What’s your car like at handling the rough roads?  Driving over any rut, pothole or big undulation on a main road can be off-putting for the driver or passengers inside a car.  The chassis design team has a lot of work to do on a new modern car to keep the ride controlled and compliant.  Also, the suspension must be able to cope with a beating from time to time.  However, sometimes there is something on the road ahead that seems to just ......

Cars are designed to go fast, which is why they took over from horse-drawn transport and bicycles on the road. All modern cars, even the most sluggish and cumbersome, are capable of travelling at a speed that was once considered impossible – about 150 or so years ago, before the advent of the railway, it was believed by the scientific authorities that humans would suffocate if they travelled over 30 mph (about 48 km/h).
However, while modern cars can go three times ......

Over the summer, a lot of us head out into the wide open spaces for a holiday. Country driving is a lot different from city driving, with the empty roads and higher speeds being just one of the things. Or should that be “mostly empty roads”? There are other drivers out there on the roads who are driving just as fast as you are, and there are other hazards that you just don’t get in town, and most of these hazards ......

Modern cars have come a long, long way from what they used to be. When I first was given the steering wheel (which was down our rather long driveway when I was about ten years old and we had a Mitsubishi Sigma Galant station wagon), thing like airbags, GPS and pyrotechnic seatbelts weren’t even dreamed of. And there certainly is no substitute for modern safety features – people can walk away from a serious crash with just a few bumps ......

It’s not quite New Year yet, but before the party mood takes all of us over and we all spend a bit of time away from the computer or go away on holiday and actually do some driving instead of just thinking about and reading about driving, here’s ten New Year resolutions for drivers and car owners.
1. I will keep to the speed limit, in and out of the city. This will make sure that I won’t get any speeding tickets and ......

At this time of year, if you have children, attend church or both, you are likely to see at least one nativity play – you know the sort of thing: kids (and sometimes adults) dressed up in bathrobes, sandals and tea towels all standing around a girl with a blue sheet holding a baby doll while a rather embarrassed boy stands nearby with a fake beard and another bathrobe-and-tea towel costume. If you’re lucky, you get something done by adults that usually ......

A couple of weeks ago, the radio and other new channels rang with the news that Holden had ordered a recall. Now there are a lot of Holden enthusiasts out there, and a few of them might have got a bit worried that their new pride and joy might be part of the recall. And now another one’s just been launched. What is going on?

In a nutshell, if you haven’t got a letter from Holden, ......

A lot of people switch off when they read about electric cars. They’re all over in the USA, aren’t they? Or they’re just concept cars that turn up to make a manufacturer look good at a big motor show. We just can’t get straight electric cars over here in Australia at the moment, and those who are interested in sustainable motoring and alternative fuels have to make do with hybrid cars (and probably feel very grateful for their Toyota ......

Sometimes, it’s not what you drive but how you drive that counts. The boffins have done all sorts of research into cutting fuel costs and driving more efficiently to find out just how you should drive to trim down the fuel costs. Sometimes it’s not as simple as looking for a little small-engined hatchback such as a Peugeot 207 or a Mazda 2 to replace a large gas-guzzler.

A lot of that research has been done with heavy trucks – ......

Car alarms might drive you nuts when they go off when someone isn’t trying to hijack your wheels thanks to the cat jumping on top of them hoping for a quiet nap (actually, that one could be quite funny to watch when the cat leaps up like… a startled cat), a heavy truck or an earthquake (if you’re in New Zealand) shakes the car a bit, or something going wrong with the wiring.  I’m not making the wiring one up – a male ......