Wheels - Dec. 29, 2016

Wheels

December 29, 2016

• Volkswagen Golf: A good step up • 2016 Ski-Doo 154: Fun machine • Acura NSX: Hybrid style

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INSIDE

CARS » TRUCKS » SNOWMACHINES » ATVS

Great Stocking Stuffer!!

2

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Snow much fun!

H

ello Wheels readers, While we are all about wheels, we’re also all about tracks. And now that the days are getting longer and the snow is getting deeper it’s time to gear up, get out and have some serious Fairbanks cold fun!

Check out the snowmachine review in today’s issue.

What a ride! And if your sled needs some mechanical attention prior to taking it out into the woods, or if it just might be the right time to look for a new dependable machine, stop by and see Gabby at Alaska Fun Center for a great deal. Great products, great people, and solid expertise you can rely on!

We’ve also got some terrific reviews on 2017 cars and trucks, as well as stories about all things automotive.

We at the News-Miner want to thank all of our Wheels advertisers for helping us create this new publication and we appreciate all of the feedback we have received. 2017 will be bringing some new features we think you’ll like, such as “Dealer’s Corner,” coming soon. We think you’ll like it.

We wish you all a safe and blessed New Year.

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We provide all major types of insurance and financial services. With that said our goal is to help…from our discount double check to spending time helping you understand your insurance policies, we are here for you. So come in, Click on www.shannonfortune.com or call 907-452-1385 we are ready to serve.

To all of our Military, Thank you for your service!!!!!

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Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Thursday, December 29, 2016

3

Savings app Upside pits gas stations against one another THE WASHINGTON POST

With the exception of credit-card use and self-fueling stations, the process of buying gasoline has changed little since the days of Henry Ford. So with gas prices rising again, seasoned technology innovators see an opportunity to change how people pay at the pump.

Even those who represent gas stations say the sector is ripe for innovation.

“People will drive out of their way to save money on gas, even if they have to spend extra money on gas to get there,” said Jeff Lenard, vice president of strategic initiatives at the National Association of Convenience Stores, a trade association for gas stations. “It’s a great feeling among consumers to take control of something they previously didn’t have control of.”

One team hoping to reinvent the market is Upside, a new 13-person company operating out of a co-working space in Washington, D.C. Founders Alex Kinnier and Wayne Lin once worked at Google before heading east to help build Opower, the Arlington, Virginia-based home energy anOpower became a D.C. success story when it sold to Oracle for $532 million earlier this year.

Upside is getting money and advice from some of Silicon Valley’s most exclusive corners. It received an undisclosed amount of seed capital from Formation 8, a venture firm founded by former Facebook chief technology officer Gideon Yu. It is also getting counsel and funding from Hal Varian, a widely published academic who is Google’s chief economist.

The company’s secret sauce: exploiting a quirk in how gas stations compete for customers.

Upside negotiates discounts on the price of gasoline sold at individual stations and posts them on a map accessible from a smartphone app. Users claim their savings by taking a picture of their receipt, much like the mobile check-deposit services many banks now use.

Other apps, such as GasBuddy, have done this sort of thing for years. Where Upside stands out is on the supply side of the retail equation.

Individual gas stations tend to com-

pete for prices on a corner-by-corner, highway-exit-by-highway-exit basis.

Prices can be widely variant from one side of town to the other, but stations that cluster near one another in areas of heavy traffic often compete closely on pricing.

If a gas station on a crowded block cuts its price by even one cent, the others tend to quickly follow suit, not wanting to lose any incremental customers.

Upside exploits that competition by offering its services to just one station in each cluster (whichever reaches out to Upside first), shutting the others out so that competitors have no idea what the “true price” of gas is at that station.

Upside further obscures what the price is by offering a different discount to each user. This reduces the possibility of a price war breaking out; rival stations would have a difficult time figuring out how much they are being undercut.

The D.C. area’s fuel market has less competition than, say, an exit on an interstate highway, as stations tend to be less tightly packed. But that has not stopped 650 gas stations in the District, Maryland and Virginia from signing up.

Kinnier says Upside is already turning down station owners whose neighbors beat them to the punch.

The company makes money by keeping for itself a small portion of what consumers save when they use the app, an undisclosed cut that represents “a few percentage points” of the customer’s total savings.

The service is too new to know whether it will be a success. It is only beginning to draw a following. As of Friday, the app had about 5,000 downloads in the Google Play Store and had an average user rating of 4.2 stars out of 5. The company says it has “tens of thousands” of users in total.

With the help of Hal Varian’s economic mind, the company wants to adapt the idea to other markets. The company is laser-focused on the fuel market for now, Kinnier says, but might try to expand to grocery stores later.

The common thread will be using mobile technology to exploit micro-level competition among individual retailers, saving consumers money and taking a cut of the savings.

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4

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Thursday, December 29, 2016

2016 Ski-Doo Summit X T3 154

Photo by Stephen W Clark

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Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

5

Ski-Doo 154 makes deep tracks Thursday, December 29, 2016

By Stephen W Clark FOR AMERICAN SNOWMOBILER MAGAZINE

W

hen Ski-Doo launched the new 163 and 174 T3 models in 2015, people were in shock. But, once the initial public mesmerization of the big 3-inch lugs and ridiculously long 174 wore off, the next thing everyone asked was, “Where’s the 154 version?”

The 154 models make up a large portion of Summit sales, so it was only a matter of time before the T3 package updates carried over to this shorter model. Not surprisingly, for model year 2016 Ski-Doo increased their offering with the T3 package to include the Summit X 154 as well as the in season Summit SP 154 and 163.

It’s also the little things

The massive new track caught everyone’s attention on the T3 models, but closer inspection reveals a ton of other updates and improvements to the machine. This sled is so much more than an older Summit with a deeper lug track. Most of the changes revolve around weight savings and lifting the chassis. The sled features a dropped and rolled chaincase, revised geometry in the RAS2 front suspension, new skis and several other small weight-saving changes to rails, brackets, etc.

The engine, chassis and bodywork on the Summit are the same as we have come to love on previous models.

We can’t say enough good things about Ski-Doo’s Rotax 800 E-TEC power plant. It continues to impress with a fun, exciting power curve, advanced functions like the warm-up mode, and great reliability. The combination of the refined engine, good-fitting bodywork and great build quality really give the Summit a premium feel.

The whole machine is built to last, and the good resale value and demand for Summits on the used market reflects that.

Ski-Doo was kind enough to loan

us a prototype Summit X T3 154 last spring, helping us gain more impressions of the machine.

After spending the majority of the season on a 174 T3 Summit, I was well aware of the handling benefits of the T3 package, but what caught me by surprise was losing 20 inches of track on the 154! Compared to the 174, the 154 has a more lively feel and never misses an opportunity to point the skis straight towards the sky. It’s a bundle of fun, but I wasn’t going up the hill like I would have on a 163 or 174.

The 154 fills a middle ground where it’s too long to be a really short, fast 146-ish sled, but not long enough to play with the super long tracks. My feeling is that the very rider-forward Ski-Doo chassis favors a longer track that offers more traction and stability while still maintaining maneuverability. Personally, it’s getting harder to find a reason to ride a 154.

Our test unit was a sharp sunburst yellow and matte black color, complete with matching yellow tunnel and skis. The yellow and matte black is a classy combination and in tune with Ski-Doo’s heritage. The Summit X T3 is also available in an all-black color scheme and, true to Ski-Doo’s recent trend of offering a completely wild color option, there is the lava red, matte black and green accented version.

The Summit XM chassis has always responded really well to rider inputs, and it’s extremely easy to initiate a turn or a sidehill (in some cases too easy, to the point that the sled feels a wee bit twitchy). The T3 models are definitely more stable than the models they replace. This is especially true in the case of the 163 and 174 track lengths. However, on the 154 model we argued amongst ourselves that any steps forward in stability, with the handling components of the T3 package, are almost cancelled out by the added traction coming from the big track lug.

At the end of the day, track length all comes down to individual preference.

With Ski-Doo now offering three different track lengths, there are plenty of options. You really can’t go wrong with any of them!

For more snowmobile reviews, videos, photos and products, visit American Snowmobiler magazine’s website, www.AmSnow.com

TAKE 2

What I like about the 154 is that it is maneuverable. Sure, it doesn’t take you to the top of a totally vertical steep like an escalator on steroids (that is the 174-incher) BUT, it is still pretty darn good in POW! Plus, I think the 154 is a great sled to learn on, and it’s also available with a low altitude engine calibration! – Mark Boncher, AmSnow Editor

SPECS

Engine: 800cc E-TEC Liquid 2-stroke HP: 159.2* Exhaust: SC VES, single Drive: TRA VII primary, QRS secondary Ski Stance: 35.7 or 37.4 in. Front.

Susp.: RAS 2, HPG Plus shocks (8-in. travel) Rear Susp.: tMotion, HPG Plus shocks (15-in. travel) Track: 16x154x3-in. PowderMax FlexEdge Fuel Tank: 10.6 gal. Rec. Fuel: 91 octane Dry Weight: 457 lbs.

Price: $13,399 US / $14,699 CA *AmSnow tested

F18512867

Editor’s note: Winter is well underway in Interior Alaska, and dealers are selling machines from a variety of model years. The following review is used by permission of American Snowmobiler magazine.

6

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Volkswagen Golf: A wagon that will help VW set things right

By Warren Brown SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON POST

I

t is my nature by religious training and faith to forgive offenses when contrition is offered and genuine remedy is proposed to set things right.

In that regard, I personally accept Volkswagen’s apology for its ruse to deceive the world’s environmental protection agencies and the company’s millions of retail customers with a clever trick to cover up ruinous diesel emissions.

I neither expect nor urge everyone — dealers, suppliers, retail customers — to accept VW’s contrition or its proffered compensa-

tion. VW made a terrible, costly mistake — one that hurt and embarrassed the company as well as its many fiercely loyal retail buyers.

What is set forth here is my personal forgiveness based on what I think are the company’s sincere efforts to make amends and fix what is broken — largely by offering now excellent products such as the 2017 Golf Alltrack TSI SE all-wheel-drive wagon.

I do not know if the Golf Alltrack TSI SE, a gasoline vehicle, is included as a possible replacement vehicle in VW’s proposed $1.2 billion compensation fund going to retailers and, ultimately, to the company’s retail buyers worldwide.

If it is not included, it should be — with corporate grace, assuming there is such a thing, VOLKSWAGEN » 9

7

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Thursday, December 29, 2016

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Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

NUTS & BOLTS

2017 Volkswagen Golf Bottom line Get back to the business of selling vehicles people trust and love, Volkswagen. The 2017 Golf Alltrack TSI is a good start. Put as many of them in customer hands as possible. The compensation fund seems a good conduit.

Ride, acceleration, handling Good marks in all areas - “good� meaning perfectly likable for people who want to get from Point A to Point B while obeying posted speed limits.

Head-turning quotient It looks good on any school or church parking lot.

Body style/layout A front-engine, all-wheel-drive with the compact wagon. There are three trim levels - TSI SE, TSI S and TSI SEL. Stop playing games, VW. Load the SEL package into the SE as standard equipment. That is what people want.

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Engine/transmission This comes with a turbocharged 1.8-liter, 16-valve, direct injection gasoline engine with variable valve timing. A six-speed manual transmission is standard. A six-speed automatic that also can be operated manually is optional.

Capacities

Seating is for five people. Cargo capacity with all seats in place is 30.4 cubic feet. Maximum cargo capacity is 66.5 cubic feet. The fuel tank holds 1.5 gallons of gasoline. Regular grade is okay.

Real-world mileage

I averaged 30 miles per gallon in highway driving.

Safety

Standard equipment includes ventilated front disc, solid rear disc brakes; four-wheel anti-lock brake protection; emergency braking assistance; side and head air bags; turn-signal mirrors; stability and traction control; front fog driving lights.

Pricing

The gasoline 2017 Golf Alltrack TSI SE with all-wheel-drive starts at $30,530. Price as tested is $31,350, including $820 in factory-to-dealer shipment costs. You can bargain.

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Thursday, December 29, 2016

VOLKSWAGEN

Continued from 6

and a sincere, practically workable promise that the company will do whatever it can to support the gasoline Golf Alltrack’s now apparent excellent quality with any technical fixes, if needed.

It is a good, reasonably affordable compact wagon, one that should be included as a palliative in any plan to help disgruntled customers who are burdened with the costs of paying for faulty diesel vehicles that are threatened to be additionally fined for dirty exhausts every time they visit an emissions station.

The gasoline Golf Alltrack TSI SE driven for this column won’t please everybody. Diesel lovers, particularly those who were forced to climb out of what they thought was a nifty Golf diesel, might not like it.

But there are benefits. The Golf Alltrack, with an optional six-speed automatic transmission, which can be operated manually, gets an average of 25 miles per gallon city-highway. It can get nearly 32 mpg if driven at legal highway speed limits. The standard six-speed

manual transmission can deliver a few miles per gallon more.

Although motivated by a turbocharged (forced air) 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine — turbos often use premium — this one normally takes regular grade fuel and does quite well with that. The Golf Alltrack TSI’s direct-injection four-cylinder engine delivers a quite-adequate 170 horsepower and 199 pound-feet of torque. It fits and handles nicely on the

highway and is equally at home — more so actually — in congested city traffic.

It is not a race vehicle and was never designed or meant to be. It is a solid, compact wagon - safe, comfortable and reliable for small families of moderate to middle income. It will get them where they have to go - easily posting speeds of 65 or 75 miles per hour where allowed - without worrying about what will happen to them and their wagon on those

9

occasions when they visit an emissions station.

It is a good piece. It is too bad VW did not spend as much on this one as it did on diesel emission trickery.

It is quite simple really. Most of us aren’t interested in seeking bloody revenge. We don’t want a war or to see someone suffer after they’ve made and admitted a mistake and are trying to put things right.

We just want to be treated fairly. We want to pay for what we thought we bought. We don’t want to be laughed at as money is leaving our pockets. We don’t want to feel like fools.

VW would be wise to include the sturdy, efficient Golf Alltrack TSI in its proposed compensation fund. It would be wiser still to add more standard advanced electronic safety equipment — adaptive cruise control, park distance control, autonomous emergency braking, bi-xenon headlamps with highbeam control and lane-departure warning — to the package.

Sure, that will cost VW more money.

But it will make more customers happy.

Now is not the time to play marketing games. It is time — past time — to say “I’m sorry” and mean and show it.

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Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Acura NSX returns as gas-electric hybrid

By Ann M. Job FOR THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A

fter a 12-year absence, the Acura NSX returns for 2017 as the first gasoline-electric hybrid supercar, mixing exotic looks and sportscar handling with the latest engine and electric power technology.

A twin-turbo V-6 behind the seats works in tandem with electric motors between the front wheels and at the back of the car to generate 573 horsepower and 476 foot-pounds of torque, all while wearing the fuel-efficiency crown for a high-performance, gasoline-powered sports car.

The federal government rates the 2017 NSX at 21 miles per gallon in city driving and 22 mpg on highways, which is a 17 percent improvement over the last NSX. These mileage ratings help the 2017 NSX avoid the federal government’s gas guzzler tax and surpass pricey, two-seat supercar

Tech on wheels

competitors — such McLaren, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Mercedes-Benz.

But the new NSX is more than a fuel-efficient sports car. The electric motors that independently drive the left and right front wheels also provide torque vectoring for all-wheel drive taken to a new level of cornering precision. The electric power adds fast off-the-line starts, then smoothly transitions to robust engine power.

And every tap of the accelerator brings instantaneous torque from the electric motors, too, so the NSX feels quick and responsive across a wide driving range.

With a starting manufacturer’s suggested retail price, including destination charge, of $157,800, the 2017 NSX undercuts many competitors, but the price can exceed $200,000 upon adding options such as carbon fiber pieces and carbon-ceramic brake rotors.

On sight, the NSX has a low-slung, sleek body. Ground clearance is just 3.7 inches, and driver and passenger drop low into the sculpted seats, where they are perfectly positioned to look at the ACURA » 11

F11512599

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Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Thursday, December 29, 2016

11

Safety on the road: 5 steps to avoiding distracted driving Sharon Naylor CREATORS.COM

Remaining safe while driving — in order to protect yourself and everyone around you — means avoiding as many distractions as possible. According to a 2013 National Center for Statistics and Analysis study, on each day in the United States, about eight people are killed and 1,161 injured in crashes reported to involve a distracted driver.

Though you might immediately think of the visual and manual distractions of texting, cognitive distractions also pull your attention away from the road, affecting your response times when a danger exists or crosses into the road ahead of you. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration lists cognitive distractions as anything that takes your mind off driving, which could range from an animated conversation in your car to the simultaneous sounds of a voice on the radio heard at the same time as a speaking person in your car, resulting in divided your

ACURA

Continued from 10 tailpipes of trucks and SUVs ahead of them. Drivers must watch that they don’t bump the low NSX nose as they enter driveways.

At 87.3 inches wide, the NSX’s cabin feels wider and roomier than expected.

Legroom maxes out at a decent 42.8 inches, and headroom is a good 38.3 inches.

Strong engine sounds emanate from behind the seats where the mid-mounted engine resides. But there’s a “quiet” drive mode that tries to keep the car on silent electric-only power if the driver can creep along at less than 20 mph.

Good luck with driving this car that slow: The 3.5-liter, double overhead cam, twin-turbocharged V-6 is longitudinally placed and is visible, under its engine cover, under the glass of the rear window. The engine, which is new for Acura and its parent company, Honda, has both direct injection for regular fuel delivery and port injection for additional power in high-performance driving.

It’s mated to a nine-speed, dual-

attention. Texting while driving, then, is a dangerous blend of all three distractions — visual, manual and cognitive.

Yet it’s not just texting that poses great danger to your focus while driving. Any number of distractions can occur, and it only takes a split second.

Here are five ways to cut down your risks of distracted driving: 1) Use a hands-free device. Though it’s not a perfect solution, a hands-free cell service, such as a Bluetooth, allows you to take a call without searching your handbag for your smartphone.

When used only for emergencies, and not for time-killing conversations with friends, hands-free devices can allow you more focus on your driving.

2) Have your passenger read signs.

Some road signs and illuminated traffic signs contain several lines of text that can take your eyes off the road for a few seconds. Some of these signs are not emergency signs but may instead feature something such as information on the free concert in the park coming

clutch transmission that can be driven like a typical automatic or shifted manually by the driver without the need for a clutch pedal.

The NSX rides firmly, feels solidly planted to the road and conveys even subtle road imperfections inside to the driver and passengers. Many bumps come through as vibrations, but some can be jarring.

The car stays amazingly flat in turns and curves, and while it can dart aggressively through a slalom, it doesn’t feel lightweight. The new NSX weighs 3,800 pounds, some 600 more than its predecessor, because of its electric motors and lithium ion battery pack.

The NSX controls on the dashboard look like they were pulled out of another Acura. As an example, the NSX doesn’t have an enlarged, vertically positioned display screen, like a computer tablet, the way such screens are in McLarens, the latest Volvos and the Tesla Model S. The NSX also doesn’t decouple the suspension and engine controls to allow drivers to mix and match their drive experience the way that a McLaren does.

up this weekend, which could be an even bigger distraction. If your passenger reads important sign information to you, your eyes stay on the road.

3) Secure groceries in the back of your car. If you’ve ever driven home from the supermarket and hear your groceries rolling around in the back of your car and feared that your cantaloupe would crush your eggs, you know the distraction of unsecured groceries.

Set sturdy bins in the back of your vehicle to place your grocery bags into to keep your purchases from shifting.

4) Harness or crate your dog. It may be easier to let your dog jump into the back seat of your car, but stopping short can cause your unrestrained pet injury. Get your pet used to a safer way to travel, and you won’t need to keep looking in your rearview mirror to see where he is or worry about him jumping into the front seat to nuzzle you while you’re driving.

5) Pull in to a parking lot for distracting activities. If you must take an important business or personal call,

pull in to the nearest safe parking lot in order to take the call. If you wish to eat or drink during your commute, it’s far safer to do so while parked — even if it means adding a few minutes to your travel time — than it is to risk an accident because you dripped ketchup on your shirt or spilled coffee on your lap.

It may be unrealistic to achieve total silence from your passengers while you’re driving, but you can cut down on the noise level by teaching your kids that it’s important for you to focus on the road, so requests must wait until a red light. When you have adults in your car who are talking too boisterously, arguing or creating any distractions, do not be afraid to ask them to keep it down.

Reading and sending texts can wait until you reach your destination, as texting while at a red light can still cause distraction. Teach your family the rules of avoiding distracted driving both directly and via your example to create a safer driving experience for all.

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Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Thursday, December 29, 2016

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