Website FAQ

Registration & Login

Why do I need to register?

To take advantage of all the features offered by CarKB.com, such as posting messages, receiving notifications about new posts, setting your time zone, and many others you will need to have a free account.

How do I register?

To create an account you will need to open the registration page, complete the form, and submit it. Within five minutes, you will receive a confirmation e-mail containing your login password.

I have a username and password, how do I login?

To sign in into your account, visit the login page, enter your username or email address, whichever you prefer, in the first field, then your password, and press Sign in.

What if I've registered but still cannot login?

If you've registered and can't login, check to ensure you have a valid username and password. If you are sure the username and password are valid, but still can't login, please contact us.

I forgot my username and/or password.

If you forgot your username and/or password you can visit the Forget Your Password page and have both your username and a new password emailed to you by entering the email account you're registered with. You will be sent a new password since we store your password encrypted and have no way of retrieving the original value. Once you receive your username and new password you can login and change your password.

I am unable to register for a membership because it says my e-mail address is already in use.

If you receive this type of error message, your e-mail address has already been registered at our database; there is no need to sign up for an additional membership. If you don't remember your password, please follow the instructions in "I forgot my username and/or password" provided above.

I have not received the confirmation e-mail with my password.

If you have registered for a membership, but have not received the confirmation e-mail within 5 minutes, please first check your "Bulk Folder", if available, at your email account. If you do not find the email from us there, please contact us, providing the username or e-mail address you registered with.

The password I received via e-mail doesn't work.

Please try copying the temporary password from right to left, ensuring there are not any blank spaces, captured after the last digit of the temp password in the e-mail. The site does not accept any blank spaces, also known as leading or trailing spaces, or white space, normally captured when copying left to right. Once copied, paste it into the Password field to avoid any typos. If you still have problems with the temporary password working, please check to ensure your cookie settings are set to work with our site.

If the above does not fix the problem, please contact us. Be sure to provide the following information in your message:

What Internet browser and OS are you using? What version of each?
Do you have cookies enabled?
Have you tried to access your account from another computer or one outside your current environment, such as work vs. home computer?
Are you running behind a firewall/proxy server? If so, do you know the brand name? Have you tried temporary disabling them to see if this fixes the problem?

What is your commitment to privacy?

We do have a commitment to privacy, which can be viewed on our Privacy Policy page.

User Profile & Settings

How do I view my profile?

To open your profile, please click the My Profile link that is located in the action menu on the right side of every page.

How do I change my Password?

To change the password, open your profile, select the Password and Statistics tab, click the Change Password button, and submit the new password.

How do I change my e-mail address?

To modify the e-mail address, open your profile, select the EMail tab, type your new e-mail address to the Private e-mail field, and click Save changes.

Discussion Groups

How do I start a new discussion thread?

When viewing a discussion group you should see an image button reading

Start new thread. Clicking on this link will take you to a form for posting a message or ask you to login first.

How do I reply to an existing post?

You can reply to an existing post using the

Reply to this Message image button displayed under the post. Clicking on this button will take you to a form for posting a message or ask you to login first.

How can I see my latest posts?

To see your latest posts, just follow the link

My Latest Posts that is located in the action menu on the right side of every page. You can also find this link in your profile.

How can I see the threads I am subscribed to?

To see your monitored threads, click

My Monitored Threads.

How can I receive e-mail notifications when someone posts to a particular discussion thread?

To enable e-mail alerts, open the discussion thread your want to monitor and click

Enable e-mail alerts.

How do I turn off e-mail alerts?

You can turn off email-tracking by clicking on

Disable e-mail alerts inside the discussion thread you are subscribed to. Also you can disable alerts for multiple threads using the My monitored threads page.

How can I report cases of abuse?

To report cases of abuse, click the the

Report Abuse image button displayed under every post when you logged in. On the report page, please describe why you think the post is abusive.

How do I rate a thread?

Ratings help indicate which discussion threads you find most helpful. When you are browsing a thread, you can rate it and your rating will become part of that thread's overall rating.

To rate a thread, click on the stars that appear next the words Thread rating or scroll down to the bottom of the page to see Rate this thread. Simply rate the thread and click on the Submit Rating button.

What are the various thread display options?

Every thread page offers three different view modes:

Three View - In this thread view the messages are displayed in a tree and sorted based on their parent/sibling relationships. This tree allows you to see the relationship each post has to others, in terms of who responded to whom.
List View - In this mode, posts are displayed chronologically from oldest to newest.
Single Message View - In this mode, a tree is shown along with every post. Only one post is shown at a time.

Try switching between the different thread views to see what display mode you like best.

What do the tree view icons mean?

The message tree icon

opens a window that allows you to see the relationship each post has to others, in terms of who responded to whom. You can also use the message tree window to scroll to any post in the thread.

Use

(message parent) and

(next/previous message sibling) to scroll to the parent or sibling messages.

Is my email address visible on the web when I post?

No, the email address you enter when signing up is not public, shared in anyway, or displayed on this web site. Unless you type your e-mail address in the Your Public Name field or in the message itself, it will not appear in the discussion groups.

What is the difference between a public name and username? And how can I change them?

When you register at the website, you'll be asked to choose a username. Once you have registered your username, it becomes yours for life. Username is the name of your profile and cannot be changed.

Your public name is the name you would like others to see next to your forum postings or other website submissions. For example, you might want to use different public names on different websites in our network.

You can change your public name whenever you submit a new posting. Just type a new value in the Your Public Name field when posting.