Roadfly.com: Car Reviews & Road Tests » 2006 Model Year

Cargo floor and interior storage in Nissan Titan proves very useful

Laura Burkholder — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 15:57:26 +0000

The back seats or cargo area, depending on your preference, comes with a few surprises.

First to the standard aspects, the seats come up with the ease of a handle and the mats are removable for easy cleaning. However, you don’t need to worry about calling shotgun in this car [...]

Nissan Titan’s Fold Flat Front Passenger Seat

Ross Rapoport — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 18:14:58 +0000

One of the full-size truck market’s most reliable customers is the contractor – that guy who practically lives in his truck, carrying a mix of business and personal items (tools and toys), and often a variety of people. The contractor demographic helped make the four-door pickup a household item, [...]

Sporty Steering Wheel in the Titan

Ross Rapoport — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 17:57:34 +0000

In keeping with the theme of little things making big differences, we feel that our long-term Nissan Titan deserves praise for its steering wheel. Why does a truck need a cool steering wheel, you ask? Well, grip the Titan’s wheel and find out for yourself. It’s thick [...]

The Nissan Titan’s Side View Mirrors Increase Visibility

Ross Rapoport — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 20:26:44 +0000

Given the superlative terms we heaped on our long-term Nissan Titan’s liftgate mechanism, we hesitated to use another “best-on-the-market” line for fear of lessening the effect. But the Titan is really just that good, and is a rolling example of all those proverbs about little things making a big [...]

Buick Lucerne CXL: A Reason to Cheer for the U.S.A!

Brian Armstead — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Back when Exxon gasoline was sold as Esso, they had a marketing slogan that sticks with me to this day – “Put a Tiger in Your Tank!” Perhaps General Motors was also thinking of this slogan when they signed superstar golfer Tiger Woods to be the spokesperson for GM’s Buick [...]

Tight Turning Titan is Tops

max — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 14:16:18 +0000

When you’re talking trucks, the figures and stats that normally would get your heart racing-slalom times, cornering forces, etc.–suddenly become less important, compared to numbers that car-guys generally consider mundane. Turning Radius, for example. A low-slung, Italianate exotic with nine-inch-wide wheels isn’t going to have the tightest turning radius, but [...]

2006 Chevrolet Impala SS

Brian Armstead — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 11:25:54 +0000

When one thinks back to the “muscle car” era, it’s hard not to include the Super Sport (SS) models from Chevrolet in those thoughts. Since 1961, Camaros, Chevelles, Novas, El Caminos and other models, including the Impala, have worn this coveted badge.

Back in the 60s, having a SS model meant [...]

2006 Nissan Xterra, Down and Dirty

Laura Burkholder — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 14:27:26 +0000

Cars, like everything to a woman, can be seen as an accessory, and as soon as I stepped up into the 2006 Nissan Xterra, I wanted it to become part of my life as much as I wanted the latest line from COACH. From the sporty interior to the [...]

Nissan’s tailgate Dampening Assist is a winner – drop your tailgate.

Ross Rapoport — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 14:41:56 +0000

After spending lots of quality time with our 2006 Nissan Titan long-term tester, we’re prepared to say that from the C-pillars back, it’s currently the most innovative full-size truck on the market this side of a Chevy Avalanche.

In addition to the unique Utili-track system in the bed, which makes tying [...]

The Titan’s Sirius satellite antenna is nicely hidden

Ross Rapoport — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 20:11:58 +0000

One other thing we feel compelled to mention about our Titan test truck is the common-sense approach Nissan has taken on the issue of satellite radio. Most manufacturers have elected to plop strangely-shaped, body-colored antennae on the roofs of their cars. However, the Titan’s Sirius antenna is located [...]

Utili-Track System provides a ton of utility.

Alan Riley — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 18:57:40 +0000

One of the features of our Nissan Titan that we have found to be unexpectedly useful is the Utili-track bed system. With a name like Utili-track, you might think that this is simply one of a long list of features attached to the window sticker of a truck by [...]

Welcome the 2006 Nissan Titan Crew Cab to the fleet.

Charlie Romero — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 13:17:37 +0000

Nissan is a gutsy brand, overall–willing to take chances that other automakers would have rejected as too risky within the first committee meeting. Look at the 350Z, the Spec-V sedans, or even the alternatively-styled Quest minivan. We credit this audacious attitude with starting the V6 horsepower wars in the midsize [...]

Long-Term 2006 Nissan Titan SE 4×4 Crew Cab: Initial Report

Charlie Romero — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 19:22:57 +0000

We’ve spent the last few days reacquainting ourselves with the full-size Nissan Titan pickup that recently joined the Roadfly long-term fleet. At-first-glance impressions and technical specs are covered elsewhere on this site, so we won’t spend much time on them here. Instead, we’re approaching this as sort of an “open [...]

2006 Audi A3 S-Line

Laura Burkholder — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 18:39:34 +0000

The 2006 Audi A3 S-Line is a wagon with sex appeal. With no competition in the field from other luxury contenders, the V6 AWD wagon fills the niche of luxury and practicality plus performance. The A3 S-Line is a bit shorter than other wagons but the passengers [...]

2006 Honda Civic Si: Simply Sizzlin’

max — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 19:12:09 +0000

The prodigal Si has returned! Having spent an introductory afternoon with it shortly before sales started, we already knew that the 2006 Honda Civic Si was a screamer. Our preview post was packed full of praise for this new pocket-rocket’s poise, power, and appearance. Now, after a week’s “work” with [...]

2006 Infiniti QX56: Leather-Lined Leviathan

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Fit for an up-and-coming rapper, and big enough to haul his whole entourage, the QX56 has undeniable presence–’bling’ personified. Maybe it’s that super-sized, snub-nosed grille, or the omnipresent chrome garnish, starting with the six-inch Infiniti badge, shining everywhere–this sled’s street cred is unmistakable. Still, popular culture being at best an [...]

2006/2007 Mercedes-Benz E350 4MATIC: Improving Upon Perfection

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The product portfolio at Mercedes-Benz has proliferated rapidly in the last few years. New models from the C-Class Coupe to the savage SLR have kept the brand abreast of the niche-market trend. Still, there is no other model that so inherently defines Mercedes than the E-Class. Buttering the Benz [...]

The All New GMC Yukon

Charlie Romero — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

After spending a week with the 2007 GMC Yukon, we wonder how much better this brawny sport-utility vehicle can get. With everyone’s eye on the pump and truck sales slowing, some observers are predicting the end of the American SUV. But the Yukon is GM’s latest and slickest [...]

2006 Mazda RX-8: The Essence of Zoom-Zoom

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Oh, joy! The 2006 Mazda RX-8 is in the fleet, and all is right with the world. One of our perennial favorites, it’s a serious sports-car with soul to spare. Mazda has done a lot right with this car–and it all starts with balance.

Round it up a couple of tenths, [...]

2006 Lexus IS 350: Pacing Perfection

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This was supposed to be the BMW-beater. Lexus aimed the IS development target squarely at the 3-series, and made no bones about it. The cognoscenti met this contention with skepticism–seemingly every carmaker has claimed to have conquered the kingpin Bimmer at one time or another, and yet the 3-series remains [...]

2006 Audi A6 Avant: A Teutonic Perfection for the Entire Family

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Inevitably, every time an Audi appears at our doorstep for a full review, certain scenes play out–as surely as death and taxes, and so similar they could be scripted. For example, being behind the wheel of a new Audi–be it an A-line or an S-line model; no matter what series–one [...]

2006 Volkswagen Passat Wagon 3.6 – A Country Squire for the Alpenstrasse

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Latest in a slew of redesigned staple vehicles, the Volkswagen Passat hit the market late last summer, as part of a barrage of new product planned to counter plummeting market share. Along with improved iterations of the Jetta, Golf (soon to be renamed the Rabbit) and even a new New [...]

Acura RL: Accurately Assessing a High-Tech Wonder

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Acura RL, flagship of Honda’s flagship line, suffers a lame-duck reputation among the automotive cognoscenti. Up against flashier rivals with more-potent powertrains and more-prestigious pedigrees, the premier Acura must by now be afflicted by a severe inferiority complex. The hierarchy having already been set, the RL lost the [...]

2006 Mercedes-Benz ML500: Four by Fifty (Grand)

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

We finally got some real seat time in the all-new M-Class–and it was worth the wait. The new Mercedes truck is everything the old ML wasn’t, beginning from bare metal. Where the old M was a body-on-frame, overweight truck with a leather-and-wood wrapper over sturdy but plebian mechanicals, the new [...]

2006 Mercedes-Benz R500: Six Passengers and a Six-Figure Income

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Soccer moms never had it so good. Introducing the all new Mercedes R500. We just spent a week hauling people and stuff around in the slickest six-passenger vehicle on the market, and we figure this vehicle should be on everyone’s shopping list once baby number three is on the way.

The [...]

Flexible Future: Living With The E85 Flex Fuel Dodge Caravan

max — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 02:19:53 +0000

We’ve already told you about ethanol-based E85 fuel-85% synthetic gasoline, made essentially from fermented corn. Certain vehicles available now can run on either this new E85 or the usual 87-octane gas we’re used to; so-called ‘Flex-Fuel Vehicles’ (FFVs) have been on the road for a while-and the Big Three are [...]

2006 Saturn Vue Red Line: Sporty Style at Half the Price

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

In truth, we’re right now in the midst of the greatest resurgence of automobile performance since the late 1960s. Some obscure set of factors has finally re-converged to encourage a climate which enthusiasts find temperate; above fuel efficiency concerns, emissions worries, or new design directions, the focus in so many [...]

2006 Mazda5: Pint-Sized People-Mover

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Those wacky Japanese-thanks to them we get those neat t-shirts (you know, the ones that read “Super Happy Fun Boy!” or “Winning is for me #1!”), and that cool script that less-imaginative gaigin use to tattoo platitudes on themselves. We also get a glimpse of what their roadways must look [...]

2006 Saab 9-3 Aero: Quirky for Quirky’s Sake-And Why Not?

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Saab has been something of a whipping-boy in the automotive press; paired up with BMWs and Audis and other sporty Euro-makes in comparison tests that the brand’s basically predestined to lose. After all, Saab never really was about all-out European-style driving sublimity-even if the brand’s current owner doesn’t really get [...]

2006 Chrysler 300C SRT8: What if Rolls Royce Made a Musclecar?

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Three hundred and forty horses would seem to be enough in a two-ton sedan. So would 18″ rims, a taut suspension, and grippy leather seats. In fact, you’d figure the standard Chrysler 300C would prove more than enough car for pretty much anyone-and the shelves of awards and accolades DCX’s [...]

Heightening the Heartbeat of America: The 2006 Chevy Corvette

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Full disclosure: although we here at Roadfly.com get a good bit more track time than your average drivers-and we do drive a slew of high-powered hot-rods of all shapes and sizes over the course of a year-we really don’t get a whole lot of time in all-out sports cars. Look [...]

2006 VW Beetle: Reinventing the Unique

max — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 04:00:00 +0000

We recently had occasion to spend a week driving a car we didn’t believe would still be around this far into the game. Not that we didn’t like the New Beetle-when unveiled, we were charmed right alongside the rest of the automotive press-but we figured the model would be a [...]

Sales Commander? Jeep’s Big New Baby

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Depending on your outlook on life, Jeep is either a pioneering symbol of Americana, or a devilish corporate tool of the netherworld. After all, the old ‘General Purpose Vehicle’ just about saved our bacon back there in a couple of overseas conflicts-and yet the Grand Cherokee, sales favorite that it [...]

2006 BMW 330i – Does the Emperor Still Have Clothes?

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It’s gotta be a tough assignment, being in charge of remaking the BMW 3-Series. Recognized as the king of the hill in small sports sedans for longer than most of us have been of driving age, there are a lot of expectations to meet here. For 2006, BMW had no [...]

2006 VW Jetta GLI: Zero to Hero in Six Grand

max — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 20:36:19 +0000

From the outside, the GLI model is distinguished by a black honeycomb grille, a gloss-black finish on the grille surround (instead of the base Jetta’s chromed monstrosity) with red piping around it, and attractive 18″ alloy rims. Inside is an upgraded gauge package, aluminum console trim, and drilled-look pedals. Otherwise, [...]

Renewed Assault – Hyundai Azera Declares War on the Near-Premium Segment

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Toyota’s Avalon, Buick’s LaCrosse and cars of their ilk have just been put on notice. Hyundai, the South Korean brand that has blasted its way into the economy car and small SUV segments–after a total 180 from their early days of disposable Excels–is at it again. The new target is [...]

Penny-Pinchers Rejoice: The All-New 2006 Hyundai Accent

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The marketers like to tell us that cars like this–the Chevy Aveo, Toyota Echo, and so on–are perfect for young kids going off to college, buying their first car. Or having it bought for them. But we were young not so long ago, and we remember feeling like we’d never [...]

2006 Mitsubishi Eclipse GS…Bow Down?

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mitsubishi has been pumping out some seriously self-confident advertising these days. Seems the corporate financial woes haven’t put a damper on the mood in the advertising department. Still, you can buy all the TV time you want, showing competitors cars bowing down (or even frightened into incontinence), but what matters [...]

A Surprising Sonata: Hyundai’s New Midsizer for 2006

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hyundai this year debuted their all-new high-volume midsize Hyundai Sonata sedan, at what CEO Bob Cosmai called “the most important launch in our history.” We first experienced the car in the San Francisco Bay area, at a generous junket that couldn’t help but leave a favorable taste in our mouths. [...]

Rethinking Grampa’s New Car: The 2006 Cadillac DTS

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been going on for so long now–since 2003 at least–that it’s no longer news. Cadillac has reinvented itself; hot new CTS, SRX, XLR and STS models (some with that extra-sexy V-Series designation), with their creased-suit “Art & Science” styling and ‘Nurburgring-tuned’ suspensions, have brought the brand out of sales [...]

Pontiac G6 GTP Coupe: A Lemans Sprint for the New Millenium

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Extra points if you’ve already pegged the reference. Back in the 1960s, Pontiac was known more for innovative high-performance than blandness and body cladding. The ’64 GTO sparked Detroit’s muscle car wars; the near-unique Tri-Power 389-cid V8 was so popular it annoyed Chevy engineers enough so they had GM issue [...]

Chevy Tunes a Cobalt: The 2006 SS Kicks aSS

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It’ll be a long time coming, but sooner or later, the public at large will realize that GM really has screwed together some decent automobiles of late. The base Cobalt is a case in point–sure, its Cadavalier predecessor was so bad they had to drop the name altogether for the [...]

The Sun Shines on Pontiac: A Solstice for 2006

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

One thing that’s immediately apparent about the Solstice roadster–it’s drop-dead gorgeous. From any angle, and inside and out, this is not only the most beautiful thing to come out of Pontiac, but probably GM itself, in thirty-plus years. And one thing that you won’t notice upon laying eyes on this [...]

2006 Mercury Milan: A Glimpse Of The Future Of Family Sedans

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve been waiting for it a long time–certainly much longer than since last year’s “Year of the Car” as proclaimed by Ford. We didn’t get it with the 203-horsepower Five Hundred sedan (nor it’s upscale Montego twin). We certainly didn’t get it when the Taurus hit some nine years without [...]

2006 Mercedes-Benz R500: A People-Hauler for the Other Half

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The people at Mercedes Benz must be working overtime. In the last couple years alone, the boys in Stuttgart have brought to market several all-new vehicles–think CLS-class, B-class, the upcoming baby-ML-class, and this new R-Class. Mercedes calls it a “grand sports tourer” or “crossover,” based upon the unibody construction [...]

Urban Assault Vehicle: 2006 HUMMER H3

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The days of affordable gas are irrevocably over. Filling a 20+ gallon tank after every hundred miles has suddenly become a pain in the neck (and wallet). GM has taken some ferocious flak lately for spending scarce R&D dollars on their upcoming full-size SUV line’s revamp, in the face of [...]

Chevy Plays the Retro Card: The 2006 Chevy HHR

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Chevrolet, and indeed all of GM, is visibly working hard lately to produce vehicles that are actually competitive and desirable–and with good reason; even GMAC and OnStar don’t make enough cash to support the General producing cars at a loss. Perhaps the most whimsical of the apple-pie-American brand’s new ventures [...]

A New Standard in Compact Cars – Honda Gets Its Civic On

max — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

In the world of basic transportation, it’s ubiquitous. Honda’s Civic compact has been a perennially popular automotive appliance for over three decades now–the best-seller for the last nine years. The baby Honda has been a true green machine, pleasing gasoline misers and pollution-preventers alike with its above average mileage, below [...]

Preview of the 2006 Fisker Tramonto

Charlie Romero — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

September’s Frankfurt auto show will be the site of the unveiling of the first *two* automobiles to bear the new Fisker Coachbuild moniker. This preview sketch hints at a pure two-seater sports car to be called the Tramonto. With a promised 610 horses under its rarified hood, the Tramonto’s performance [...]

2006 Bentley Flying Spur Preview: “How the Other Half Roll”

Charlie Romero — Tue, 31 May 2005 00:21:58 +0000

It wasn’t enough time. It never is with cars like these. Although we didn’t get to drive it, we were wowed at the early May introduction of Bentley’s new Continental Flying Spur sedan. And we wanted more.

Let no one tell you different–the rich have it damn good. And those tax [...]