Will carrying sandbags in your trunk really improve traction? Well, that depends on what you drive. Back in the days when the average car was a front-heavy, rear-drive sedan with marginal bias-ply tires, sure, a hundred pounds of ballast might have made the difference to help you crest that snowy hill. Most cars today are

Remember that new-car smell? Actually, new cars haven’t had that smell since manufacturers took the solvents out of the glues in the interior in an attempt to save a lot of UAW members’ livers. Oh well. But there are plenty of other smells emanating from your car. Some of them are perfectly normal, even if

If you’re on vacation and the back of the car is loaded with hunting and fishing gear, maybe even a large catch, plus other “road hugging weight,” that’s probably the cause of your headlight problems. That extra weight pushes down the rear enough to tilt up the front and the beams. If you periodically carry

You slip behind the wheel for the morning commute. The engine starts easily, runs fine while fast-idling down the driveway and down the street for a few miles, but then stalls. You know instantly when the stall occurs because the air horn in the tractor-trailer rig immediately behind you curdles the fluid in your inner