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 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
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
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 turn signal normally keeps a relaxed, predictable beat. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Then, without warning, it sounds as though someone has doubled the tempo. The arrow on the dashboard flashes furiously
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
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
The engine is off. You push the brake pedal once, then again. Each push feels a little firmer than the last. After several presses, the pedal barely wants to move. That sensation can make it s
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.
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