20 articles
Most synthetic oil in the US starts as crude oil or natural gas and is rebuilt into uniform molecules with hydrogen, heat and catalysts (Group III), or built from scratch out of ethylene gas (Group IV PAO). The base oil is then blended with 10 to 25 percent additives. The word synthetic describes the process, not the raw material.
Get a written, itemized car repair quote that lists each part, the labor hours and rate, and any diagnostic fee, and says the shop will call you before going over it. Get two or three for anything big. A bad quote is verbal, vague about parts or labor, pressures you to decide on the spot, or has no approval limit.
A front-end (two-wheel) alignment usually costs $50 to $100 in the US, and a four-wheel alignment $100 to $150 at tire chains. Dealers and shops quoting book labor can reach $186 to $273. In the UK, expect about £40 to £50 for the front wheels and £70 to £90 for all four.
A clear-coat scratch costs about $150 to $300 to fix at a body shop, or $10 to $30 with a DIY kit. A scratch through the color coat runs roughly $300 to $1,000, and one down to bare metal can hit $800 to $1,500 or more per panel. In the UK, expect about £70 to £150 for a light scratch and £300 to £600 for a deep one.
In the US, a basic service (oil change and filter) runs about $160 to $188 at RepairPal's estimate, and a bigger 30,000-mile style service adds filters, rotation and fluids on top. In the UK, BookMyGarage's average is £191 for an interim service, £236 for a full service and £316 for a major service.
Dashboard lights follow a color code. Red means stop or act now, amber or yellow means a fault to get checked soon, and green or blue means a system is simply switched on. The engine warning light itself is amber and means the engine computer has stored a fault code; if it flashes, pull over.
The check engine light means the car's computer has found a fault that affects, or could affect, emissions. A solid light means get the code read and fixed soon. A flashing light means a severe misfire, so pull over and arrange a tow before the catalytic converter overheats.
Clip the test light's lead to a known good ground and touch the probe to the wire, fuse or terminal you are checking. If the light comes on, there is power. To check a ground, clip to battery positive instead, and keep any test light away from airbag wiring and computer circuits unless it is rated computer safe.
A car audio SPL competition is a contest for the loudest bass inside a car, measured in decibels by a sensor in the cabin. Leagues like dB Drag Racing, MECA, IASCA and EMMA split cars into classes by woofer count, power or budget, and top systems now pass 185 dB. Tacom 2, a 2013 street SPL contest in Tangerang with 75 entrants, was a local version of the same idea.
The Honda Jazz GE8 is the 1.5-liter second-generation Jazz, or Fit, built from 2007 to 2014 with a 120 PS L15A i-VTEC. The mods that actually work are suspension, wheels and tires, and brakes, because bolt-on intakes and exhausts add only a few horsepower. K&N's own dyno test of its GE8 intake showed a gain of 4.53 hp.
Ferrari Owners Club Indonesia (FOCI) is the non-profit club for Ferrari owners in Indonesia, founded in Jakarta in 2002 and now about 150 members strong. It runs monthly gatherings, quarterly events and multi-day tours such as a Bali rally, with chapters in Jakarta, Surabaya and Batam. It is a club for Ferrari owners, and the way in is through the club contacts Ferrari lists or the Jakarta dealer.
For paint, use split microfiber in a 70/30 or 80/20 polyester/polyamide blend, with no tags and soft or edgeless borders. Match the weave and weight to the job: a 1,000 GSM or heavier twisted loop towel for drying, a short 200 to 300 GSM weave for glass, and a plush towel for buffing off wax. Keep cotton for greasy jobs and treat a chamois as an older, riskier way to dry.
The fastest front-wheel-drive hot hatch lap of the Nürburgring Nordschleife is 7:44.523, set by the VW Golf GTI Edition 50 in 2026. It beat the Honda Civic Type R FL5's 7:44.881 from 2023 by about a third of a second. Older records such as the Megane Trophy-R's 7:40.1 used a shorter 20.6 km lap, so they aren't directly comparable.
Indonesia has no widely reported club just for the Volkswagen Golf Mk1, so owners usually join the wider VW scene: water-cooled groups like Nuvolks, regional VW clubs and national meets under the Volkswagen Indonesia Association. The Mk1 itself is rare there, with one specialist saying only about 200 were sold locally. Expect to hunt for parts and buy on condition, not price.
The Toyota Starlet EP81 is the 1.3-liter, single-cam version of the P80 Starlet sold in places like Indonesia and Europe, while the famous GT Turbo is the EP82 with the 135 PS 4E-FTE. In Indonesia, where the P80 was assembled locally until 1998, cheap 1993 and 1994 EP81s are popular bases for GT body parts and 4E-FTE swaps. Check for rust, turbo smoke and the quality of any swap before buying.
The Toyota Supra Mk IV, the A80 built from 1993 to 2002, earned its legacy through the overbuilt 2JZ-GTE twin-turbo six, period performance that matched far pricier cars, and a starring role in The Fast and the Furious. US cars made 320 hp and Japanese cars were rated at 280 PS. Clean, original Turbos now trade well into six figures, with a $550,000 auction record.
The 2000 Subaru Impreza WRX GC8 Version 6 is the last of the first-generation Imprezas, sold in Japan from September 1999 to August 2000. Mechanically it carried over the Version 5 car, with cosmetic updates, a 280 PS EJ20 in both WRX and STi form, and a run of limited editions plus the 300 PS S201. Clean, original cars are now collector items, and the main checks are rust, engine compression and the gearbox.
Spyker's heritage starts in 1880 with two Dutch coachbuilding brothers, who built the Netherlands' Golden Coach, the first six-cylinder four-wheel-drive car and World War I aircraft before the company folded in 1926. The modern Spyker Cars, founded in 1999, is a separate company that revived the name, the propeller logo and the motto for the C8 supercar.
The Mercedes-Benz C240 W203 wagon is a 2.6-liter V6 C-Class estate, sold in the US for the 2003 to 2005 model years with 168 hp and 63.6 cubic feet of cargo space. It's cheap to buy, with Kelley Blue Book putting a 2005 at about $1,000 to $1,400, but check for door rust, coolant pipe leaks, worn suspension bushings and tired rear shocks.
The 1972 Holden HQ Premier was the top mainstream sedan and wagon in Holden's 1971 to 1974 HQ range, above the Kingswood and below the long-wheelbase Statesman. It came standard with the 202 six and a three-speed column shift, with V8s optional. Clean V8 sedans sold at Shannons for A$36,000 and A$50,500 in 2022 and 2020.