How did a Mercedes taxi reach 4.6 million kilometres? Gregorios Sachinidis kept his 1976 Mercedes-Benz 240 D working in Thessaloniki for decades. Its recorded distance came with substantial mechanical
A retired police car can make an ordinary used-car listing look expensive. There is plenty of room, a purposeful set of steel wheels and the promise of hardware built for a harder life than the school
Press the accelerator hard in a conventional automatic car and its behavior follows a familiar rhythm. The engine climbs through the rev range, the transmission changes gear and the engine note drops
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
An engine can be low on oil and sound perfectly content. It may start normally, idle without complaint and carry the car through the morning commute. The driver sees no smoke, hears no knocking and re
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
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.
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
A used car can look completely fine and still be lying to you. That is the uncomfortable truth behind a lot of “great deals.” The paint shines. The interior smells normal enough. The s