For almost 30 years, freelance columnist Bob Weber authored the weekly “Motormouth” column in the Chicago Tribune, answering all manner of readers’ automotive questions.

A certified master mechanic who previously edited an automotive trade magazine, Weber fielded questions on such subjects as run-flat tires, regular gasoline vs. premium, backup cameras, check-engine lights and leaking head gaskets, providing concise answers.

“He took a subject that is frustrating and intimidating for many people and he made it fun,” said Zach Finken, the associate editor of Tribune News Service, which made Weber’s column available to some 600 media outlets around the world. “Judging from the letters he got, he was a hit with readers who are car enthusiasts and those who are definitely not car people. He was informative and never talked down to anyone, even though he clearly knew more than most of us.”

Weber, 77, died of heart failure on Oct. 17, said his wife of 56 years, Judy. He had been a Purcellville, Virginia, resident for 30 years and formerly had lived in Park Forest in the 1970s and ‘80s.

Born in 1948 in Pittsburgh, Weber grew up in Brentwood, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Brentwood High School. He earned a communications degree from Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, in 1971.

Possessing a great love of cars, Weber worked part-time at service stations during the summers while he was in college and always fixed his own cars.

Weber’s first job out of college was working as a manager at a Chicago-area Fotomat kiosk. He worked for several service stations before taking a job in 1981 as a technical writer for Super Automotive Service, a now-defunct, Lincolnwood-based trade journal published by Irving-Cloud Publishing that focused on professional automotive technicians. Weber also had an interest in photography and eventually became Super Automotive Service’s editor before the publication folded in 1991.

In 1992, Weber became the executive director of regulatory affairs for the Virginia-based nonprofit group the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence, or ASE, which tests and certifies automotive professionals. Weber himself had been certified by the ASE as a master automobile technician.

After leaving ASE in 1995, Weber decided to begin a career as a freelance writer. The following year, the Tribune hired Weber to begin writing his automotive question-and-answer column, titled “Motormouth.”

“He was terrific,” recalled former Tribune transportation editor Mary Jane Grandinetti, who first met Weber at the Chicago Auto Show in the 1990s and hired him in 1996. “We were looking for a technical columnist, and our auto columnist Jim Mateja said, ‘You have to talk to Bob,’ and I did, and the friendship and collegiality were immediate. And we never looked back — he knew his stuff, and he was able to articulate his technical knowledge. On top of that, he had a very nice style, as well as a very nice way about him and an incredibly expansive sense of humor.”

Although Weber only wrote about car repair, he was an avid motorcyclist. In 2001, he authored a first-person piece for the Tribune about an effort to ride 1,500 miles on a motorcycle in 36 hours. It was a shorter version of the Iron Butt Rally, which requires riding 11,000 miles in 11 days. The Iron Butt Association, formed in 1984, offers other challenges, including the Bun Burner 1500, which involves riding that number of miles in a day and a half.

Weber’s lengthy account covered his trek with several pals on his Harley-Davidson Road King Classic from his home in Purcellville to his old city of residence, Chicago (and a quick trip to Tribune Tower to see Grandinetti), before returning to Pennsylvania. Weber and his friends encountered several obstacles on the trip, including a wrong turn out of Indianapolis toward Effingham and not to Champaign, as well as road construction in each direction while in Pennsylvania.

Upon entering Pennsylvania on the final leg of his ride on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Weber wrote that “traffic was at a stop. We sat, our engines idling and body parts roasting like chestnuts on open exhaust pipes. Engines off, kickstands down, we dismounted and stretched.”

Ultimately, Weber made it back to Virginia and the coveted 1,500-mile mark with less than 15 minutes to spare.

“And we have the burned buns to prove it,” Weber wrote.

Weber had been a member of the Washington Automotive Press Association since the mid-1990s. Les Jackson, the group’s former president and current treasurer, recalled Weber’s involvement in the group, including taking part in new vehicle launches and lamenting the demises of venerable car brands like Oldsmobile, Plymouth, Pontiac, Mercury and Saturn.

“I and an associate were talking about the many times we met up with Bob and how we always seemed to just continue from where we left off,” Jackson said. “What’s terrific about car guys is that no matter who they are, they almost always get along. They may be completely different politically, they may be different in every possible respect, but car guys can just relax and talk to each other because of just the common interest.”

Robert Duffer, a former Tribune auto editor and writer, called Weber “the consummate professional” and “one of a kind.”

“He combined ASE-master mechanic knowledge with plainspoken journalistic delivery, as if he were explaining it in a shop,” Duffer said. “He was the mechanic everyone would recommend, and word would spread, ‘I got a guy.’ Bob ‘Motormouth’ Weber was the guy.”

Weber never retired.

Apart from his wife, there were no immediate survivors.

A celebration of life service is being planned.

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