A Tale of Two Tucsons

Which level of equipment do you tend to be most interested in. Nothing but the essentials? Mid-level, with perhaps leather, nav, and/or sunroof? Or all boxes checked? I ask because the cars I test can be any of these. The Hyundai Tucson I tested a few weeks ago was the base-level SE. The Mazda CX-3 I have this week is… More →

SRT to Smart

The theory behind market segmentation assumes that people have a certain set of needs and thus that when looking to buy something like a car can be expected to buy a specific type of product. Reality isn’t nearly so clean. Although I continue to find market segmentation quite interesting (how might car buyers be grouped?), and believe there’s a role for… More →

Best cars for tall, long-legged, and large people?

From time to time I receive an email asking which cars are most comfortable for someone who is tall, long-legged, large, or all of the above. Problem is, I’m none of the above–at 5-9 and 175 pounds I’m probably very close to the size person cars are designed around. So this isn’t something I can evaluate well during my test… More →

The hardest thing to evaluate during a test drive: long-distance seat comfort

Over at MazdaForums someone recently posted that they might have to sell the $40,000 CX-9 they just purchased because the seat became very uncomfortable for them after a few hours. They ended up getting an upholstery shop to trim back some excess material in the seams and add some padding, which helped some. But the fact remains that a seat… More →