If the garage floor coverings we profiled the other day are aspirational, then these in-house car lifts represent the culmination of most gearheads’ dreams. Whether you’re in the market for one of these things in order to increase the amount of storage in your garage or you’re actually going to use it for repair duties, a lift is the gold standard to which most… Read more

If you’re reading this and lucky enough to have an enclosed garage, we salute you. Owning a place in which to wrench on vehicles is an important life goal for a lot of gearheads; lying on one’s back and fixing transmissions in a mud puddle begins to lose its allure after about two hours. Once you have a garage, it’s not the worst of… Read more

Whether it’s a prized collector car or simply your daily beater, twisting the key (or pushing the button) only to come up with a fistful of no-go thanks to a dead battery is a deeply disappointing moment. Who left those devices plugged into the always-on 12V socket again? There is a case for not simply ditching the old battery for a brand new one;… Read more

Tacking a rooftop cargo box onto one’s vehicle is the equivalent of donning a backpack before heading out into the woods. The extra space either frees up other areas of the car for humans or permits the wanton purchase of every Elvis bust you find between here and Graceland. It’s worth keeping in mind that the soft-sided bags on this list are easily accessed… Read more

It’s a common carp that today’s cars cannot be fixed with a simple hammer and some common tools. The days of Dave Bowman and Sam Memmolo doing a shade-tree fix on their buddy’s ’83 Monte Carlo are long gone, though pleasant memories remain of watching that show on Saturday mornings. If diagnosing your vehicle’s problems ranks high on your Top 40 for weekend projects,… Read more

If you’re doing any sort of DIY work that requires the removal and installation of nuts and bolts, a torque wrench is a great tool to have on hand. This is doubly true if you have a propensity for swapping the wheels and tires of your vehicle. Properly torquing those lug nuts is critical to avoid a potentially calamitous situation. Torque wrenches, in case… Read more

If we’re all being honest with ourselves, gearheads generally like to keep a clean car. Sure, there are always a few that let their ride resemble a landfill but - for the most part - it’s a universal agreement that a car seems to run better when it’s clean. Plenty of wet/dry vacs are on the market, ready to whisk away all the detritus… Read more

Hey, you. Yeah, you with the frostbitten ears and far too many pairs of gloves in their hallway closet. A garage heater is definitely something that should be on your wish list. After all, if you have the opportunity to work on your rig out of the weather, it might as well be warm as well, right? We’ll take this opportunity to recommend approved… Read more

Most mechanics - shadetree and otherwise - will advise you that once a driver can actually see an air pressure deficiency in the tires on one’s car, the amount of atmosphere in those rubber hoops is far below recommended inflation. This is why most modern cars have some sort of tire pressure monitoring system, blaring a klaxon worthy of the Enterprise-D under Romulan attack.… Read more

Look, not everyone lives that decadent lifestyle and drives a week-old Benz. Why, your author is testing a press car this week that has over 6,000 miles on the odometer. The indignity. We’re joking, of course. The VerticalScope brain trust is just like you: putting their pants on one leg at a time and driving clapped out old beaters. Since it is the one… Read more

You’ve seen them online and, if you’re a Boomer, on the evening news: dash cam videos. What was once a tool for law enforcement and the super paranoid has now become commonplace. There are seemingly more dash cam offerings on Amazon than there were Sparkomatic radios in Canadian Tire catalogs when your author was a lad. Even OEMs are getting in on the deal.… Read more

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… Read more

Snicker if you must at this topic, but it's a tried-and-true fact that the vast majority of parents will spend heartily on safety equipment for their newborn child. Since we’re no longer allowed to let them roll around in the cargo area of a station wagon while taking a road trip, infants are strapped into rear facing car seats that essentially become part of… Read more

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. There is no shortage of companies trying to shill shoes targeted at the consumer looking to shave a few tenths off their best effort at… Read more

It’s January, meaning wide swaths of the country are enjoying apocalyptic quantities of ice and snow falling from the sky. This, of course, covers our vehicles with the same enthusiasm with which your author covers his french fries in gravy. This doesn’t apply to those of you who are in possession of a suburban attached garage or underground condo parking spot. Lucky sods. As… Read more