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
There are dashboard lights that can wait until the weekend. A low washer-fluid warning, for instance, is hardly a reason to abandon a grocery run. The red oil-can symbol is not one of those lights.
A tire can look almost offensively healthy for its age. The tread grooves are deep. There are no nails in sight. The sidewalls still turn glossy after a wash, and the car has covered so few miles th
A used car can look completely fine and still be lying to you. That is the uncomfortable truth behind a lot of “great deals.” The paint shines. The interior smells normal enough. The s
The phoenix badge is staying in Japan's prime ministerial motorcade, though it's now attached to something much taller. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has now swapped her Century sedan for
There is a reason car ads suddenly get louder around the Fourth of July. Summer is usually one of those weird in-between stretches for car sales. Spring tax-refund buyers have already made
A used hybrid can be a really smart buy. That is the good news. The other news is that people sometimes shop for one the same way they shop for any regular used car, and that is where thin
A lot of people shop for used cars like they are shopping for avocados. They want the freshest-looking one, the lowest number, the cleanest surface, and they assume that if they can just find t
Used cars are expensive enough now that people are starting to look in places they used to ignore completely. That is how government surplus auctions end up back in the conversation. On pap