Neutral has a reassuring name. It sounds harmless, disconnected and mechanically impartial. Put the selector in N, release the parking brake and the car can roll. Surely that means it can also be towe
A dead battery is annoying in any parking space. It becomes considerably more awkward when the car is nose-first inside a garage and the tow truck needs it in Neutral. The brake pedal feels normal.
The car looked spotless when it was parked. Then it rained overnight, or perhaps the wheels received an enthusiastic blast at the car wash. By morning, the shiny brake rotors had turned orange. Not sl
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
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
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
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
I was eighteen the first time I heard someone brag that their Toyota cracked 300,000 miles. It sounded like folklore: the Loch Ness Camry. Two decades and six very different cars later, I’ve
There's real money to be saved by doing your own car maintenance. Oil changes, air filters, wiper blades, bulbs — these are legitimately easy, and the savings are real. A cabin air filter th
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