Some Cars Are Just Not Meant To Be

I suspect our Christmas parties may have been a little unconventional. We had the usual nibbles and drinks at the end of the day, combined with plenty of laughs about what had transpired through the year. But, I believe what made our workshop's Christmas parties very different was one of the...

This week I'm taking a look at a couple of common OBD codes that can cause a check engine light to illuminate.  A lit CEL usually leads to a state inspection or emissions fail but the good news is a lot of CEL problems are easy DIY fixes.  The car in question here is a BMW X5 with the M54...

Today we're going to show you how to change the oil on a 2010 Mercedes-Benz ML 250 without the use of an extractor. It only takes a few minutes, so let's get started. Mercedes Oil Change Kit (5W-40) - Pentosin/Mann MLOILCHANGEKIT Subscribe to us on YouTube About the Author Gareth runs the BMW...

As vehicles age, their hoses quickly become maintenance items that should be inspected and replaced if necessary. The modern engine bay is a myriad of different hoses, each carrying a different fluid with different requirements. It's important to inspect and replace the clamps that attach these...

Short and sweet, yet useful. Many of us have performed the most basic of maintenance procedures, an oil change, where we've had a cartridge insert filter instead your traditional spin on. In some of today's modern engines some of these filters are inserted down into an oil filter housing rather...

There's often a lot of debate about what new products we add to our catalog at FCP.  We often ask ourselves do the new products provide value to the customer? Are they actually useful? What is the brand's reputation for quality & service and does it match FCP's lifetime guarantee? Our tool...

When discussing maintenance with other like-minded Volvo enthusiasts, the most common items brought up are engine oil and transmission fluid. What kind of oil should I use? When should I change it? What about transmission fluid? Do I really need the expensive Volvo transmission fluid? How exactly...

I've written before about the “old days” of the 70s and 80s when cars were becoming a bit more sophisticated but still pretty manual in most ways. Take brakes, for example. Back in the day, if you had a brake problem, you simply looked for a leak, worn pads, shoes, drums or rotors or you started...

Having brakes that provide an extremely high level of performance inspires confidence in your driving. At the track it means you can go deeper in the corners lap after lap consistently, and consistency is one of the factors that improves lap times. On the street, it can mean the difference...