I suspect I'm not alone when I confess I occasionally have car-related dreams. This past week, I woke from a very vivid dream, though I could only remember one part of it clearly. It was a dream about a car, a BMW 2002.

A couple weeks back ex-Jalop legend Murilee Martin was judging the Buttonwillow Lemons race, when he texted me some sad news. The car I helped build and run back in '08 finally met its end.

Dear Lifehacker,
I'd like to integrate my smartphone into my car, but it's a pretty basic vehicle that's a far cry from technologically advanced. What can I do without paying a fortune to make my car and smartphone work well together?

A couple weeks back I asked for people to "go nuts, and then send me some pictures", and the good news is some of you did. The better news is the pictures have so far been of cars and not grainy pictures of genitals, which on the Internet is a big deal. This week I'd like to feature the work of one particularly bonkers…

This week on Car Hacks I'd like to talk about an idea that I've had banging around in the empty vastness of my head for some time. I usually have this idea when one of my old cars leaves me stranded by the side of a busy highway.

There has been an unusual spike in the number of BMWs stolen in the UK this year, with some sources suggesting the number may be 300 cars or higher. The cars are being stolen without activating car alarms or immobilizers.

Carl Rice was given a 2001 Chrysler Sebring by his grandfather, which I think may be the most common way anyone ends up owning a Sebring. An accident on one of California's Hobbesian freeways led him to converting it into a post-apocalyptic survival machine.

Since today's the first full day of Jalopnik's new discussion system, Kinja (a portmanteau of kinky and ninja, I'm guessing) I wanted to treat today's Car Hacks as something of a test. I'd love it if these posts could become their own discussion groups of sorts, as commenters and us writers can talk about ideas, share…

When I introduced Car Hacks last week, I mentioned that cars can be thought of as huge rolling collections of interesting parts. This week I'm putting that idea to the test, by using some of those interesting parts to do something they were never remotely meant to do. Specifically, the parts are power seat controls,…

Back in 2008, I conned Make: magazine into sponsoring me and three other car guys and artists to enter a car in the 24 Hours of LeMons. The way I convinced them was pretty simple: car people and DIY/maker people have lots in common, but the two groups don't have as much interaction as you'd think they would. I'd like…

Cheat codes aren't just for cruising past bosses in video games; there are cheat codes for a lot of cars, too, that can get you past the annoying ping of a seat belt chime, access diagnostic info only your mechanic can usually see, or give you control over features like traction control and GPS lockout. On recent and…

Our pals over at Make posted this article about Will O'Brien, and how he took an old iPhone, an Arduino, and a handful of electronic crap and made a remote starter for his Subaru Outback that lets him start his car with a text message. The link to his site gives a full schematic of how it was done, and he's made the…

Last week we showed you how a developer had hacked Siri to operate his internet-connected thermostat. But that's not cool. Starting your car using Siri, now that's cool.

According to a report by U.S. computer security software-maker McAfee, increasingly computer-dependent cars could soon become a hacker target. But software-selling fear-mongering only masks the real threat: It's you.

Two security researchers at a Black Hat security conference demonstrated how they were able to break into a Subaru Outback using a technique they call "war texting" in just a few hours, a revelation sure to warrant a mention in the REI customer newsletter.

As automakers stuff more electronics into vehicles, they're also created opportunities for do-it-yourself programmers to swap factory controls for more impressive devices. That's what Ed Zarick has done with the homebuilt setup he calls the Jeeputer.

Where exactly does a gadget labeled Crypto Transponder Copier come into the process of copying a car key? The people at Shanghai’s Yi Tong International Automobile Fittings Town appear to know—and they’re not afraid to use it.

No plastic wheel matches the familiarity of a real car. That's why these Finnish geeks plugged a PC directly into this VW Scirocco's on-board computer and, with some clever coding and a projector, created an incredibly immersive gaming experience.

Under certain conditions, some GM high-performance cars with manual transmissions force a 1st to 4th shift. Everybody but Nancy Pelosi and the EPA hate it. Here's step-by-step instruction on how to defeat it for $7.