Best of Shop Press 2025

Most-viewed overall

Our most-viewed post overall is a Pete Meier post: his “Are you servicing your car’s oil correctly?” article stirred up plenty of engagement and discussion. It seems many of you were interested in Pete’s treatise covering how to avoid some common (and expensive) mistakes when it comes to oil changes. In the article, Pete identified missed oil changes and the use of incorrect oil types as the primary causes of engine failure. He emphasized the importance of strictly following manufacturer guidelines for specific oil formulations and using high-quality filters to protect modern engines, as well as recommending annual oil changes and regular level checks to ensure vehicle longevity.

Most-viewed video post

Our most-viewed video post of this year was “Top tips for car and truck fleet maintenance: what repair shops need to know.” Apparently, many of you are ready to grow your shop’s business with fleet maintenance, service, and repairs. In the video, Chris from Dayton Parts and Lemmy from Dorman Products explained that while fleet work often involves tighter margins, it provides repair shops with crucial stability through consistent, simpler maintenance jobs that fill schedule gaps. They emphasized that these vehicles require strict “severe duty” maintenance due to high usage, but the tradeoff is streamlined communication and predictable volume that keeps technicians busy.

(Second) most-viewed article

Our second most-viewed article this year was “PSA: Stop throwing away brake rotor screws.” In the article, Lemmy pointed out two reasons to keep these little screws instead of tossing them. For vehicles with lug bolts (e.g., German, Fiat, Chrysler), these screws keep the rotor aligned with the hub, making wheel installation easier. And for most other vehicles, the retaining screw ensures the rotor is perfectly positioned and held in place during assembly.

Rounding out the Top 10

Once again, readers clearly appreciated the “how to” and concrete, real-world, wrenching advice pieces, because many such articles and videos appear throughout our Top 10. The 2025 list includes:

• No bead seating tank? No problem!
• The Tightwad’s Way To Install Any Wheel Bearing Race
• Easy trick to transfer gear oil with a simple length of hose (VIDEO)
• Check Out This Hacky Diag Tool
• Stress Test Vehicle Grounds
• Basic Brake Fluid Testers Are Far More Sophisticated Than You’d Expect
• Bitten by a misfire

Staff picks

We don’t just love writing for Shop Press; we love reading it, too. Here were some of our personal favorites.

Andy had a couple he liked this year. In his words, “I liked the Hansville Repair piece for the glimpse into what must be one of the more remote shops in the United States. There are some unique challenges that come with truly being the only game in town.”

He also enjoyed our “Stress Test Vehicle Grounds” piece. As he said, “That’s largely because it saved me some diag time! The reminder to test grounds was just what I needed before digging into an intermittent starter problem. Guess what was to blame?”

Some other personal favorites of the Shop Press team:

• SLABs: Slow, Loud, and Bangin’
• What an oscilloscope shows that your DVOM can’t (VIDEO)
• Is It Ever Safe to Reuse Torque-to-Yield (TTY) Fasteners? (VIDEO)

Thanks for reading Shop Press this year and (hopefully) enjoying our articles and videos for mechanics and the mechanically-inclined. We have more great stuff to come in 2026!