Follow these easy tips, and avoid these common mistakes, to help ensure you get exactly what you need the first time.

How do you suss out problems on a car that’s come to you for service?
Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Vermont, even Arizona, and many other state and city government fleets have held naming contests for their winter service vehicles. But who has the best?
We read the astrological signs and predicted your automotive future.
Shop Press is the news and idea hub for everything related to working on cars and trucks, focusing on repair, technology, and wrenching lifestyle. With interesting stories from around the world, features on creative people and solutions, and all kinds of other stuff that’ll make you use your mind and your hands.
Auto care news and advice you can use.
Powerful tools—if you know how to use ‘em.
We curated all the best songs about cars and driving, creating the definitive playlist for when you’re working on automobiles or driving in them.
An auto repair shop in Georgia went viral for paying a former employee in hundreds of oily pennies. Then the Department of Labor stepped in.
If you’re using needle-nose pliers like I did for years, there’s a better way.
The in-dash cup holder on certain late ’90s to early 2000s F-150s, Expeditions and Navigators tends to break, but it’s easy to repair.
Are you a wrench and a writer? A counterperson and a communicator? A service writer and a scribe? Get paid to share your experience and expertise with thousands of Shop Press readers.
Auto care news and advice you can use.
It isn’t the “registration and insurance card box,” after all.
Not every Phillips head fastener is a Phillips head fastener. If you don’t know about Japanese Industrial Standard, now you’ll know.
Beam-types have a few advantages that keep them relevant. If your arsenal doesn’t include one, you might want to think about acquiring one.
I learned a trick from an old racer that works real well to bleed that rarely leaves me repeating my work.
Bleeding brakes is one of those jobs most of us know how to do, but when a hard-to-bleed system pops up, experienced techs have a few additional tricks up their sleeves to help get the job done.
There’s a spectrum of parts ranging from fresh and new to tired but cheap. What should you use and when?
Does the shop retain right of first refusal, or is moonlighting A-OK?
From Colonel Hogan to Mr. T to Fonzie, here’s a completely unscientific list of television wrenches.