Flipboard 2025 Car Tips

A bright security light aimed straight into your windshield can be more than a neighborhood nuisance. If it interferes with your ability to see while backing into a street, sidewalk, or driveway approach, it can create a real driving safety problem. The tricky part is that whether your neighbor has to fix it usually depends on local lighting, nuisance, and zoning rules rather than a single nationwide law.

If you’re a car owner, keeping things in tip-top shape not only helps your vehicle last longer, but also contributes to your safety on the road.

Seeing “clean history” on a used-car listing feels like permission to relax. No major accidents, no ugly surprises, no reason to crawl around the parking lot examining welds, right? Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple.

Your neighbor’s RV may be legally parked, but from behind the wheel it feels anything but harmless.

I bought my pickup truck thinking it would be the perfect vehicle for the occasional home project, furniture haul, or weekend trailer trip. I never expected that the real shock would come every time I pulled up to the gas pump, where routine fill ups started taking a bigger bite out of my budget than I had ever imagined. If you've ever wondered whether the convenience of owning a truck is really worth the ongoing fuel costs, the answer may surprise you.

Some were clever. Some were a nuisance. And a few disappeared so quietly that you may have forgotten they ever existed until you see one again. How many of these do you remember using?

Discover why extended warranties often refuse to cover known defects—and what you can do about it. This in-depth automotive guide breaks down warranty loopholes, TSBs vs. recalls, consumer rights, and effective strategies to get your repair approved. Learn how to fight back, document your case, and understand your true coverage so you’re never caught off guard at the service counter again.

One of the reasons I liked the idea of owning an EV was being able to charge it at home. There is just one problem: I do not have a private parking space, so my setup only works when I can park close enough to my house. By the time I get home, someone else often has the spot I need, leaving me wondering whether EV owners have any special rights to the curb.

Modern vehicles can do things that would have seemed luxurious not long ago, from opening the tailgate with a foot gesture to adjusting suspension height automatically. The catch is that every extra motor, sensor, actuator, computer, and piece of moving hardware creates another possible failure point. Consumer Reports mechanic and reliability coverage repeatedly shows that some sophisticated features can make repairs more complicated or expensive, even though many work perfectly well for years.

Living near a school often means accepting a burst of traffic twice a day, but losing access to your own driveway is a different problem. Municipalities and schools routinely warn drivers not to block private driveways during pickup and drop-off. The exact rules and enforcement procedures vary by location, but a vehicle obstructing a driveway can generally be reported to local parking enforcement or the appropriate municipal service.

A tiny rust hole can fail a vehicle inspection if it affects structural metal. Learn how rust spreads, what inspectors look for, and when corrosion becomes a serious repair problem.

Your friend says an empty trailer hitch can get you ticketed. Here's when leaving a ball mount on your truck can actually cause trouble.