A bright red car, a metallic blue car and a taxi painted the color of a highlighter will normally leave the factory with exactly the same footwear. Black tires. The color seems so inevitable
The parking brake has been released, but the red warning light remains on. The first reaction is usually to pull the lever again or press the parking-brake switch a few times. Perhaps the sensor
Replacing windshield wipers used to be one of those jobs that made everyone feel mechanically competent. Lift the arm. Turn the blade. Unclip it. Spend several minutes questioning the little plasti
There is no graceful way to discover how ABS feels for the first time. Something enters the road. The brake pedal goes down hard. Then, at precisely the moment when calm would be useful, the pedal beg
The engine is off. You push the brake pedal once, then again. Each push feels a little firmer than the last. After several presses, the pedal barely wants to move. That sensation can make it s
Fresh motor oil is reassuring stuff. It pours from the bottle in a clear amber stream, looking clean enough to belong in a kitchen rather than an engine. A few hundred miles later, the dipstick can
There was a time when checking automatic transmission fluid involved a dipstick, a rag, and five minutes under the hood. Now the dipstick has vanished. The filler may be buried beneath the car, the fl
The reservoir under the hood is sitting close to the minimum line. There is a bottle of brake fluid on the shelf. The obvious response seems to be pouring in enough fluid to bring the level back to &l
There are dashboard lights that can wait until the weekend. A low washer-fluid warning, for instance, is hardly a reason to abandon a grocery run. The red oil-can symbol is not one of those lights.
Owning a Mercedes is one of those things that sounds very glamorous right up until the service advisor says, “Your car is due for Service B.” That is usually the moment the mood cha