Nissan Recalls 3.53 Million Rides Over Faulty Airbag Sensor

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you no doubt know about the massive Takata airbag recall, prompted by a faulty chemical mix that causes affected airbags to rupture violently and unexpectedly even in minor crashes. But Takata airbags aren’t the only ones with issues, as evidenced by Nissan’s recent recall of 3.53 million vehicles around the world, including 3.2 million registered here in the US. The issue is a faulty sensor in passenger-side airbags that can malfunction in one of two equally troublesome ways. In roughly 622,000 Nissan Sentra models built between 2013 and 2016 airbags may deploy in crashes when they shouldn't, such as when a child is in the seat. In the rest of the recalled cars, the front seat passenger Occupant Classification System may...

May 21, 2016
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California Car Chase Gets Groovy

Maybe she just wanted a Scooby Snack. Real-world villain Sharon Kay Turman recently violated her probation, prompting Redding, California police to begin a search. They soon spotted her cruising the streets in her 1994 Chrysler minivan sporting a paint job that just happens to be a copy of the iconic Mystery Machine from the Scooby Doo cartoons. In a scene that otherwise could only play out on TV, Turman sped away when police approached. With the cops in hot pursuit, she careened through town, running a red light and slamming into four other vehicles in an intersection. Redding’s finest were forced to break off their chase when Turman hit Highway 273, heading south at speeds of more than 100 miles per hour. The California Highway Patrol followed her via helicopter for miles...

May 21, 2016
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Swiss Rider Urs “Grizzly??? Pedraita On Track to Break Record for Around-the-World Motorcycle Ride

On March 11, Swiss endurance rider Urs “Grizzly” Pedraita set out from the Daytona Beach International Speedway, flanked by hundreds of fellow riders revving up their Victory motorcycles after a single Daytona 200 road course lap. With an escort out of town, Grizzly hit the road for the first leg of a six-continent ride. He aims to set a new world record by completing his planned course in less than 100 days on the Victory Motorcycles Cross Country Tour. From Daytona Beach., he traveled 3,971 miles in six days and 14 hours to Panama City, Panama, then headed south for another 6,269 miles, nine days and 23 hours to reach Ushuaia, Argentina, at the tip of South America. From there, it was another 2,088 miles to Santiago, Chile, where he loaded his bike onto a plane and...

May 9, 2016
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Florida, Texas & California Lead the Nation in Fatal Motorcycle Accidents

If you’re a motorcycle aficionado, you likely know that May is Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month. It’s a nationwide initiative of the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) designed to help make motorcycle riding safer for both bikers and those sharing America’s roadways with them. Statistics show that in 2014 motorcycle accidents resulted in 4,586 deaths and more than 92,000 injuries. And according to research by the NHTSA’s National Center for Statistics and Analysis, three states are particularly dangerous for motorcyclists. Check out the 10 states with the highest numbers of motorcycle crash fatalities in 2012: Florida 456 Texas 428 California 415 Pennsylvania 200 North Carolina 190 New York 160 Ohio 146 Illinois 141 South...

May 9, 2016
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Takata Airbag Recall Surges – Again

It’s already the largest safety recall in automotive history by a long shot, and it just got even bigger – Nearly double, in fact. Federal regulators have hit Japanese auto parts manufacturer with an order to recall another 40 million faulty airbags, boosting the total number of recalled units from 28.8 million rides made by 14 manufacturers to upward of 70 million and affecting virtually every major automaker. Estimates are that ultimately, nearly a quarter of all vehicles on America’s roadways will be subject to the recall. When it’s all said and done, the recall is designed to take every Takata ammonium nitrate-based propellant driver and passenger frontal air bag inflator without a chemical drying agent off the roadways. It’s that volatile chemical...

May 8, 2016
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E3 Spark Plugs Digs This 1960s Porsche Documentary

We here at E3 Spark Plugs love all things classic when it comes to cars. So, got some serious auto-geek on when we spotted this vintage documentary about the making of an early Porsche 356 on YouTube. The 40-minute film is titled Made by Hand – an apt title as Porsche’s earliest rides were, in fact, made by hand.  It’s not clear just when the documentary was made, but the clothing and hair styles, and an appearance by the 356B, built between 1960 and 1963, suggests it likely was late 1950s or early 1960s. The film follows the production of the 356 from sheet metal to finished product, including panel assembly, painting, engine machining, gearbox assembly, final wheel alignment and road testing. Perhaps the most fascinating factor about film is the insane...

May 1, 2016
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Dale Earnhardt Would be 65 Today

April 29th marks what would have been late NASCAR icon Dale Earnhardt’s 65th birthday. The wildly successful driver was killed just two months shy of his 50th birthday in a last-lap crash at the 2001 Daytona 500. "It's crazy to think about what he would have been like at 65-years-old," son Dale Earnhardt, Jr. told reporters recently. "You kind of have an idea that he wouldn't have changed a whole lot had he lived a little bit longer. But at 65, and what would he have been like at 80? All those things would have been hard to imagine.” The senior Earnhardt’s aggressive driving style earned him the nickname, “The Intimidator” and helped land him nearly 100 NASCAR wins, plus induction into multiple halls of fame, including the inaugural class of the NASCAR...

May 1, 2016
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Missing Ferrari Recovered After Nearly 30 Years

Not much sucks quite so bad as having your car stolen – especially once it becomes a well-kept classic. Just ask the guy whose 1981 308 GTSi was jacked from an Orange County, California consignment lot in July 1987. But sometimes, fate delivers an epic checkmate. Earlier this month, US Customs and Border Protection officers at the Los Angeles/Long Beach Seaport complex intercepted that stolen ride, still looking just as great as it did back then, sans the additional 45,000 miles (not a lot, considering it’s been MIA for nearly three decades). Currently valued at upward of $50,000, the car was headed to Poland when Customs agents ran a check of the VIN and found that the same car was listed as having left the US for Norway via Germany in 2005  "This VIN...

May 1, 2016
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E3 Spark Plugs Mourns the Passing of Musical Icon

Today, the music world took a heartbreaking hit with news of the passing of Prince, one of the most innovative entertainers of our time. According to media reports, his body was found in his Paisley Park recording studio complex in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Authorities have yet to determine a cause of death. For automotive buffs, Prince’s Little Red Corvette was a favorite. As the story goes, Prince got the idea for the song when he dozed off in fellow musician Lisa Coleman's pink Edsel after an exhausting all-night recording session. The lyrics came to him in bits and pieces over a series of catnaps and the song ultimately was released as a single from his album, 1999 in 1983. It proved Prince’s biggest hit at the time and was the first to reach the top 10 in the US, topping...

April 21, 2016
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Last Ferrari 275 GTS/4 NART Spider to Hit Auction Block

The Ferrari 275 GTS/4 NART Spider is considered one of the most gorgeous convertibles ever to roll off the factory line. It’s also one of the rarest, as just 10 were ever completed. Now, the last to leave the factory is the next on the auction block. The only one sold in Europe, this stunning ride – chassis #11057 – went to a Spanish Foreign Legion colonel in Madrid and spent 14 years cruising the streets of Spain. Sometime in the 1980s, it changed hands, going to a Swiss collector, then to the United Kingdom in the mid-1990s. Somewhere along the way, the factory Grigio Scuro exterior color changed to its current deep red and it sports a beige leather re-trim. But the 300-horsepower Colombo V12 is the original from the Maranello factory. Named for the North American...

April 21, 2016
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