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Nutson's Nuggets: Last Week's (May 13 -20, 2012) Automotive News In Case You Were Sleeping


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Auto Central Louisville KY May 20, 2012; Each week Larry Nutson, The Auto Channel's Chicago Bureau Chief, along with Steve Purdy and Thom Cannell from The Auto Channel Michigan Bureau give you easy to digest nuggets of the past week's automotive news you may have missed.

If you are a car nut like we all are, you can easily "catch up" on these stories as well as the past 16 years 1,344,976 automotive stories, articles, reviews, rants and raves by just searching for the subject you are interested in The Auto Channel's Automotive News Archive, This week MAMA Spring Drive, lots of new car test drives. See you next week....LN

Automotive News Nuggets May 13-20, 2012

* If you think your car muffler is blown, check again. Equipped with battery-powered saws, criminals in Metro Detroit are jacking up vehicles, rolling under, making two cuts and, within minutes, running away with a part scrap yards will buy for as much as $150. Over the past several months, multiple cities in Metro Detroit have alerted residents about thefts of catalytic converters, which often contain precious metals such as platinum or palladium.

* Kia has dropped its Sedona minivan for the 2013 model year, but the automaker expects to return to the segment. Kia has confirmed the Sedona's departure and we hear a minivan is part of Kia's product plan for the 2014 model year.

* BMW has revealed the wagon version of the fifth-generation 3-series. The company says that the new 3-series Sports Wagon, known as the 3-series Touring in Europe, will reach U.S. showrooms about a year from now. The new model places greater emphasis on styling appeal than load-carrying ability, adopting an extended roof and an angled rear window in the mold of the larger 5-series wagon. The adoption of a new chassis brings greater rear-seat legroom and load-carrying capacity.

* General Motors will stop advertising on Facebook, citing the ineffectiveness of the paid ads, The Wall Street Journal reported. A GM spokesman confirmed the newspaper's report, according to Reuters. The move came days before Facebook's scheduled initial public offering on Friday that was expected to value the company near $100 billion. GM also announced they will not advertise in the next Super Bowl saying that the advertising has become too expensive.

* Honda says it's recalling nearly 53,000 Acura TL sedans in the U.S. from the 2007 and 2008 model years to fix a problem with power steering hoses. The hoses can deteriorate over time and leak fluid, causing the cars to lose power steering or even cause a fire.

* Chevrolet announced this week that the lineup will soon include a V8-powered, rear-wheel drive SS sedan, a version of the Australian Holden VF Commodore. Coming in 2014 it will debut at the 2013 Daytona 500 race as Chevy's Sprint Cup racer. You may recall the Holden platform was used for the less-than-successful Pontiac GTO and G8 models.

* Jaguar and Land Rover sales were responsible for shoring up the performance of parent company, India's Tata Automotive, this month as that company's sales slumped overall. We thought it ironic in the first place that these two classically British brands were purchased by the one of the largest companies in the former British colony.

* GM CEO, Dan Akerson, gave the commencement address at Columbia University's business school this week then went on the Today Show in New York touting the auto industry's leadership in the economic recovery. He call the industry "the wind in its sales" and "one of its bright spots." He credited both the Bush and Obama administrations with having enough confidence in the industry to keep them alive while they restructured.

* Nissan is showing a great deal of confidence in the newly updated Altima midsize sedan as it adds a third shift at the Smyrna, TN assembly plant. Touted as the most American of cars in its genre in terms of North American content - 98%. With a goal of 360,000 units they think they can beat out Toyota's popular Camry as the best selling car in the US.

* Billionaire Warren Buffett, the guy some consider the wisest of investors, just bought 10 million shares of GM for $257 million. Though that constitutes a tiny percent of GM's 1.6 billion shares, it amounts to a huge vote of confidence in both GM and the industry.