On a cold morning, the dashboard can produce a blue thermometer symbol that looks far more alarming than the engine sounds. The car starts normally. No steam rises from beneath the hood. Nothing sm
A car left in the afternoon sun does not need long to turn into a small greenhouse. The steering wheel becomes unpleasant to touch, the seats feel freshly ironed and the dashboard claims it is 104 deg
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
A parked car should understand the concept of being parked. The engine is off. The keys are inside the house. The garage has been quiet for hours. Then something beneath the car begins to hu
Automatic stop-start has a peculiar talent for irritating drivers both when it works and when it does not. At one traffic light, the engine shuts down the moment the car stops. At the next, it keep
Finding a hole in the exhaust usually leads to one conclusion: the muffler is rusting away and the bank account is about to become involved. That conclusion is often correct. Exhaust systems live a
A cold engine starts, and a pale cloud rolls out of the exhaust. The sight is particularly dramatic on a winter morning, when the plume hangs behind the car as though the engine has chosen a new caree
Opening the hood and finding a low coolant reservoir seems like a straightforward problem. The liquid inside is pink. The parts store sells pink coolant. Buy bottle, pour liquid, close hood. Unfort
The fuel light comes on. The dashboard says 80 miles to empty. The next gas station is 35 miles away, so there should be no problem. Ten miles later, the display reads 54. Nothing has leaked out. N
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