Flipboard 2025 Car Tips

Cutting fuel costs by more than 40% would be a huge improvement (and a huge relief on the wallet given the price of gas these days). And according to some hypermilers, one strange-looking technique called “ridge riding” can help squeeze lots more miles from a tank.

Used-car shoppers hear this all the time: highway miles barely count, while city miles are what really wear a car out. It sounds neat, and there is some truth in it, but the real answer is more complicated. Buyers should care about how miles were driven, but they should not treat the odometer like an afterthought.

You pull into the station, glance at the price board, and feel that little sting. Then you remember what the dealership said: use premium. But your owner's manual says regular is acceptable, which raises the question that matters most at the pump: are you paying extra for nothing?

You drop your car off for one problem and get a call later saying the shop already replaced something else. Then comes the kicker. The mechanic says it was too dangerous to leave alone and now expects you to pay for work you never approved.

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 have looked at a used electric vehicle and felt a little chill when someone mentioned “battery replacement,” you are not alone. The scary version of the story is that the battery can fail and cost more than the whole car to replace. That concern is rooted in some real early examples, but it is not the whole picture for most used EV buyers in 2026.

It is easy to see the appeal of a car that sits low and looks planted. A dramatic drop can make even an ordinary sedan look sharper, meaner, and more customized. But when a suspension is lowered so far that the car nearly scrapes the pavement, the problems go well beyond comfort and straight into safety, tire wear, and parts damage.

Finding a GPS device tucked under your dash or wired into your car can feel alarming. In many cases, the reason is less cloak-and-dagger than it seems. Dealers and lenders have used vehicle tracking technology for years, especially in subprime auto financing, to locate cars for repossession and sometimes to support payment reminder systems.

You bought the car, and the hardware is already sitting there in plain sight. Then the automaker asks for a monthly fee to switch on a feature that the vehicle can physically already do. That is the core reason so many drivers hear this pitch and immediately think, “Wait, am I paying twice?”

If your insurer denied a flood claim on a parked car because you declined comprehensive coverage, that answer is usually consistent with how auto insurance works in the United States. Many drivers assume “basic” insurance protects the car itself from almost anything, but that is often not true. In most cases, flood damage to your own vehicle is covered under comprehensive, not liability-only coverage.

If a dealer wants your signature before they will even let you inspect the exact car you plan to buy, that is at least a meaningful warning sign. It does not automatically prove fraud, but it flips the normal order of a car deal in a way that can put you at a disadvantage. Before you sign anything, you need to know exactly what the document does and whether it creates any obligation.