The emergency jack in a car’s trunk rarely inspires confidence. It is narrow, awkward and usually accompanied by a handle that looks as though it escaped from flat-pack furniture. Then ther
A small square or circular panel sits almost flush with the painted bumper. It has no button, light or obvious reason to exist. Once spotted, though, it becomes surprisingly difficult to ignore. Be
The tire-pressure warning light is not one of the dashboard’s more mysterious creations. It looks like a sagging tire with an exclamation mark inside, which is a fairly direct way of saying, &ld
At the tire shop, the choice seems too obvious to question. The front tires on a front-wheel-drive car handle the steering, put the power down, and do most of the braking. They usually wear out first.
A tire can look almost offensively healthy for its age. The tread grooves are deep. There are no nails in sight. The sidewalls still turn glossy after a wash, and the car has covered so few miles th
Here is a mildly alarming experiment: open the trunk of your car and lift the floor. There may be a spare tire under there. There may also be a little black compressor, a bottle of sealant, and a
There's a specific kind of frustration that comes from walking out to your car in the morning and finding a tire that's low — again. Not flat, just soft. And soft again two days later af
Your car hates summer more than you think. You feel it the second you open the door after it’s been sitting in the sun. That little blast of oven air. The seatbelt buckle that wants to br
Tie rods are one of those parts most people never think about until the steering starts feeling weird. Then suddenly a mechanic is saying “inner tie rod,” “outer tie rod,” &
A lot of bad car advice survives because somebody said it with confidence. Maybe it was a dad, an uncle, a neighbor, or the guy at the quick-lube place who slapped a sticker on the windshield and t