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
A dashboard without a radio now looks unfinished. Even the most basic car is expected to provide music, news and something to fill the silence when traffic has stopped moving but the clock has not.
The engine is off. The dashboard has gone dark. The key is out, or the start button has been pressed for what felt like a sufficiently final time. Still, the radio keeps playing. Then the dr
On a cold morning, the rear window begins clearing as expected. Most of the condensation disappears, but one neat horizontal stripe refuses to move. That stripe is useful evidence. The window has p
A car battery does not need to be completely dead to leave the car behaving as though it is. Sometimes the battery is charged and perfectly willing to work, but the electricity cannot get past the
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
The key fob worked perfectly that morning. A few hours later, it has apparently decided that opening the car is no longer part of its job. The unlock button does nothing. The door handle ignores
There is a very specific kind of panic that happens when your car makes a noise you have never heard before. You turn the radio down. You lean forward like that helps. You ask the car, out loud, &l
Knowing how to jump-start a car is one of those skills everybody assumes they have until their battery actually dies. Then you are standing in a parking lot, hood up, staring at a pair of jumper cable
Car theft has been around as long as street parking. Before cars, people stole horses. In 18th-century Pennsylvania, horse thieves got branded with the letters H and T on their foreheads after being s