Guides by Denis
267 articles
We Checked 105 Cars Our Readers Actually Own. They Carry 5.9 Open Recalls Each.
Every argument about unclaimed recalls uses national estimates. We have something better: the actual cars our readers saved to their garage, and what was still open on them.
We Found 209 Cars Whose Odometer Went Backwards Between Two Listings
Odometer fraud is usually discussed in the abstract. We track the same VINs across listings, so for once here is what it looks like in the raw data — including how far the numbers moved.
A Clean Recall Check Today Means Nothing. A Third of Recalls Arrive Five Years Late.
Recall numbers carry a hidden date stamp. I used it to measure how long a defect stays undiscovered — and the answer changes what a clean report is actually worth.
When Only Four People Are Selling Your Car, the Price Guide Is Guessing
Valuation tools return a number for any car you type in. For a lot of model years, that number is built on a handful of listings — and the fewer there are, the more certain it looks.
A V12 Loses 56% of Its Economy in Traffic. A Three-Cylinder Loses 20%.
Every car is rated twice — once for town, once for the open road. The gap between those two numbers isn't constant, and it gets punishing exactly where you'd expect it to hurt most.
People Run 217,000 Checks on Cars Built Since 2020. On Pre-2000 Cars, 13,000.
I sorted every VIN lookup by how old the car was. Attention piles up on nearly-new vehicles and thins out exactly where a car's history starts to be worth reading.
Your Window Sticker Has Two Green Scores. They Don't Agree.
Every new car sticker carries two environmental scores, and buyers read them as the same thing. I compared them across 23,996 ratings and found they measure different problems — with different answers.
The Automatic Is More Economical Than the Manual. It Has Been for Years.
Everyone who learned to drive before about 2010 knows the manual uses less fuel. I compared them at matched engine sizes across thousands of EPA ratings, and the manual loses almost every time.
The Heaviest Vehicle on the Road Weighs as Much as Five of the Lightest
Two vehicles sharing the same lane can differ in mass by a factor of five. Star ratings never account for it, because cars are only ever tested against others their own size.
Repairing Your Own Car Costs Twice as Much to Insure in DC as in Hawaii
Collision cover is the part of a policy that pays to fix your car after you hit something. What it costs varies by more than double across the country, and for reasons that have nothing to do with weather.
Small SUVs Are the Most Economical Class in America. That Says More About the Classes Than the Cars.
The EPA sorts every car into an official class. Rank those classes by fuel economy and the result makes no physical sense — until you look at which powertrains land in which box.
All-Wheel Drive Uses Less Fuel Than Rear-Wheel Drive. Considerably Less.
Driving four wheels instead of two costs fuel — that's the assumption behind every AWD-versus-2WD comparison. The EPA figures say something else entirely, and the reason has nothing to do with drivetrains.