An engine can be low on oil and sound perfectly content. It may start normally, idle without complaint and carry the car through the morning commute. The driver sees no smoke, hears no knocking and re
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 parking brake has been released, but the red warning light remains on. The first reaction is usually to pull the lever again or press the parking-brake switch a few times. Perhaps the sensor
Speed has become ridiculously easy to buy. A modern electric crossover can pin its passengers to the seats while carrying three children, a week’s shopping and a suspicious amount of sports equi
Opening a car’s hood is oddly ceremonial. First comes the lever beneath the dashboard, usually hidden low enough to require an undignified search around the driver’s footwell. The hood
On a cold morning, the dashboard can produce a blue thermometer symbol that looks far more alarming than the engine sounds. The car starts normally. No steam rises from beneath the hood. Nothing sm
The emergency jack in a car’s trunk rarely inspires confidence. It is narrow, awkward and usually accompanied by a handle that looks as though it escaped from flat-pack furniture. Then ther
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
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