Washing a car in winter can feel wonderfully pointless. The bodywork is clean for perhaps half a journey. Then a truck passes in the opposite direction, the windshield receives a cold brown showe
A remarkably low odometer reading has a way of making every other detail fade into the background. The paint may be dull, the tires may look suspiciously old and the service book may contain a de
Opening a car’s hood is oddly ceremonial. First comes the lever beneath the dashboard, usually hidden low enough to require an undignified search around the driver’s footwell. The hood
A car battery does not need to be completely dead to leave the car behaving as though it is. Sometimes the battery is charged and perfectly willing to work, but the electricity cannot get past the
Park on a slope, move the shifter to P, take a foot off the brake, and most automatic cars will perform a small, familiar shuffle. The body rolls a fraction of an inch, stops with a muted clunk, then
A car can sit unused for several days without concern. Stretch that pause into several weeks, however, and the first signs of neglect may begin to appear. The battery loses charge, the tires remai
A used hybrid can be a really smart buy. That is the good news. The other news is that people sometimes shop for one the same way they shop for any regular used car, and that is where thin
BMW and reliability have had a weird relationship for a long time. There was a stretch where people talked about older BMWs like they were carved out of granite. The straight-sixes had a reputa
There are certain car problems people take seriously the second they hear about them. Brakes. Tires. Battery. Engine. Anything expensive gets respect immediately. Even people who ignore mainten
The sticker price is the beginning of what a car costs, not the end. What you pay over the next five years in maintenance, repairs, and reliability surprises adds up to a number that can exceed the di