Product reviews

With winter starting in earnest around some pockets of the country and our nation’s best-seller list absolutely littered with trucks and SUVs, we felt it prescient to draw a line between these items and dispense a bit of timely advice. Sure, most of the B&B are well-versed in such matters but it doesn’t hurt to reinforce some of yer long-held beliefs – or start an argument in the comments.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

This instalment of Stuff We Use takes us back out into the garage again, cutting away rust and grinding down those welds which looks a heckuva lot better with the dark helmet in place.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Tucking into a DIY job out in the garage can be both a good and bad thing – it only takes one snapped bolt to turn a 30-minute job into a three-day ordeal.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Following a wrenching session with a new-to-us Hyundai Elantra for a budding driver in the household (yes, running and driving $800 cars still exist in this era), we decided to briefly revisit the concept of retractable extension cords for one’s workspace. You know we’re evangelists for a particular vehicle accessory when we expound on its virtues twice in a calendar year.

We know a solid percentage of the B&B reside in an area devoid of snow and ice, a realization which reliably causes this author to search for real estate in the American southwest or at least in the good parts of Texas. You lot can either click away to another news item or stick around and learn something. Everyone else should continue reading to ensure they’re choosing the correct time to toss some winter rubber underneath their rides when Old Man Winter comes knocking in the snow belt.

Hey hey! It's TTAC podcast time!

Hey all, it's the end of the week, and you know what that means. It's podcast time!

We don't just review cars around here. Sometimes, we review dash cams.

Which is why I found myself driving around with a NextBase iQ on the dash of a rental car quite a while back. And more recently, thanks to an update.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Anyone fortunate enough to have an enclosed space in which to wrench on their ride probably has an overhead garage door, especially if yer out in the ‘burbs with a single-family home. Automatic garage door openers are ubiquitous in those environments – but there are a few accessories one can add to improve convenience and make life a little bit easier.

We know a solid percentage of the B&B reside in an area devoid of snow, ice, and all the related frozen misery which can fall from the sky. You lot can either click away to another news item or stick around and learn a thing or two. The remaining readers should continue reading to ensure they’ve got the correct rubber underneath their rides when Old Man Winter comes knocking in the snow belt.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Pairing well with last week’s missives in Stuff We Use, in which we talked about impact wrenches, are air compressors. While we know this type of item isn’t likely to be the very first thing gearheads add to their arsenal of tools, it is often on the list as a planned purchase at some point down the road.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

There are a number of names for this tool depending on to whom one speaks – impact wrench, torque gun, faster blaster – but despite that, there is one title on which just about everyone will agree: incredibly useful.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Most of our readers spend untold hours fixing a hooptie, helping a friend with basic car maintenance, or just generally spiffing up their ride. It’s why you’re here – and we’re thankful for it. Here’s our take on a tool we find to be of particular use, especially as most of the TTAC staff begins to age into their fourth decade on this earth.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

On this instalment of Stuff We Use, you’re going to get a lesson in etymology on top of some tool recommendations for your garage stash.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Now, before you accuse us of getting soft and going Hollywood, know that this post isn’t going to reference the types of garagemahals generally associated with having a 90-inch flatscreen broadcasting F1 races and Barrett-Jackson coverage 24/7 whilst the moneyed one-percent mill about their gazillion-dollar collector cars.

It’s possible to imagine there are very few people on this planet who enjoy wasting money for no good reason. Even the artists who throw hundred-dollar bills at cameras in their music videos generally stop to pick the stuff up after the director yells ‘cut’.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Making sure to properly tighten various and sundry bolts on one’s vehicle is a blindingly critical part of DIY, helping prevent the hilarity of wheels suddenly leaving the chat or a valve cover failing to do its job properly.

On our podcast last week, Matthew Guy and I discussed OBD readers. Guy also wrote about them this morning. I started wondering how many of y'all use them when working on your own cars?

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Just about everyone who toils at this publication have worked on a vehicle equipped with the so-called OBD-II diagnostic system. Given the tendencies of our readership, it is a reasonable to imagine many of our readers have done this as well. Having a handheld OBD-II code reader in yer box of tools can be a lifesaver – or at least douse that infernal check engine light.

This week on the TTAC podcast we talk with Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at Edmunds.com, about why Teslas are being traded in for gas cars -- and hybrids.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

There is an unspoken rule to which just about every gearhead falls victim: no matter how big yer garage or shed, you’ll fill it up with stuff. We wager most members of the B&B can attest to this fact. 

Any gearhead with dirt under their fingernails has seen slow-mo footage of an off-road beast slowly clambering up and over some difficult obstacle, suspension flexing and tires working hard to earn their keep. The more astute videographers might include a close-up of those same tires deforming slightly as they traverse the terrain.

In our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories and tools.

This instalment of Stuff We Use tackles a product which is a mite more expensive than the shop rags and ratchet sets we’ve covered in the past. While a gasoline-powered generator is definitely an investment, there have been more than a few times in which it has made the lives of gearheads infinitely easier – and saved their bacon.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Wrenching on one’s own car is a delight to some, a necessary evil to others. Most gearheads fall into the former category – except for that time a snapped bolt turned an hour’s job into a three-day ordeal – meaning the majority of eyeballs on this website could stand to increase the amount of illumination in their workspace.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meager income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Anyone who has the space to work on their own rig knows that, at some point or another in the maintenance of a car (which, in our case, are generally terrible but tremendous hoopties), electricity will be required for something. Whether that’s to illuminate a corded worklight, a power tool which doesn’t have a battery, or another item entirely, the presence of a household electrical outlet will eventually be extremely handy.

Except, of course, it’s waaayyy over there. And the last extension cord you had got mangled by the whipper snipper and was overloaded anyway. What to do?

Most gearheads who know a thing or two about the rigs to which they hold the keys will tell you that tire selection is a critical puzzle piece to a successful day on the track or trail. Whether one is trying to break lap records or summit new heights, the proper rubber can make or break the effort.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Despite all the boomer bleatings that everyone needs to unplug and pretend they’re in the Stone Age during road trips or camping journeys, there remains a real need to stay connected and use a few electronic devices during such adventures. Addressing electricity requirements can be tricky, which is why power inverters exist.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Like the last installment in this series, the following post is a tad different than most of the other Stuff We Use missives. Instead of a universal product like battery boosters or jack stands, we would like to walk readers through the installation of a replacement part on one of our cars just the other week.

Before straying too far into the weeds of this topic, we need to recognize there are wide swaths of this country – primarily in the snow belt – where drivers can greatly benefit from having a dedicated set of winter tires. In those climes, a single set of year-round rubber isn’t always the best of ideas, especially since what falls from the sky in places like Montana and Michigan is simply not to be believed. If you live in one of these spots, just yer good judgement.

Welcome back. This week we have another episode of the TTAC podcast!

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we use and have purchased with our own meager income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

This one’s a little bit different than some of the other Stuff We Use missives which pass through our domain name twice a month. Instead of a universal product like battery boosters or jack stands, we’ll walk ya through the installation of an accessory placed on one of our cars just the other week.

Any off-road gearhead with a bit of dirt under their fingernails is sure to know that traction is a huge part of a great day on the trail. All the locking differentials and beadlock wheels in the world – or horsepower and torque, for that matter – won’t stand a chance in the tough stuff if the tires on yer rig are bald as Homer Simpson. This is why some drivers end up enduring YouTube infamy thanks to viral videos caught at the most inopportune moments.

This week we sit down with John Vincent, senior editor of vehicle testing at U.S. News & World Report, to discuss their best cars for families for 2024.

Advances in the field of tire and rubber technology (yes, that’s a thing; we promise) have permitted manufacturers to make huge strides in the ability of these things to grip surfaces of all types. In the past, there was a push to sell all-season tires which performed at kinda-sorta acceptable levels in a variety of conditions but didn’t truly excel in any particular environment.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we use and have deployed in our travels. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Looking critically at that headline, it’s probably the most hyphenated string of words used to date in this series. But there’s a good reason for it. Many of our readers, and most of the staff around here, have numerous old-school hoopties in their fleet – hoopties which can benefit from an injection of modern communication technology.

Installing the right set of tires on yer car is just as – if not more – important than getting the right pair of shoes on your feet. Shoving on a set of dime store flip-flops in the wintertime all but guarantees a trip to the hospital after one falls face over apex upon encountering the year’s first icy patch. This is Exhibit A of why most drivers in the Snow Belt elect to mount winter rubber when the weather turns foul.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we use and have deployed in our travels. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

We’ll cop that the topic of the one is arguably more car adjacent than some of the other products we’ve featured in this series – but there’s no denying that gearheads generally like their tunes.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we use and have deployed in our travels. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Just about everyone reading this missive has some form of communication in their pocket – whether that’s a smartphone, flip phone, or can-and-string is largely a matter of preference and comfort with technology. That being said, there is still room for two-way radio sets in this modern era.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we use and have purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Following up our posts about the likes of floor jacks and battery booster packs, we thought it a decent idea to profile socket sets which have passed through our hands – mitts which get increasingly calloused with every terrible hooptie pushed / pulled / dragged home from the depths of a forgotten barn of junkyard.

Dash cams give you the chance to to protect yourself, in a liability sense, after a collision. They also give you the chance to review your driving should you do some spirited back-road running on a weekend.

To that end, earlier this year I tested the ThinkWare F200 Pro.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we use and have purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

We recognize there’s no shortage of items we’d like to improve around this place to make it a better experience for our B&B, not the least of which is implementing an ability to deign every single one of you with a vehicle from the Panther platform.

But until the pencil-necked VerticalScope accountants permit that largesse, we’ll have to be content with the fact we’ve come to learn you lot pretty well over the years – and, as such, we know you’re all bringing home hopeless hoopties which will eventually require the services of a hydraulic floor jack.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we use and have purchased with our own meager income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

We’ve been publishing these Stuff We Use installments for a spell now, trying to make sure items covered are generally found in a gearhead’s garage. But it’s unhelpful to have a raft of tools without anywhere to store them – which is why this post will talk about the types of toolboxes and worktables we find helpful.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we use and have purchased with our own meager income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

We’ve mused before on these digital pages that a clean car seems to run better – a missive that apparently holds true for sports cars and hot hatchbacks, though burly off-road pickup trucks and SUVs may take umbrage with that assessment. Nevertheless, most gearheads tend to like keeping their ride relatively clean, explaining the sheer number (and type) of pressure washers marketed toward consumers.

Amazon’s highly-anticipated annual shopping event, Amazon Prime Day, is back for the fall. Amazon Prime Day starts today, October 10th, and runs through tomorrow, October 11th. Consider it an early version of Black Friday or Cyber Monday, or just a way to score a really good deal.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we use and have purchased with our own meager income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

One of the great common threads that helps hold this place together is the fact that both our writers and readers tend to work on their own cars. Even if a few don’t currently live in a spot that provides a spot in which to wrench, the desire exists, and just about all hands have spun sockets in the past.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we use and have purchased with our own meager income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

One of the reasons this site works well is thanks to the marked similarities of, erm, quirks our writers have in common with readers. Like so many of you, most of our properties house at least one vehicle which won’t start on the first try, to say nothing of the random boxes of junkyard detritus accumulated through years of vehicular mayhem. 

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we use and have purchased with our own meager income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

If you count yourself amongst the few with a covered garage in which to wrench on yer hooptie, this post will – as the kids say – be relevant to your interests. If not, read on anyways because just about every nook and cranny of one’s home could stand to receive a dash of extra illumination. 

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we use and may have purchased with our own meager income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

There are many good reasons to stick a dash cam in yer car – not the least of which is the potential for capturing the bonkers behavior of other drivers and then posting it to YouTube for all eternity. Practical reasons such as being able to prove you weren’t the one who ran that red light are also top-of-mind, naturally.

In which camp does your author reside? As it turns out: both. 

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we use and have purchased with our own meager income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

For those of you fortunate enough to have a covered area in which to work on yer prized classic cars total hoopties, it makes a lot of sense to apply a dash of protectant to the floor of that space – especially if it is hewn from concrete. Here’s our pick in the world of garage floor epoxy.

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we use and have purchased with our own meager income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Following up on the recent Stuff We Use which highlighted the brands of foam cannons we deploy on our own vehicles, it seemed appropriate to showcase the soap chosen to use in those things. Of course, good car suds doesn’t care if you mix it up in a cannon or a bucket – just be sure to avoid scratching the paint, ok?

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we use and have purchased with our own meager income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, most gearheads can be convinced that a clean car runs better. Logically, we know it does not – but since when did logic ever figure into automotive decisions?

Yes, yes – we’ve talked about this subject and the related topic of ceramic coatings in the past. We promise we’re not repeating ourselves, at least not until we’re safely ensconced in the Old Age Home for Recovering Gearheads. We’ll be in the wing where they keep folks who had an odd affinity for terrible ’90s GM cars, like the Oldsmobile Toronado Troféo.

Wiper blades are the Rodney Dangerfield of automotive parts. Generally ignored and routinely forgotten, they’re a rarely thought of component … until they wear out or fall apart. Then they’re the subject of foul language and rude epithets as they give up the ghost, reduced to tattered strips of rubber serving only to smear bugs across the windshield.

There’s a marked difference between having to wash a car and wanting to wash a car. The former is a chore that is assigned to sullen teens in the wash bays of countless car dealers across the nation. The latter is a task enjoyed by gearheads on a Sunday afternoon.

Every single gearhead reading this enjoys a clean car. Whether we take the time to actually remove life’s various and sundry detritus, well, that’s a different story. We all know people whose engine compartments are tidier than their passenger compartments.

It’s a safe bet that most DIYers are grateful to the wrenching deities for the democratization of LED illumination – especially when talking about work lights. Your author used to toil under cars and in tight spaces with incandescent work lights that heated themselves to approximately the surface of the sun, as I’m sure you all did as well.

Far beyond the reaches of old-school car bras and hood protectors are these clear paint protection films. Targeted at drivers who give a damn about their car’s paintwork, these options are dandy ways to keep a vehicle’s finish in good shape while not hiding anything under a leather protector.

We’ve covered mechanic’s sets in the past but, in this updated post, we are going to focus on dedicated socket sets. That means no sets with piece-count padders like Allen keys in an obscure size or that one tool that only serves to remove the Färhfvingenator on your clapped-out Volkswagen.

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.