The tires were set perfectly that morning. Then, after a long stretch of highway, the pressure display shows every one of them sitting several pounds higher. Out comes the gauge. Sure enough, the d
Select Reverse, walk behind the car and one white lamp comes on. The other stays dark. The rear light clusters look symmetrical. Both contain clear and red sections. Surely one bulb has fail
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
They run around the edge of almost every modern windshield: a solid black border that gradually breaks into smaller and smaller dots before disappearing into clear glass. Most drivers have stared t
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.
The extra button at the fuel pump has a way of making regular gasoline seem slightly irresponsible. It is sitting there with a higher number, a higher price, and the word “premium” printed
Park on a slope, move the shifter to P, take a foot off the brake, and most automatic cars will perform a small, familiar shuffle. The body rolls a fraction of an inch, stops with a muted clunk, then