Get those cars and trucks inspected before your sticker expires!  Remember, its a moving violation in Massachusetts for driving a vehicle with an expired sticker!  Go to MassInspectionStations.com to find an inspection station near your home or work.

New Inspection Stations in Peabody and Malden.  Think your car might fail the inspection?  Need new tires? Find and auto repair shop or muffler shop or what ever your car needs.

A new infographic by the Car Care Council illustrates vehicle repairs needed and top problem areas based on findings from consumer vehicle check-up events held across the country.

Check and replace dirty air filters!  Air filters clogged with dirt, dust and debris chokes off fresh air intake and creates a rich air/gas mixture wasting gas and causing the engine to loose power.  Replace the filter at each car inspection is a good rule of thumb!

In some states, vehicle inspection regulations require operating tire pressure monitoring sensors (TPMS) on every vehicle that came with TPMS as Original Equipment.  However, at this time Massachusetts Inspection Stations do not require TPMS  to be functional in order to pass inspection?

Answer: Probably before you take your car for an inspection sticker.  But first read on!


While it is simple to place a Lincoln penny in the tread groove of a worn tire and use Abe's likeness as a guide, we don't think Honest Abe knows what's best for today's drivers.

The Lincoln penny tread depth test has been touted for years to be a suitable method of determining when it's time to get new tires. It's based on the premise you're driving on legal tread depths anytime the top of Lincoln's head is obscured by the tread and that a tire's ability to grip the road isn't greatly reduced in adverse conditions (rain, slush and snow) until the tread wears to about 2/32" of remaining depth. It then maintains you're ready for new tires at 2/32" and can see the penny above Lincoln's head. (See Photo #1) Is it as simple as that? No. Read on.

Photo #1: Honest Abe doesn't always tell the truth.

A driver's ability to control their vehicle depends on the traction between their tires and the road. Tires don't require tread designs or even much tread depth to deliver traction on dry roads. A practical example of this is the racing slicks used on stock cars and open-wheel racers that provide traction at over 200 mph. However, tires do require tread designs to generate traction on wet, slushy and snow-covered roads. Liquids can't be compressed and require time and energy to move them out of the way as our tires drive through them. Those same racing slicks would lose traction at amazingly slow speeds anytime something prevented them from maintaining contact with the road.

So a tread design is necessary to direct water and slush from between the tire and the road, as well as provide edges that bite into snow. But that's only half the equation; because we've seen that tread depth also contributes to how well the design does its job.

The air our tires encounter at highway speeds can easily be compressed and moved out of the way with relative ease. However the same isn't true of liquids. When water collects on the road surface during rainstorms, the water depth, vehicle speed and vehicle weight, as well as the tires' tread designs and tread depths collectively determine when and if the tires will be forced to hydroplane and how quickly they can stop a vehicle. Read More...