Test Drives, Trends & Events

With everyone feeling the pinch of gas prices lately, it's easy to start looking for cheap gas stations in your area or using a website, such as GasBuddy.com, to find low gas prices. In a recent conversation with Dr. Richard Cohen, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Temple University, who helped us debunk some common "tips" for improving gas mileage, he reminded me that driving a few extra miles to buy cheap gas may not be worth the savings.

In Philadelphia, where he lives, many residents are driving about 10 miles across the river to New Jersey, where gas prices are about 20 cents cheaper per gallon. Since, on average, it would take about a half gallon of gas to make the round trip, the extra cost is about $2 to get a $4 savings, netting only $2 extra savings, which residents need for the $2 minimum toll to cross the river to get to New Jersey! Doesn't make a lot of "cents," does it?

There are much better ways of saving money on gas and improving your gas mileage. Check out our top tips in our recent article: Gas Saving Ti...

Summer is officially here and for my family, that means road trips. When I was a kid, car road trips meant driving as fast as you could go to get to your destination, without sightseeing along the way.

As an adult, I have learned that a true road trip is about the journey, not the destination. With each road trip vacation, my husband and I have let the road guide us instead of being a slave to our travel guide. Finding the unexpected and having the time to truly experience, it has often been the most memorable part of each car trip.

On a road trip on the California coast, we piloted our BMW 6 Series convertible (my road test car for that week) on a curving, mountainous road inland to the seldom-visited Mission San Antonio de Padua. When the Ford F-150 was redesigned a few years ago, we drove the pickup a circuitous 1,800 miles from Texas to California, stumbl...