Gadgetory

Ford Edge renewed for the first time but with one old thing we don't like the future of the turbocharger is electric and why you care and how to spot a car that's been for a swim it's time to check the tech we see cars differently we love them on the road and under the hood but also check the tech and are known for telling it like it is ugly is included at no extra cost the good the bad the bottom line this is CNET on cars welcome to CNET on cars to show all about high-tech cars and modern driving i'm brian coulis one of the biggest auto sales stories of the year 2015 in the US has been the resurgence of the crossover americans are passed through a recession we're past hundred dollar a barrel oil and we're past our guilt about driving SUVs so ford figures hmm pretty good time to redo the edge completely for the first time since introduction let's drive the all-new 2015 and check the technique may be forgiven for thinking we brought the wrong edge it looks a lot like the outgoing 14 certainly in its general shape and volumes and proportion but the dead giveaway is right here the 15 has this deeply sculpted side where the past edge had this kind of black slab side the grille is a little different the taillights are very much like a fusion which is no coincidence because the edge is largely based on the platform shared with the fusion overall it's about an inch longer in 15 that's not dramatic by any stretch now inside the new edge Ford's done a lot of work to bring it upscale and not be so utilitarian now there's the real problem it's the my Ford touch with some sync technology that Ford took a drubbing for four years it's been replaced by sync three unfortunately this 15 edge only offers this outgoing my Ford touch the 16 will bring you the much more desirable sync 3 you know what to do of course the good part of Ford LCD interface is over there in front of the driver where you've got those two helper screens alongside the speedo and those are configurable in almost any variety on the left or change to whatever focus you care about of for choices on the right and it each got a dedicated winged controller on the wheel that's some affords best UI and HMI even if this is kind of the opposite anyway let's take a look at some of the controls down here everything here is now a physical button and they're large and pretty well spaced so this is well done human machine interface here's something new this camera button is going to turn on a front looking cam this is I think a first for Ford overall it gives you that sort of going out forward look when you're sort of nudging out of a blind space you can even go to a really extreme fisheye here our drive controls are pretty straightforward a conventional automatic transmissions gr nd s in this case but s isn't a complete cohesive sport mode it's a sport profile and accompanying the shifter are of course the almost common now paddles on the wheel only one choice though and that is this automatic in the back of our edge we've got an interesting numbers story going on as another inch of legroom which is nice to have a compact ish crossover and about another inch of shoulder room roughly per two passengers back here here's the proof in the pudding I set up this passenger seat for me up there and now I'm able to sit behind me back here that doesn't happen in a lot of cars we've got inflatable seatbelts in the back on this vehicle I've also got a nice big panoramic roof up here that extends all the way back to the rear headrest now some things have changed in the engine bay on the new edge and some things have it first of all this is another standard engine the 2-liter the little guy in line for sitting sidesaddle with EcoBoost technology that means a turbocharger and direct injection it used to be kind of a pricey option now it's the base engine it's also now got a twin scroll turbo so a turbo that has two modes of operation to be more responsive additional engines include the three and a half liter v6 and the 2.7 liter four-cylinder EcoBoost but there's your new base the numbers are up a little bit it's now 245 horsepower up 5 and 275 pound feet of torque also up five what didn't change is the mpg it still comes in at twenty four average which is 20 city 30 highway the last edge was 21 City 30 highway but the average comes out the same all of this goes out through a six-speed Automatic transmission we have front wheel drive you can also get these guys in all-wheel drive and by the way all it wants is regular gas first thing that struck me about the new edge is the ride quality this is smooth and nice and liquid very compliant I like that like it's a home run for the market they're going after now the next thing you notice is the powertrain is that ok how's the to the 2-liter EcoBoost turbo dueling well it actually does fine as long as you don't let it get buried under car in other words don't find it loafing along and sixth when you need to stab at the power so drop it in sport mode for example get on those paddles and keep things cooking some interesting driver assists on this car one that is not terribly cutting-edge is lane departure warning and lane departure prevention because it has an electric power steering rack they can address that digitally until it - knows you back in that's how they do it perhaps the most interesting though is this new layer of self parking technology now this vehicle adds perpendicular on top of that and also exit mode so if you're too damn dumb to get out of a parking spot you parked in know how that works this will get you out of it that front camera is you know it's useful if you're coming out of a blind spot you gotta hit that button of course you got to think about it manually but it's got a good clear image and they're also quite an elaborate array of surround sensors that are available on this vehicle to augment the front and rear cameras you have no surround camera attack however you get a lot of segments there on the screen as you can see along with various beeps and color-coding to let you know what you're about to spring and coming later not available now as I understand it but a mid model year production will be adaptive cruise and the forward collision automatic braking okay let's do a 15 Ford Edge CNET style starts off at 36 5 because that's the price of admission for this titanium trim with front-wheel drive and this is a pretty loaded vehicle but then we check the box for package 302 a Ford's just got away with names down there that brings you a lot of toys the power liftgate you can wag your foot to open the panoramic roof overhead that new active parking assist the front camera HID headlights blind spot warning the lane departure and prevention I showed you on the road voice based navigation and those rear seatbelts with airbags built in now 1300 more brings you the driver assist package which goes further with adaptive cruise control as well as forward collision mitigation braking that's automatic and for some reason they lump in a tilt telescope wheel with that and my favorite option is dealer-installed 330 bucks for a safe in the console what are you gonna put in there you're driving an edge you're not James Bond I'd get one too anyway we're looking about forty three eight all in for this guy here's your bottom line on the edge looks a lot better I think but still very familiar more room in the back seat always a good thing that technology and the - that's sad you gotta wait till 2016 I'm afraid and the 2-liter EcoBoost turbo engine is now standard used to be a rather pricey option find the full review of the 15 for edge titanium trim in our case over at Cars cnet.com well a flooded car whether it's a long time ago or it's still drying out is basically a nightmare you want to run the other way the smarter driver knows that but not everyone knows how to spot one we'll show you how CNET on cars return well here nearly on Kars headquarters in Northern California we don't even know what rain looks like anymore but many of you have been getting plenty of it and torrential floods so the idea of being weary about a flooded car is still very relevant except for us the problem with a flooded car is that you never really dry it out at least not in terms of the effect of water getting into orifices and systems that were never supposed to see water and that water is often salty that raises hell with metal corrosion and damage to electronics and wiring a reputable car dealer should not be selling a flooded car without clearly disclosing that a private party seller has shall we say more leeway to forget or claim they didn't know so here are some tips and tricks you can use to find out if the car you're looking at never took the big dip now when you get into a cart you're considering buying and wondering about flood damage this give it a sniff you can't mistake that mildew smell and it's almost impossible to get out of a vehicle when it's been flooded now it's possible to get a little mildew odor because you had clogged drain tubes up in the sunroof or in the well of a convertible but assume the worst and go hunting second look and I don't mean just at the floor mat or under the floor mat if you can try and get a peek under the carpet that's the harder part to conceal when there was once flood damage it can be tough a lot of modern cars really seal these carpets down but give it a look you might find someplace to get under there and third feel feel around up above the glove box inside that little whale down in the seat tracks and rails as well what you're looking for is little traces of mud that might get on your hands I mean how else would it get up there certainly at this height now there are two sites you can check to get a car's flood history the National motor vehicle title information system is a federal database that includes flood information now only about thirty five states fully report into it the rest either don't or don't fully that opens loopholes for tidal washing that's when a car passes through the DMV of a state that doesn't fully report the nature of a flooded car flags like water damage total loss or salvage title then drop off the cars history also check the National Insurance Crime Bureau site it's run by the insurance industry they report in all cases where claims have been attached to a car that was flooded or some other way totaled both are free to check and both as you can see will have some holes in their data it pays to double check the databases that are out there as well as your own senses and your gut to make sure you're not flunking down good money for a car that got irrecoverably wet welcome back to see net on cars coming to you from our home at the mountain Motor Club just north of the Golden Gate Bridge whenever you see a review or video about a car with a turbocharger you're gonna hear the phrase turbo lag how little or how much the car has it's not a good thing it's the Achilles heel of another wise great technology but what if that Achilles heel got erased electric turbochargers seek to do exactly that and they make for a historic and imminently happening car Tech 101 first of all if you're unclear on turbos check out our car tech 101 on them back from episode 2 and our turbos vs. superchargers episode 15 segment but I can save you some trouble we can do a quick refresher on turbos right here with this Ford EcoBoost four-cylinder and this is the turbo apparatus this part picks up the exhaust gas coming out of the engine and it starts to spin a shaft on the other end of that is a compressor that takes air and rams more of it into the cylinder than the environment would do naturally and that's how you get more power out of the engine because more fuel more power but there are three hang-ups to this kind of design first of all since it's run by exhaust which is the gas and a compressible gas there's a whole lot of lag when you step on the gas pedal before you get the full effect of it secondly you've got an issue of size and placement I mean you've got one spool here another spool here and a lot of plumbing that means this thing's fairly big because it lives and runs off the exhaust it has to live at the exhaust manifold more or less that takes away some flexibility for engine designers who would like to put it somewhere else and thirdly since the turbo sits in the middle of the exhaust stream it gets in the way of scavenging exhaust gases and that means the engine breathes less well that's not good for power or efficiency the electric turbo seeks to answer all three of those limitations major supplier Vallejo has an electric turbo which they happen to call an electric supercharger it's powered by 48 volts DC four times what your car has now this is a new thing but we covered it recently in our episode 63 car tech 101 if you want to brush up now once you have 48 volts this turbo can be mounted almost anywhere typically close to the intake of the engine for the shortest run to push the boosted air and of course not sitting in the exhaust path or it can be used to pre boost a traditional turbo so it works better that's part of why Vallejo claims this can increase mpg on a car by at least 10% and maybe over 15 to conquer turbo lag there electric booster always idles at around 10,000 rpm spooling up to a max of 70,000 to deliver full boost and almost the moment you demanded by the pedal outies been testing it and Valeo says that company will put it into a production car in 2016 Honeywell and Continental are two other big industry suppliers who plan to have electric turbos on the market and in production cars perhaps a year or two after Vallejo taking a slightly different tack is major turbo maker BorgWarner with what they call an e booster it's a small electric air pump that additionally boosts what a conventional turbo is shoving into the engine either by being mounted before or after the turbo itself the e booster is always a helper not a primary turbo the fuel economy and emissions targets that are coming in the EU and us alone cover enough new cars each year to demand new ways of managing engine efficiency opening the door for electric turbos especially in smaller engine that demand more nuanced flexible boosting technologies in a moment how much wheel is too much wheel and the top five cars you'll be glad you bought down the road when CNET on cars returned the new Ford GT it's going to be powered by a 3.5 liter EcoBoost engine that engine is going to produce over 600 horsepower what means a lot to Ford going back to Lamar I mean 50 years of heritage is going to be celebrated next year you know a lot of people want to know who we're gunning for and what we're doing we're gonna show up with one hell of a race car I hope Ferraris ready as well buy more from the ex car team of CNET UK at cnet.com slash welcome back to CNET on cars I'm Bryan Cooley here's the part of the show where I take one of your emails this time it's coming in from Keith be writing in from the Philippines and he says I've got a Honda City a car you might not recognize but very popular here in Southeast Asia I know the car it's a little smaller than a Civic a little bigger than a Honda Fit I was thinking of changing my rims he writes from 15 inch to 19 inch his question is what are the pros and cons of larger rims on a car well Keith first of all you're not just getting larger you're really going to town 15 to 19 is like night and day your car is gonna look really different but more importantly it may feel different in a handful of ways here's what I want you to think about first of all is ride quality there could be an additional harshness in fact almost certainly when you go from a 15 with a very thick high profile tire to a 19 with a very thin low profile tire a lot more Road in what's gonna work its way into your cabin then you want to make sure you're gonna have good clearance on your new tires and wheels they won't just be bigger in diameter they're also necessarily going to get wider there's a lot more mass moving in that wheel well make sure it's not scraping or rubbing either when the car is empty fully laden going straight or making a u-turn next up make sure the overall circumference of your new tire wheel package is basically the same as your old tire wheel package that's the overall diameter this is important to make sure your speedometer still reads correctly but more importantly that your ABS technology knows what it's dealing with out there with the wheels that it's trying to control slip and spin on now think about your power steering as well when you get a bigger wheel you also get a wide wiill and that means a bigger contact patch of rubber on the road that has more resistance to being turned so your power steering rack the apparatus in the car is gonna have to work harder you may not feel it at the wheel because it takes care of the extra sweat but just know you might be wearing things out faster and finally know that your acceleration and fuel economy could suffer a little bit because you're adding a lot more rotating metal weight that the car has to spin up and break all the time it's not gonna be a big deal I don't think but you may feel it overall the jump you're trying to make from basically 15-inch donuts to 19 s it could make your car look like a donk is kind of drastic I might measure that back a little and just go with 17s maybe now I get a lot of questions from you by an email about buying a new car the cars you're looking at what's a good value what's a good car but I almost never get questions about those cars resale value and I should it's a huge factor as to whether or not you're getting a good deal when you buy a car but it's typically out of mind because it often doesn't affect you till the end of life cycle when you go to sell the car or when you go to trade it in but think about it up front it's a big part of whether you did a good deal or not meanwhile to inspire you here's a top-five list of new 2015 vehicles in the US market that hang on to their resale value really well mown taking out pickup trucks here because they're just a different market in many ways and often company trucks and frankly if I didn't they would dominate the top five so these are 2015 cars and SUVs ranked by the definitive projection that of Kelly Blue Book KBD it's the residual value they compute five years after first sale let's go number five the Subaru WRX 49.4% left after five years the WRX has a cult following I mean can you imagine one being sold on the use market to someone who's ambivalent about it you buy a WRX because you love WRX is and that does wonders for your residuals you're selling a religion not just a car number for the Chevy Corvette forty nine and a half percent residual the new Vette is an amazing bargain to begin with for its degree of performance and that does wonders for its long-term value being a two-seat car though does limit its market options the only other one in 58 cars surveyed is the Porsche Cayman and it came in seven points lower number three the 2015 Honda CRV 50.8% here we have now crossed that 50% margin a nice psychological place to be after a handful of years the CRV is the best-selling compact crossover in the US and some part of that would certainly be buyers knowing that they're going to have such a nice residual down the road number two the Toyota 4runner 54.3% residual value what do you have to say about this guy it's a classic and a rugged way that you feel is gonna last forever before I get to number one the five worst cars for resale value after five years along with their miserable numbers the Audi a5 and Audi a7 virtually the same out he comes in back-to-back on the list it's just the wrong list then you've got the Toyota Avalon at 36.2 Chevy Impala and then the king of the stinkers the Mercedes S Class a mere thirty three and a half percent residual value after five years if you have one of these and didn't either release it with company money or have US US taxpayers subsidizing it you're an idiot by the way the best overall brand for value retention is Subaru think about it they're built tough they're capable they've got very clear attributes few gimmicks and also have a cult following like the WRX within the brand that's marketing 101 on wheels the number one vehicles for residual after five years are the Jeep Wrangler and Wrangler Unlimited these are the real jeeps to many people they're SUVs that combine a low price with serious off-road cred and in the case of the unlimited there's plenty of room to bring a couple of city slickers along on your rock crawling exploits and being an American icon doesn't hurt either thanks for watching hope you enjoyed this episode where ever you watch us keep an eye out for either a channel or a subscription link so it's easier than ever to get our shows every two weeks and keep those emails coming it's on cars at cnet.com I'll see you next time we check the tech you