Guides by Denis
341 articles
In 2014 the Number of Recalls Jumped 55% in One Year and Never Came Back Down
You'd expect a bad year for recalls to be followed by a return to normal. Counting campaigns by year shows 2014 wasn't a spike at all — it was a step change that stuck.
The Gap Between the Cheapest and Priciest Car to Fuel Was 2x for Forty Years. Now It's 5x.
Average fuel costs have fallen, which sounds like progress for everyone. Splitting the market into its cheapest and most expensive tenths shows the improvement went to one side only.
The RAM 2500 Has 14 Model Years. One of Them Holds 54% of All the Complaints.
Model-level reliability scores average everything together. Broken out year by year, some models turn out to be fine except for a single catastrophic season.
The EPA Calls the Acura Integra a Large Car and the Cadillac ATS-V a Compact
Every fuel economy comparison you read is grouped by vehicle class. The classes are defined by a rule that produces results nobody would guess from looking at the cars.
A Ten-Year-Old Electric Car Arrives With 34,000 Fewer Miles Than a Petrol One
Electric cars are cheaper per mile to run, so you'd expect owners to drive them more. Every year of the used market says the opposite, and the gap never closes.
72% of New Cars Cost More to Run Than the "Average Vehicle" They're Compared To
Every window sticker compares the car to an average vehicle and shows what you save. For most cars that number is negative, which raises a question about what the average is.
Tyres Were the 7th Biggest Source of Car Complaints. Then They Went to Zero.
Whole categories of car defect don't usually vanish. This one did, in about five years, and the reason is a single scandal that reshaped how tyres are monitored.
"Buy From a Private Seller" Is Impossible Advice in Half of America
The standard tip for saving money on a used car assumes private sellers exist near you. In several major markets they barely do, and the reason isn't what you'd guess.
Cars Built Between 2000 and 2006 Generated More Complaints Than Any Era Before or Since
Reliability is supposed to improve steadily. Plotting owner complaints per model against the year the car was built produces a hump in the middle that doesn't belong there.
Choosing Your Engine Used to Be Part of Buying a Car. That Ended in 2025.
Trim levels multiplied, colours multiplied, driver assistance packages multiplied. The one choice that actually changed how a car drives quietly disappeared in about five years.
When a Car Doesn't Sell, 73% of Sellers Just Post It Again at the Same Price
A car that didn't sell is telling you something about its price. I tracked what sellers do about it, and the most popular response is to do nothing at all.
1,383 Recalls Were Issued Over a Sticker. Toyota Accounts for 333 of Them.
A report showing three open recalls sounds alarming. Some of those recalls are about a printed label being wrong, and nothing in the report tells you which is which.