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 brake pedal is down. The engine may even be running. Yet the gear lever remains planted in Park with the determination of a fence post. Pulling harder rarely improves the situation. It can, how
There are few sounds more effective at making a driver feel guilty than the crunch of a manual gearbox going into reverse. The clutch is buried in the carpet. The car is standing still. Everything see
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
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
The sticker price is the beginning of what a car costs, not the end. What you pay over the next five years in maintenance, repairs, and reliability surprises adds up to a number that can exceed the di
I was eighteen the first time I heard someone brag that their Toyota cracked 300,000 miles. It sounded like folklore: the Loch Ness Camry. Two decades and six very different cars later, I’ve
There's real money to be saved by doing your own car maintenance. Oil changes, air filters, wiper blades, bulbs — these are legitimately easy, and the savings are real. A cabin air filter th
There is a moment in every car deal when the buyer thinks the hard part is over. The price is agreed. The handshake happened. Maybe there is even that tiny rush of victory, the one that comes