Car News

As a general rule, people are having a better time with car dealers than just a few years ago, but some brands' franchise partners are still lagging behind the performance of industry leaders Mazda and Hyundai. That's a summary of the findings from market research firm J.D. Power, which this week published results from its latest annual customer survey. Overall satisfaction has climbed 48 points on a 1000-point scale since 2013, the firm says.

While wandering around SEMA 2017, we ran into Bremer Shifters, a stand that was displaying an innovative way to convert your H-Pattern gearbox into a sequential style shifter. Fitment is extremely easy, Bremer reckons, with no requirement to even drop the gearbox at all. You simply unbolt your existing shifter to accommodate the Bremer conversion shifter. We had a chat to Russ from Bremer, who gave us the rundown.

Mazda has admitted that it has an engineering division currently working on a next-generation rotary engine, but there's no definitive date for its release. Speaking to media at the 2017 Los Angeles motor show, president and CEO of Mazda North America operations, Masahiro Moro, said the rotary fan base is huge, so a rotary is within Mazda's future.

While Mazda leads the game in Australia on many fronts, it falls short in the field of basic smartphone technology and connectivity. Speaking to media at the 2017 Los Angeles motor show, president and CEO of Mazda North America Operations, Masahiro Moro said technology like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto is on the way. "Some technology is almost necessary and not just a benefit. This is the 'hygiene' factor in a few years. We are working on that and it will come in 2018," Moro said.

Lexus has unveiled a five-seat version of its LX570 four-wheel drive for the Los Angeles motor show, but it won't be coming to Australia. Under the skin, the five-seater is the same as the three-row car. That means power from a 5.7-litre V8 engine making 270kW and 550Nm of torque, hooked up to an eight-speed automatic gearbox.