Changing a car battery used to be one of the cleaner bargains in home mechanics. Remove two terminals, undo the clamp, lift out the old battery and fit the new one. The clock might need resetting a
Open the door of an American-market performance car from the early 1980s and something may appear terribly wrong. There is the dramatic driving position, a powerful engine and perhaps a body design
The car drifts gently toward the shoulder, and suspicion immediately falls on the alignment. That is understandable. A car should travel where it is pointed, and anything that seems to tug at the s
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 was a time when replacing a car battery was a reassuringly simple job. Disconnect the old one, wrestle it out of its tray, drop in the new one and tighten the terminals. If the engine started, t
A used car with gleaming paint, freshly shampooed carpets, and half a dozen pine-scented air fresheners may look beautifully prepared for sale. Or it may be trying much too hard. Flood-damaged
At the tire shop, the choice seems too obvious to question. The front tires on a front-wheel-drive car handle the steering, put the power down, and do most of the braking. They usually wear out first.
A lot of people still think a parked car needs a long time to become dangerous in summer. It doesn't. That is the part people keep underestimating. They picture a car slowly getting
A lot of people talk about summer tires the way people talk about hot sauce. They want the most extreme one. The one with the biggest number, the most grip, the most bragging rights, the tire t
To non-car people, rally racing and circuit racing probably look like the same thing. Loud engines. Stickers everywhere. Drivers wearing fireproof pajamas while expensive machinery gets abused at