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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.

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 car was reported as abandoned even though you drive it every weekend. Learn when parked cars can be warned, ticketed, or towed.

Remember when pickups were built for work instead of family duty? Discover the strange, forgotten, and innovative American trucks of the 1960s, from the Chevrolet Corvair Rampside and Jeep FC to the Studebaker Champ, Dodge A100, and International Travelette.

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.