The low-fuel light is on, so a few gallons go into the tank. The engine starts, the receipt confirms that actual gasoline was purchased, and the gauge responds by remaining exactly where it was. No
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.
Replacing windshield wipers used to be one of those jobs that made everyone feel mechanically competent. Lift the arm. Turn the blade. Unclip it. Spend several minutes questioning the little plasti
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
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
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
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
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