Products

Most of us reading (and writing for) this website either own or have had several terrible hoopties in their fleet at one point or another. In what seems like another lifetime on this site, Jack Baruth once opined that you gotta be rich to own a cheap car and, like it or not, the man had a point. Owning a beater or project car is usually – nay, always – an exercise in spending sums of cash far beyond the original purchase price.

If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: check yer bind spot! More than a few collisions (notice we didn’t call them “accidents”) occur because drivers heedlessly heave their car into an adjacent lane only to find themselves occupying the same time and space as another vehicle. This leads to Expensive Noises.

We’ll preface this post with the admonition that, unless you’re reasonably familiar with the environs of an engine bay, you should keep your paws off stuff like this. However, a case can be made that anyone who’s fleet is comprised of machines that actually need these products is probably intimately familiar with the contents of a rusty toolbox.

Sure, the last time you wore a pair of racing shoes to a party you were endlessly made fun of by your gearhead buddies. Hey, man, what can we say? They’re just jealous of your lap times, that’s all.

Your car’s lug nuts are a lot like your car’s insurance policy – doing its job in silence, not thought of until needed, and cursed upon failure. They are also, like your author, routinely ignored. There is a buying demographic for aftermarket lug nuts, however, a group that mostly includes people trying to spruce up a used car or hapless DIYers who stepped on the hubcap during a tire change and sent the OEM lugs flying into oblivion.

There are occasions when a sturdy canvas or cloth tool bag is handier than a cumbersome metal toolbox. Hitting a bump with the latter in your trunk or truck box results in a crashing sound not heard since the implosion of The Sands nearly 25 years ago.

If you tend to skip over our DIY post weeks, perhaps this one will be more to your liking. While not everyone wants or has the space to wrench on their own ride, there’s a solid chance that most gearheads like to have a few cleaning tools on hand.

It’s a fantasy harbored by every single gearhead on the planet: the ability to jump aboard any supercar or race machine in the world and rip off a lap of their favorite racetrack. The likes of Forza, Gran Turismo, and iRacing now affords us that opportunity, albeit digitally. Still, you’re left with steering your way around Eau Rouge with a joystick or d-pad and mashing the throttle of a McLaren Senna with your right index finger.

Maintaining your out-of-warranty ride often forces us to learn the different systems in our vehicles. After wrenching on them for interminable amounts of time, knowing the ins and outs of the braking system or suspension bits is kind of inevitable.

Quick – what’s the first thing you reach for when starting any DIY project? No, it isn’t the perpetually absent 10mm socket, nor is it a quarter for the swear jar. It is, most likely a good pair of gloves.

What did the bartender say to the set of jumper cables that walked into the bar? Why, he said “You’d better not start anything in here tonight,” of course!

We get it. Not everyone lives a decadent lifestyle in which they are afforded the opportunity to drive week-old Mercs and Audis. Why, just last month your author tested a press car with over 5,000 miles on the odometer. The indignity.

Sauntering out to one’s vehicle and twisting the key (or jabbing the start button) only to come up with a whole handful of nothing is one of the automotive world’s most frustrating experiences. Dead batteries are the bane of a gearhead’s existence. Thankfully, most cars turn off their headlights or dome lights automatically these days. They emphatically did not when your author was a kid.

Let’s get something clear right from the start: these locks are best thought of as a deterrent to the scourge that is vehicle theft and not an outright prevention tool. If two identical cars are parked side by each, one with a steering wheel lock and one without, there’s a good chance the robber is going to target the one sans lock.

It’s a scenario no one wants to think about: being trapped in a car for some unspeakable reason. Fire is, was, and always has been my biggest fear. I can’t imagine what it would be like for someone who’s claustrophobic.