Choosing The Right Seat Cover For Your Car
by Kavin
The interiors of your car are what give it the special touch. Often, people take a lot of trouble to redesign their cars and fit them with bumper stickers and decals, but forget to work on the interiors. It is a matter of taste. The exteriors of your car are what people mostly get to see, but the interior of course is your small world and making it look good gives you pleasure every time you enter it.
While decorating the interiors of your car, your seat covers come first because they decide the theme as well as the overall look-and-feel your car presents to its passengers. Choosing the right seat cover is often more of a challenge than you might think. You have to keep more than one thing in mind. To begin with, your car seat covers give your car its character, and thus also reflect your personality. You have to look for something that gels well with your personality and in the end make sure that the effect they produce is not too jarring.
The choices are many and people often get confused about what they choose. A lot of people end up choosing the popular black or beige leather seat covers. While these seat covers look glamorous and excellent, you also run the risk of making the interiors of your car look unimaginative. Instead if you do some methodical thinking you may be able to shortlist a type of car seat covers that will give your car that embellished look.
Is your car sporty? Is it the rugged-vehicle type? Or, is it the elegant type? There are ranges of car seat covers that will give your sports car that jazzy look, or your SUV that tough look, they require. Here are some quick tips on what to choose:
* You can choose to match the interiors of your car. While, it is custom to choose colors and patterns that match the interiors, you can also opt for something that stands in contrasts and looks inviting to the eye. The idea is to make the end result look attractive.
* You may want to design the interiors of your car after the theme of your favorite sports team. It is a good way of being protecting your car's interior while at the same time upholding team spirit.
* You may also want to choose your car seat covers based on your hobby. There are a lot of hobby themed car seat covers available like the billiards or hunting themed seat covers. These theme based car seat covers will always interest your guest and more often than not you will find yourself talking to people on your favorite topic.
Car seat covers are fairly inexpensive and can be changed from time to time to give your car a new look. Look for the protective ones like the waterproof machine-washable ones. Also make sure they are stain resistant, abrasion resistant and flame resistant. Never compromise on these as they decide the usability of your seat covers. Your seat covers after all have to go through a lot of wear and tear.
About the Author
If you are searching for the ideal car seat covers that will change the whole décor of your car, Autobits (http://www.auto-bits.co.uk) will be of assistance to you. Autobits is a leading supplier of car accessories and can offer you excellent quality products at an affordable price.
The 2009 Kia Rio just hit the Alberta market and brings with it style and power like never before. Kia, an auto manufacturer known for creating affordable cars that last, offers a shocking 10 year, 100,0000 mile warranty on its Rio - making it one of the most long-lasting and beneficial warranties of any manufacturer on the market! Here's what you can expect from the 2009 Kia Rio:
Extra space, The Kia Rio brings more roominess than ever before, including seating for 5 with plenty of leg room and storage space to make travelling comfortable - whether it's near or far. Power, The new Rio has 110 horsepower behind it, making it faster and more powerful than many other small sedans on the market. Plus, despite its powerful engine, it delivers 35 miles to the gallon on the highway. With that kind of mileage and comfort, you can drive to your heart's content. Affordability, Kia is known to provide cars at economic rates. Because of the warranty and gas mileage, you know that when you purchase a Kia, you are not only purchasing a car that will last, but also one that will save you money at the pump every week. Safety, Kia has a 6 airbag safety feature standard on every car. Plus, the car comes complete with airbag and seatbelt latch sensors, anti-lock brakes, 3-point seat belts throughout the car, dual front airbags, curtain airbags, fog lights, and 24 hours roadside assistance. You'll never have to wonder about your tires either with the 24 hour tire monitoring system.
The 2009 Kia Rio is not only one of the safest cars in its class, but it proves that driving a small sedan doesn't have to be uncomfortable. With enough leg room for all occupants and gas mileage to get to where you're going cheaper, you'll love taking the Rio with you on all of your trips
The Saturn Vue small SUV was supposed to come in three different shades of green: mild hybrid, full hybrid, and plug-in hybrid (as shown here).
When General Motors introduced its first hybrids, the company applied the advanced fuel-saving technology to the Saturn brand. The first models introduced as “Green Line” vehicles were unconvincing mild hybrids, but a future version of the Saturn Vue small sport utility was scheduled to use full “two-mode” hybrid technology—followed by a plug-in hybrid version.
That would have made the Saturn Vue the only vehicle on the market with three different flavors of hybrid—a truly innovative and forward-thinking approach to hybrid technology. Unfortunately, the entire Saturn brand—hybrid and conventional—is apparently falling victim to GM’s financial woes.
GM Plug-in Crossover SUV
The plug-in hybrid Vue was originally planned for 2010, but now all bets are off. The plug-in Vue was going to utilize a modified version of GM's two-mode hybrid system, plug-in technology, and an advanced lithium ion battery pack. The system was being engineered to achieve significant increases in fuel economy, as much as twice that of any current conventional hybrid vehicle. The advantages of a plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle over a non-plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle are its extended electric-only propulsion, additional battery capacity, and its ability to be recharged from an external electrical outlet, meaning common household current. The Saturn Vue Line plug-in hybrid was expected to offer electric-only propulsion for more than 10 miles. To propel the vehicle at higher speeds, electric-only mode would switch to either a combination of engine and electric power together, or engine power by itself. GM’s two-mode hybrid system will be modified for use with plug-in technology. The system maintains two separate driving modes—one for city, the other for highway.
Saturn Vue Green Line Two-Mode
Compact and midsize vehicles seem to be the sweet spot for US hybrid sales. So we’ve eagerly waited for the arrival of the Saturn Vue Two-Mode Hybrid, the full hybrid version of Saturn’s Vue compact sport-utility. General Motors will not produce a 2009 version of the Saturn Vue Two-Mode, which was scheduled for release in late 2008. We had to check the badges to make sure these Vues were in fact Two-Modes, rather than the mild-hybrid version now known just as the Vue Hybrid (nee Vue Green Line).
·The Hybrid Vue for V6 Buyers
The Vue Two-Mode Hybrid will be sold alongside the mild-hybrid version, but the two serve very different niches. This big V6 is mated to the Two-Mode Hybrid system jointly developed by GM, Chrysler, Daimler, and BMW. (By comparison, the slower, less expensive four-cylinder Vue Hybrid returns 25 city/32 highway.)
The standard two-wheel-drive Vue V6 is already heavy at 3,870 pounds; the Two-Mode package adds another 250 pounds on top of that. (The Vue Two-Mode isn’t offered with all-wheel-drive, unlike the Highlander Hybrid.) The Vue Two-Mode rides lower than its non-hybrid brethren, for better aerodynamics, which also helps that planted-on-the-road feeling. Perhaps it’s the compact hybrid crossover for buyers who don’t want to be seen in a hybrid?
The Vue Two-Mode will arrive at Saturn dealerships in January and February 2009.
·The Latest Two-Mode Hybrid
The basic Two-Mode technology in this latest Vue hybrid is the same one used in the full-size Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid (see our drive report) and GMC Yukon Hybrid, and Cadillac Escalade Hybrid full-size SUVs, and it will also appear next spring in the Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid and GMC Sierra Hybrid full-size pickup trucks. Chrysler now offers it in the Dodge Durango Hybrid and Chrysler Aspen Hybrid full-size SUVs, and it will soon launch in the BMW X6 Hybrid and a future Mercedes-Benz ML450 Hybrid SUV as well.
The cells inside it are made by Cobasys, which was recently in the news for a recall of its smaller packs fitted to the mild-hybrid versions of the Saturn Aura, Saturn Vue, and Chevrolet Malibu. Next up in the growing lineup of hybrid Saturn Vue models will be the Vue Two-Mode Plug-In Hybrid, which will run up to 10 miles on electricity alone, using a larger battery pack that can be charged up from the power grid. That vehicle is expected to launch late in 2010, at roughly the same time as GM’s much-touted Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle.
Saturn Vue Hybrid
The mild-hybrid Saturn Vue Green Line is G.M.’s first gas-electric vehicle, unless you count the company’s ultramild-hybrid pickup trucks.
For comparison’s sake, a conventional gas-only Vue with 4-cylinder engine, front drive and automatic transmission is rated 22 in town, 27 on the highway.
Instead of a discrete electric motor that can drive the wheels just like a gasoline engine, the Green Line uses a belt alternator-starter; it shuts the engine off when the car comes to a complete stop, eliminating gas consumption at idle. The Green Line’s 36-volt battery and motor-generator smartly wake up the engine as soon as the driver’s foot comes off the brake pedal.
That feat—the thing that, in the view of many people, makes a hybrid a hybrid—belongs for the moment only to full hybrid systems from Toyota and Ford. The typical hybrid driver needs real-time information to wring the most miles from the fuel, but Saturn provides only silly green lights and a little dial and pointer. There is also the Green Line’s overall feel of righteous deprivation. While the Green Line is rather Spartan, the Red Line, a higher-performance Vue, has a distinctive front end, sport suspension, 18-inch alloy wheels, leather seats and much more. The Vue Green Line proves that G.M. is capable of improving the fuel efficiency of many of its vehicles at a modest cost.
Saturn Aura Green Line
Matt DeLorenzo of Road and Track said, “The Saturn Aura is a breakthrough car for General Motors. As the Aura Green Line made the rounds to the auto reviewers, the story changed. Why did the Aura Green Line get accused of being cheap? Because affordablity (a.k.a. cheapness) was General Motors's goal in producing Saturn hybrids. This technology, commonly called “stop-start“ is a no-frills system for improving fuel economy by about 10 percent.
While Saturn manages to keep the additional cost of the Green Line version within a couple of thousand bucks of the conventional four-cylinder Aura (especially when considering the hybrid tax credit), its real competition is not the standard Aura—but the Toyota Prius and Civic Hybrid. Unfortunately, the bare-bones entry-level versions of those cars are about the same price as the Aura Green Line. And those vehicles beat the Aura Green Line's fuel efficiency ratings by 13 mpg and 16 mpg respectively. The Aura Green Line is hard to distinguish from the conventional Aura.
While hybrid cars have been around now for some time, now you can find a hybrid SUV as well, which is thrilling to many people. This gives great power but helps to keep the vehicle fuel efficient as well. There are both mild hybrids and strong hybrids available.
The mild hybrids mainly depend on gas engines and have only a small motor that is electric, while the strong hybrids have electric motors that have a larger role in powering the vehicle. There are a variety of hybrid SUV models that are being made today. Both Lexus and Toyota offer their own hybrid SUV models. You'll also find that Honda offers a hybrid SUV, but it is considered to be a very mild hybrid. There are a variety of features and functions that will come along with a hybrid SUV. Not Just Ford, GMC, Toyota with Prius or Honda with Insight, but hyundai is the new comer in vehicle manufacture try to give us more choice with Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid At the Paris Auto Show, Hyundai has rolled out their newest small SUV: a hybrid version of the popular Hyundai Santa Fe. The hybrid Santa Fe will boast a 2.4 liter gas engine coupled with a 40 horsepower electric motor that can produce up to 151 pounds of torque. One of the most exciting aspects of the hybrid Santa Fe is the battery. While lithium-ion batteries have had the industry all abuzz for some time, the Santa Fe’s battery will be made of a lithium-ion polymer. Hybrid car batteries using the lithium-ion polymer are also much cheaper to manufacture. Once built, the hybrid SUV is expected to get 38 miles per gallon (some report this hybrid Sante Fe will reach 44 MPG). Read Other Ariticle : Audi Cars, Used Van Related Blog : Auto body Shop, Prius JBL Audio System Store online : Audio and Accessories
