What’s in your oil really matters. Different engines require different protection, so you really should use oil that meets the right specification. Extracting the exact information you need from all the other numbers and symbols on the bottle can be difficult, as there are a couple of phrases to...

2004 was quite a year for the world. Americans had an election, the Summer Olympics were held in Athens, and Volkswagen/Audi debuted the most significant new automotive product in decades: the dual-clutch transmission. At the time, it was a major leap forward, as it delivered the best of the...

One of the more costly parts of owning a car is the upkeep. Maintenance is typically affordable, but every car has an area or two that are an “Achilles’ heel,” so to speak. For many, it’s a big, expensive part that requires some involved hours. However, there are plenty of others whose big issues...

The best way to save money during your car ownership is by fixing it yourself. No matter what your car may need, a dealership will have a reasonably significant hourly rate that can push a simple service into an eye-wateringly expensive experience. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be that way, as many...

Fuel pumps have one of the highest rates of return at FCP Euro, and it’s easy to see why. Fuel systems can be pretty complex, with many electrical and mechanical parts influencing fuel delivery to the engine. Common causes include a debris-filled fuel filter, blocked fuel line, blown fuel pump...

Oxygen sensors are one of the most critical supporting parts of your engine. While sitting in the exhaust, they gather information on the engine’s combustion characteristics and the fuel mixture. A damaged or ineffective sensor will affect your vehicle’s running condition for the worse, often...

Although perhaps not as obvious in recent decades, there was a time when Volkswagens were arguably the most whimsical vehicles on the road. Their lineup in the eighties, nineties, and even through to the early ‘00s was full of the models we know today, like the Golf, Scirocco, and Passat,...

The “American road trip” is a cultural phenomenon. People travel great distances in Europe and Asia, but certainly not with the frequency and ease we can manage in the US. With thousands of miles of interstate and millions of smaller regional roads, there are months' worth of nature, history, and...

Do you know what kind of battery your car has? How about what it needs? Automotive batteries are not all made the same. There are several common types of batteries available here at FCP Euro and at your local parts store, and not all of them are a great fit. The demands of today’s hybrids are far...

European cars have long been filled with American-made parts, but a European car assembled in America? Now those are hard to come by…or at least, they were until the late nineties. Around the turn of the millennium, European manufacturers invested huge sums into manufacturing plant expansions,...