In this week's issue:

• BMW Recalls 164,000 X5s
• Americans 'Keep on Truckin''
• Find Out Why this Skoda is Superb

  BMW Recalls 164,000 X5s

BMW is recalling 164,000 of its X5 sports utility vehicles (SUVs) worldwide due to a fault with the brake hose, a move that would cost up to five million euros.

"We have written to customers asking them to bring their cars to the garage. It could affect 164,000 cars, 19,900 of them in Germany," a BMW spokesman said, adding that the necessary adjustments would only take a few minutes.

He said the brake hose in some of the cars could come loose over the front axle which could lead to damage and a loss of brake fluid in extreme cases. The recall affected cars built between August 1999 and April 2002.

Since it started building the X5, BMW has delivered close to 240,000 of the cars to customers worldwide. The model has been one of the company's main drivers of growth in the important U.S. market. BMW said it was not aware of any accidents linked to the fault, which it had discovered during routine quality checks.

Volkswagen Recall

Volkswagen has announced it is recalling up to 850,000 Audi, Skoda, Seat and Volkswagen cars due to possible problems with their ignition systems.

A company source told Reuters the recall of the cars, equivalent to around a sixth of VW's annual production, could cost up to 85 million euros, although much of that cost was likely to be borne by the supplier involved. The company said the problem affected Audis, Skodas, Seats and VWs fitted with 1.8-litre turbo, V5, V6 and W8 petrol (gasoline) engines built in the 2001 and 2002 model years, as well as some cars built at the start of the 2003 model year.

Volkswagen said a warning light should inform the driver of any problem, but it would contact all customers who may be affected as soon as replacement parts were available.

"The failure of an ignition coil could affect the engine's operation and is noticeable by rough running or reduced power output," Volkswagen said in a statement. "Of course there is a cost problem with 850,000 cars affected," a Volkswagen spokesman said.

"We are in the process of talking to the supplier, but first of all we had to fix the problem for customers and build up a new line with the supplier to build the spare parts we need... then we looked at the costs," he added.

He declined to identify the supplier. Analysts said the recall was unlikely to have any noticeable impact on Volkswagen's earnings.

"Issues like these hurt brand sentiment, but from a material point of view all the expenses will likely be charged to the supplier," Sal Oppenheim autos analyst Patrick Juchemich said. "The whole case seems very obvious -- it looks to have been a problem with the supplier."

The company recalled 950,000 small cars worldwide in June last year due to brake problems -- its biggest recall in several years. Volkswagen stock extended losses on the news to trade down 6 percent in late Frankfurt trade, underperforming a drop of around 3.5 percent by the DJ European autos index.

  Americans 'Keep on Truckin''

Keep on truckin'!

That advice, straight from Detroit and the 1970s hit by the late Motown singer Eddie Kendricks, sums up the way many Americans feel about recent attacks on sport utility vehicles.

In a land where bigger is usually perceived as better, Americans love SUVs and their high-perch "command" seating. They're not going to give them up, and there's no sign that environmentalists and anti-SUV activists will succeed in driving the gas-guzzlers into the junkyard of history anytime soon.

In fact, thanks to a White House plan to provide more generous tax breaks for certain businesses that buy the biggest SUVs or pickup trucks, the sales of oversized vehicles with low gas mileage may even get a big boost in the near term.

Recent U.S. television ads from a Hollywood group led by nationally syndicated columnist and author Arianna Huffington, are pitching alleged links between Mideast oil profits and terrorism, trying to make owning an SUV sound tantamount to bankrolling Osama bin Laden.

A coalition of religious groups, including dozens of evangelical Christian organisations, sponsored another TV ad campaign late last year seeking to portray SUV owners as outcasts by asking "What Would Jesus Drive?"

The top U.S. auto safety regulator joined the fray this month by warning automakers that SUVs, which statistics show may be prone to roll over, may soon come under strict government controls.

Although the main concern about SUV safety centres on their higher susceptibility to roll over in crashes, critics say they also pose an increased danger in crashes with smaller cars, whose occupants are especially vulnerable in side impacts.

Nevertheless, traditional SUVs gained a larger piece of the U.S. vehicle market last year, and light trucks -- a category that includes pickups and minivans as well as SUVs -- account for more than half of the market overall.

Industry experts, meanwhile, say the anti-SUV crusade has failed to resonate with consumers, even as another U.S.-led war with Iraq looks set to push oil prices higher and add to the debate over America's seemingly insatiable appetite for crude.

"I like everything about it, the size, everything," said Detroit-based disc jockey Rocky Allen, as he climbed into the driver's seat of his Chevrolet Suburban SUV in the "oversized" section of an office parking lot recently.

"I'll be happy to drive an electric car when Arianna Huffington stops flying private jets and uses solar heat in her 5,000-square-foot home," Allen said, taking a shot at the political commentator and her so-called Detroit Project activist group.

That defiant reaction, to what many regard as "over-the-top" campaigns targeting SUVs since the late 1990s, is good news for Detroit automakers, since the vehicles are among their most profitable products.

Foreign automakers have also been muscling in on the full-size SUV segment, as part of their relentless assault on the U.S. market. But one of the hottest sellers in the segment since last year has been the massive, military-inspired Hummer H2, which dwarfs even Allen's lumbering Suburban. Both vehicles are made by General Motors Corp., the world's largest automaker.

'Me, Myself and I'

George Pipas, head of sales and North American market analysis for Ford Motor Co., says most SUV owners are aware of safety and fuel economy concerns about the vehicles.

But he said market research showed that consumers who own or intend to buy SUVs also tend to put their personal likes and comfort above issues such as vehicle stability and fuel consumption, and the recent flood of editorial commentary about the SUV backlash.

"They (consumers) are not going to respond to media reports, or campaigns like that; they seldom do," Pipas told Reuters. "They respond to what they want. It's their own pocketbook, and their own stomach. It's me, myself and I.

"I haven't seen anything in actual vehicle purchases that would suggest any of this is having an impact," he added.

Sean Kane of Strategic Safety, an Arlington, Virginia-based, automotive safety research firm, said consumers would probably steer away from SUVs in droves if they were better educated about their instability. But he said they are not well educated, and the government was partly to blame for that.

"There's this illusion that, if they (SUVs) were as bad as they're painted to be, that somehow or other the government would have taken action and they wouldn't be allowed on the road or something would have had to change," Kane said. "Unfortunately that's just not the case."

'Not Wasteful'

One factor may be the education of baby boomers, who started the U.S. craze for SUVs more than a decade ago. But Art Spinella, a veteran auto industry analyst and president of Bandon, Oregon-based, CNW Marketing Research Inc., agreed with Ford's Pipas that SUV buyers tend to put their likes and personal interests above what others might perceive as the greater good.

"For all intents and purposes, they don't accept the notion that sport utilities are wasteful," Spinella said of the average SUV buyer. "They think that sport utilities use a disproportionate amount of gas but -- and there is the but -- they think it's justified in their own case."

He added that his own research, including a survey based on comments from thousands of consumers polled last week, showed that ads such as those from Huffington's group did nothing to affect SUV buying plans.

"People who buy them love them. People who buy them are sticking to the sport utility segment like crazy," Spinella said.

Written by Tom Brown

  Find Out Why this Skoda is Superb

Do you remember the Pepsi Challenge? It was a clever TV advert from the Eighties featuring members of the public being invited to taste-test Pepsi and one other leading cola drink (oh, the intrigue of it all).

The giggling volunteer wore a blindfold and as the beaming host revealed that they had chosen Pepsi over the rival, the happily assuaged volunteer would pledge to drink only Pepsi for ever more.

It is time that Skoda ceased wasting its money on the current 'It's a Skoda. Honest' ad campaign. The TV ad featuring the faffing assembly-line worker and his implausible reluctance to fit a Skoda badge to the bonnet of the car he is building should be pulled immediately. In its place, a new campaign called The Skoda Challenge would better fit this model.

It would work like this. All badges on a Skoda Superb would be removed and members of the public would then be filmed enjoying driving it. When asked what they thought the car was and how much it would cost, they would undoubtedly say a BMW or an Audi, cars which would set you back an easy 20,000 pounds. The host would smile knowingly to camera before informing the volunteer that it actually costs the same money as a Mondeo or a Citroen. And then would come the killer moment, the sting in the tail, as the car was revealed to be a Skoda. 'The Skoda Superb: it's the car you make it.' Cue thought-provoking violin music.

Skoda itself must feel the public still needs educating but it's a shame, because in (almost) every way this Skoda is superb. Which is not, incidentally, how it acquired its name. In the Thirties, when the Czech Republic was still Czechoslovakia and the name Skoda was rather more than the punchline in a dodgy joke, the Superb was a range-topping six-cylinder limousine that ensured Skoda was taken seriously by its customers. Can history repeat itself?

A Handsome Car

If common sense or plain good taste were the defining factors, then Skoda would be home and dry but unfortunately, image is the essential ingredient of modern life (apparently).

Itıs time to think again though. Style trends are merely the phenomenal mass adoption of something that a much smaller group (or an individual) bravely did before anyone else. Maybe Skoda needs a famous figure to be a modern-day Pied Piper for its brand. Just pay David Beckham 2 million pounds a year and make him drive a Superb all the time. Dealerships would have order books fit to burst as every 12-year-old in the land scrambled to put their name down for a 2008 model.

It shouldn't be necessary because not only is this Skoda an excellent car, it is a handsome car. Since the early Nineties Skoda has been owned by the Volkswagen Audi Group and the resultant leap in quality is palpable. Undeniably, the Superb bears a strong resemblance to its VW sibling the Passat, but the Skoda is both longer and wider, acquiring an additional elegance as a result. Inside, the benefits of the extra inches are nothing short of amazing.

Great For Kneeroom

Behind the wheel leg-room and head-room are excellent whilst rear-seat passengers have never had it so good. Knee-room in the rear is 1006 mm. Unless you go and sit in the car for yourself (go on, dare you), this will mean nothing but think about this: itıs a full 236 mm more than youıll find in the back of a Citroën C5. Get your ruler out and see how much extra room that really is.

Buyers of the C5 are among the people Skoda is aiming at with the Superb, together with Ford Mondeo and Vauxhall Vectra drivers. To get a real insight into the Superbıs true value, Skoda really should be aiming higher. A BMW 520i offers the same performance as the Superb and is without doubt more of an ultimate driving machine.

But it is also thirstier, smaller (inside), less ecologically friendly, much less well-equipped (no CD player, no cruise-control, no automatic air-conditioning, no parking distance control) and costs a breathtaking 6,040 pounds more. Even a comparable Mondeo (2.0 Zetec S) is only a few hundred pounds cheaper than the Superb 1.8T and it's slower (just), not quite as well equipped and, again, smaller inside and a much more common sight on our roads.

Refined and Quiet

But back to the Skoda: in terms of refinement, it is staggering to think this is a £17,500 car, not one costing almost twice that figure. The cabin is a pleasure to be in, with precious little noise intrusion and a feeling of quality that would be smugly satisfying if it were reassuringly expensive but could actually give you lockjaw from grinning when you remember how little you actually paid for it.

Switches and controls push, flick and turn as you would hope they would (OK, the best of the best may be a degree or so better), but nothing squeaks or rattles and everything is solidly screwed together. The Comfort specification on the 1.8T example includes in-dash CD player, parking sensors, cruise-control and electronic climate-control, over and above the Classic model's standard electric windows all round, power-steering and multi-function computer.

To drive, the Superb offers everything that would be expected of a car of this class and the turbo-charged 150bhp engine (it also earns its keep in VW and Audi models) is a willing and responsive unit. Quoted top speed is 134mph with 60mph being passed in less than 9.5 seconds. In truth, the car always feels faster than even these figures suggest.

But Light Steering

Whilst the Superb possesses considerable grip, its actual handling does not inspire more enthusiastic driving. This is one of the very few negatives about the car because the engine is more than up to the job. Part of the problem is the steering, which is definitely on the light side, adding to a sense of floating around corner at times. The urge to have a little fun on B roads is further hampered by a gearbox that, whilst perfectly reliable, is also rather buttery. The Superb 1.8T is not a driver's car in this regard, but I don't suspect many of its customers will find this off-putting. Not everyone wants to explore the outer limits of the performance envelope every time they get behind the wheel.

The cavernous interior dimensions are complemented by a boot of similar proportions and the requisite safety features are all included as standard. The Superb does not even appear to depreciate any faster than some of its mainstream rivals (Renault Laguna, Ford Mondeo, Citroen C5).

The car is a joy to live with and because of this, it became rather fun to provoke friends and relatives into being stereotypically dismissive. And without fail, all of them changed their mind after travelling in it. In fact, rather than reading this, why not take The Skoda Challenge for yourself and go out and set a trend rather than following one. Hurry up though, before everyone's at it.