4 Easy Ways To Pass (or Fail) a State Inspection

Manual transmission cars often involve less maintenance and are more efficient than their automatic counterparts. Aside from a clutch change somewhere around 100-150K miles, they are relatively maintenance free. When a clutch slave cylinder starts to wear and is showing age, or if you upgraded...

I’ll admit, I was caught out by the snow. But then again, 7 inches of snowfall as the first warning shot for winter seemed a little bit excessive. My Volvo, still on 3-season tires, wasn’t quite ready for the road. Nonetheless, the following day, I torqued up the winter tires, and the old Volvo...

Loose steering and tire wear plague older cars like the Volvo 850, but diagnosis is literally only a wiggle away. Front-end issues are easily diagnosed and easily repaired if you've got a few basic hand tools. Outer tie rod ends are the last link in steering a vehicle's wheels, and after 100K can...

This is the time of year when the leaves begin to change color, we begin to pull out our warmer clothing, and prep our cars for the coming winter season. Usually during this time we perform some type of preventive maintenance. It can vary from which is needed and which is simply precautionary....

As your beloved Volvo parts age, more and more of the suspension is wearing out and can make funny clunking noises. The most recent job I did is to replace the front control arms on my 2006 XC90 V8. As the control arm bushings wore out, I would get odd changes in steering during braking and...

Power windows on the E53 BMW X5 have became known for failing with age, often leaving the window jammed in the fully down position. Earlier BMWs tended to use a 'scissor lift' style window regulator, but around the time of the X5 BMW started moving to a cable & pulley system. There are...

The most common reason for a car failing to start is simply that the battery cannot provide enough power to turn the starter motor. While the easy repair seems like a battery replacement, there's a chance the problem is elsewhere within the battery and electrical charging system. Before you go...

Drive belt tensioners are a sometimes overlooked maintenance item, and if your car has 100K-200K miles on the clock then it could need replacement. As the name suggests the job of the tensioner is to keep tension on the drive belts on the front of the engine that link components suggest as AC...

Now that the vehicles are approaching 20 years old, the AWD Volvos we love are starting to get a bit long in the tooth. A frustrating fault that is occuring more and more involves the rear subframe, and the fuel equipment snaked through it. Rear Subframe Removal The P80 chassis was comprised...