Coolant

We'll show you how to change engine coolant on this episode of Wrenched!

The 2012 and 2013 model year Chevrolet Volt extended-range plug-in vehicle may have a battery glitch caused by low coolant levels. No recall has been issued and General Motors is taking care of the issue at no cost to drivers.

Many of us rely on our cars for some of the most important day-to-day tasks. If something goes wrong, it can be a very scary and stressful experience. Some -- not all, of course -- unscrupulous mechanics prey on that fear in order to make unnecessary repairs that drivers don't need. Watch out for these five unnecessary repairs and upsells the next time you take your car in for service.

You can call it throwing cold water on the EV grin or taking the pessimistic view or whatever you like. The fact remains that Fox Business has got it in spades. In a recent segment with The Car Coach, Lauren Fix, electric vehicles were given a most negative of reviews while ignoring most any upside. This certainly shouldn't surprise anyone who's been following Sebastian Blanco

We don't have any new supercars to show you today. No new Teslas or SUVs. No new engines or technologies. No mergers, acquisitions or big hires. What we have to tell you about is the coolant automakers are putting into their vehicles. Which may not sound so exciting, but it could mean a big difference for automakers – and for the environment.

About ten months ago, we reported on Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz raising warning alarms about a newly approved refrigerant for automotive air conditioning applications, called R1234yf. The new coolant was approved for use in the European Union because it has a reduced negative effect as a greenhouse gas when compared with its precursor, R134a. However, Seyth Miersma

The case of Dupont and Honeywell's refrigerant R-1234yf is doing the exact opposite of keeping things cool. The two chemical companies have spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars developing R-1234yf to replace R-134a, the new refrigerant shown to be 99.7-percent kinder to the environment than the one it is meant to succeed. Part of that development has been years of tes

Battery maker A123 has announced that batteries it supplied to Fisker Automotive for its Karma range-extended luxury sedan might have "misaligned" hose clamps for the cooling system, which could cause coolant to leak. Unabated, A123 admits the leak could cause an electrical short-circuit.

Understand the difference between coolants, and how to look for problems.

According to the USAToday, the new Avenger has had its share of engineering issues, something that the publication allowed Chrysler to respond to in depth within its review. As if being publicly humiliated by one of the largest papers in the land wasn't enough, Damon Lavrinc

Twelve years ago, Jack Evans (founder and namesake of Evans Cooling) went to court with the claim that General Motors stole his design for a reverse-flow cooling system, a setup that was later put into production in GM's LT1 series of small-block V8s - and a design that was protected by Evan's patents. Such a cooling system sends cold water from the radiator directly to the heads and then to the block,

The bright orange Dexcool coolant used in many General Motors vehicles over the past decade promised to bring extended maintenance - 5 years or 150,000 miles - to cooling systems, but many owners instead found themselves with vehicles that required system flushes, gasket replacement, and even new radiators and heater cores just outside of the vehicle's warranty period. The blame for the problem depends on who you talk to, and the causes include the "stop-l