Is there anything I can do to help my car pass the UK MOT test?
Every year around four in 10 cars fail the UK MOT test yet the government claims that around half of all failures could be easily prevented. Although garages frequently don’t…
Category: Mechanical
Find out how your car works – in plain English. We reveal all those tricky technical things that might have baffled you about your car
Is premium fuel worth using or do I stick with regular fuel?
Compared to regular petrol or diesel, premium fuels usually have racy sounding names such as V-Power Nitro+, Ultimate, Momentum or Synergy Supreme+. And there will be various claims that these…
What is a car’s ECU?
Modern cars are often said to have more computing power than the early Apollo moon rockets. When people say this, one of the areas they’re talking about is the car’s…
Car tuning: does chipping work?
Do you want your engine to have more performance, or perhaps get more economy? If so car tuning by a process called chipping could be the way to go. Tuners…
If I put petrol in a diesel car, do I need to have a new engine?
In the UK it’s estimated about 15 people every hour pump the wrong fuel into their car. If they’re lucky, their journey will be delayed by a few hours and…
How do I drive an automatic car in snow?
Driving in snow can be tricky for even the most experienced driver. For starters, unlike the Nordic countries, we’re not used to it. Plus hardly any of our cars have…
My DPF light is on, what does it mean?
Every modern diesel car sold in the EU since 2009 has a DPF or Diesel Particulate Filter. This is a component located in the car’s exhaust system that’s designed to…
Is it worth warming up a car engine before driving?
Drivers of a certain age will doubtless remember their fathers heading out before trips to ‘warm the car up’. Cars have come a long way in the last 20 years,…
Can I jet wash my engine to clean it?
Cars are mechanical marvels. They’re sufficiently strong to withstand daily abuse, yet they’re clever enough to tell us the best way to get to places and in some cases how…
How do I jump start a car with a flat battery?
Jump starting a car is one of those things that we’ve all heard of. Some of us may even have attempted it. And yet more of us will probably have…