Lincoln's new 400-horsepower sedan. The front fascia certainly looks different than the gussied-up concept we first saw in New York last year, but as the Ford forum suggests, this could just be a lower-spec model. Seems weird to us that Lincoln would introduce some snazzy, full-LED headlights and then just slap projector beam units on the actual production car. But you never know. We'll know for sure when the car is revealed at Cobo Hall next week. Expect it to have all-wheel drive with the company's new 400-hp, 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 (that debuted in the MKZ in Los Angeles). Let us know what you think of the production-spec Conti, in Comments. Related Video:

Feds Probe Power Steering In 938,000 Ford Midsize Cars

U.S. safety regulators are investigating complaints that the power-assisted steering can suddenly fail on three Ford midsize car models. The probe covers 938,000 Ford Fusion and Lincoln MKZ cars from the 2010 through 2012 model years, as well as the 2010 and 2011 Mercury Milan. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it has received 508 complaints alleging that the cars lost power-assisted steering, causing increased steering effort. Four complaints say the problem caused crashes, but no injuries were reported. The agency says in documents posted Monday on its website that in many cases, a warning message appeared as the failure happened. Restarting the car corrected the problem in some cases, but the problem returned in others. The agency says it will check the scope and frequency of a problem. It could seek a recall. Ford says it's cooperating with the probe. Shares of Ford Motor Co. rose 6 cents to $14.65 in morning trading Monday. Its shares are down 14 percent over the past year. Related Gallery Our Favorite Hot And Sporty Cars For 2015 Recalls Ford Lincoln NHTSA Ford Motor Company power steering mercury milan investigation