Here are five things you should never tell the guy trying to sell you a car: * How much you like the car … Never show emotion; it’s the surest way to end up paying too much. It lets the seller know you really, really, really want that particular car and are probably not...
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Getting a car to burn less fuel is actually pretty simple. It boils down to – make it do less work. Here are five ways to do do that – no hybrid technology required: * Skip the all-wheel-drive - AWD may be the most oversold feature for the average motorist since 4WD. Certainly, AWD...
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No, not the one around your middle. The one that used to be in your car’s trunk. Most cars (note: passenger cars, not just big trucks and SUVs) used to come with a full-sized spare tire. What happened to them? And why? Two things led to the near-abandonment of the once-common full-size spare tire:...
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There’s typically 10-20 percent difference between what a dealer will give you for your old vehicle as a trade-in vs. its retail market value – i.e., what you could probably sell it for yourself. The dealer’s not being cheesy. He will have to clean/prep your trade-in for sale – and often, perform whatever work’s...
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Traffic stops are more stressful for women than for men – especially at night and especially when the stop takes place on some not-well-traveled road… and it’s just you and the cop. If it is, in fact, a cop… . There are creeps out there with cop-style wig-wag lights built into the grille of...
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Buying a new car can put you one step closer to living in a van down by the river. New cars cost about $25,000 on average for the typical family sedan – which is about 30 percent more, adjusted for inflation, than a family sedan cost in the 1970s. But it’s not just the...
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What’s the best car for winter driving? It’s one of those questions with no one size-fits-all answer. But I’ll tell you what I think makes for a good winter car: * It’s older … and it’s paid for - Driving on ice/snow – and among Clovers who don’t know how to – is a...
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It may not be necessary to change your vehicle’s oil and filter as often as you once did. Recommended service intervals have been increasing over the past few years from as often as once every 3-4 months and 3,000 miles to as infrequently as once every 5,000 (or even 10,000 miles), depending on the...
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One of the first things I do after I buy a vehicle is buy a small spiral-bound notebook (spiral-bound because a pen or pencil fits nicely in the binding.) On the cover I write the make/model/year of the vehicle. In the notebook will go information about all service and maintenance work done to the...
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If you mess around with cars long enough, you’ll figure out ways of doing things that make the job easier. Here are five tips that have worked well for me over the years: * Hot water can sometimes be good to get into - Occasionally, a new radiator or heater hose will be a mother...
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