The window glides upward, touches the top of the frame and immediately retreats several inches. Try it again and the same thing happens. Up, nearly closed, then back down. It has the comic timing of a
A car sits empty in the driveway, engine off and doors locked, yet all three brake lights are glowing as though an invisible driver has a foot planted on the pedal. It looks like a wiring problem. Pos
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
An electric car is sitting in the driveway with 200 miles of range showing in the app. The large battery beneath the floor contains enough energy to move two tons of metal across an entire county.
There is no graceful way to discover how ABS feels for the first time. Something enters the road. The brake pedal goes down hard. Then, at precisely the moment when calm would be useful, the pedal beg
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
There is something wonderfully unhelpful about the traction-control symbol. It shows a car wriggling across the road, which makes the button beside it look like the obvious thing to press when the roa
Most people call it a headrest, which makes it sound like somewhere to relax during a long traffic jam. Its proper name is head restraint, and that description is much closer to its real purpose. T
Red goes to positive. Black goes to negative. It is the sort of rule that feels too simple to forget. It is also incomplete. When jump-starting many modern cars, the final black clamp is not suppos
Pull a seat belt slowly and it follows without complaint. Lean forward to adjust the radio and it gives you room. Tug it sharply, and the belt becomes rigid before moving another inch. Nothing el