Mechanic

An Indonesian man is being lauded as a hero this week after plucking two children out of the path of a runaway vehicle with a superhuman feat of agility.

The international motor racing community was bereaved this weekend to learn of the untimely passing of Nigel Stepney, a well-known (if controversial) racing mechanic who worked for 30 years in Formula One. The 56-year-old Brit appeared to have pulled his Volkswagen Caddy van over to the side of the road on the M20 at Ashford, UK, when a del

What do you want to be when you grow up? If you answered, "mechanic," you're in the minority. But that could be a good thing for your chances of getting a job. As USA Today points out, a shortage of mechanics and an increase in the complexity of today's cars means there's big demand for wrenchers.

"Right To Repair" laws have been debated for years, with automakers and dealers steadfastly opposed to any legislation requiring them to divulge the electronic secrets of their vehicles to independent repair shops. The little guys continue to cry foul, insisting that dealership mechanics get repair tools and software that are unavailable on the open market. The manufacturers claim they already provide enough repair information and what

Hmm, that doesn't seem centered anymore – Click above to watch video after the jump

Photo by gailf548. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.

For those of us who like to service our own cars, being able to retrieve the OBD-II codes is important. There are various readers on the market, with some more capable than others. Of course, once the codes are retrieved, you need to know how to interpret them. The common misconception is that the on-board diagnostics will tell you exactly what's wrong. The truth is, codes may be set that call out a particular component or system which are symptoms, not causes. To really get to the root of the p

In high school my best friend and I convinced his sister that the sphincter valve on her car was broken and leaking blinker fluid all over the driveway. She freaked and offered us money to drive it up to their family mechanic and have it fixed. We took the money and blew it on Golden Tee.

In a survey conducted by Valvoline, sixty-percent of ASE certified Master Automobile technicians questioned said that a vehicle's oil should be changed every 3,000 miles. Twenty-nine percent said between 3,000-5,000 miles is acceptable and just two percent voted that between 5,000-10,000 miles is okay.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a recall this week on the 1998-2000 Audi A6. This recall is interesting, though, because it's on the fix of another recall.

10 Home Depot stores in Florida are on an auto parts test run for America's largest home-improvement retailer. The stores each have about 500 square feet chock-full of auto parts at discount prices, undercutting competitors by more than 20 percent in some cases. The company hopes that male do-it-yourselfers,their prime demographic, won't be able to resist as they pass by aisles of motor oil, fuel additives and other supplies. All of whi