Condition
What's actually wrong with a used car, and how anyone can tell.
AWD, 4WD, and what you need here
Five layouts, drawn. What each one actually sends power to, and what that's worth on a New Jersey road in February.
Buying a used EV
Degradation, charging history, and the readouts worth asking for — plus what a state-of-health number is and isn't.
Buying a used turbo car
What forced induction adds to a used car, what it asks of the oil, and how the failures actually present themselves.
Certified pre-owned, examined
Certified is not one standard. Six claims about CPO taken one at a time — and the one document that settles all of them.
Dashboard lights, ranked
From finish your drive to stop the car now, with the reasoning for each rank.
Fluids: what the color means
A swatch chart for every fluid under a used car, and the ones color cannot tell you about.
How a transmission tells you it's failing
Three stages of trouble, the symptoms that belong to each, and the honest limits of diagnosing any of it from a description.
How to design a test drive route
Seven legs, each built to make a specific fault show itself.
How we decide what to fix
Four questions, in order, applied to one car's punch list - and why the declined items are the informative ones.
Hybrid battery health
Five things you can observe on a used hybrid without specialist tools — and the limits of every one of them.
Paint depth and what it tells you
Readings panel by panel, and why the spread matters more than the number.
Panel gaps and overspray
Eight correct-versus-suspect pairs, described so you can find them in a parking lot.
Reading a tire
The sidewall, decoded — and why a wear pattern is a readout of the suspension, the alignment and the air pressure rather than of the tire.
Reading brake wear
A cross-section, three stages of wear, and the four measurements that settle it.
Reading used engine oil
Eight appearances on a dipstick, what each one indicates, and the honest limits of judging an engine by the color of its oil.
Rust, and where it actually matters
Eleven underbody zones, rated cosmetic, watch or structural.
The car we sent to auction
It looked right in the lane. The paint gauge on the right quarter said otherwise, and the arithmetic said send it back.
The cars we don't buy
Fifteen standing rejection criteria, each with its reason - and the exceptions, where there honestly are any.
The cold start
Ninety seconds, watched window by window, with a stopwatch.
The cooling system, and why it kills engines
A loop of water and a few dollars of parts decide whether an engine lasts. The diagram, then the chain of failure.
Timing belt or chain
Two ways to keep a camshaft in step with a crankshaft, two entirely different failure modes — and how to find out which one your car has.
Used diesel: what's different
Emissions hardware, fuel system and city driving — the three things that decide whether a used diesel was a good idea.
What a car smells like when something is wrong
Ten odors, what each one usually is, and how fast it matters.
What a lift shows you
Nose to tail underneath a car, zone by zone, with what to ask in each.
What each noise means
Sound, then the causes it could be, then how fast you need to act — organized by when in the drive it happens.
What the history report misses
Cash repairs, shops that don't report, the two years it sat. An inventory of absences — and what closes the gap.