Roundups

Clean windows are an important part of having a safe driving experience. Reduced visibility from dirty windshields and windows can increase the risk of an accident, especially during nighttime situations. Although it’s likely you wash your windows and glass each time you wash your car, sometimes you need a quick touch-up in between washes. That’s where auto glass cleaners come in, which are also great to use after a wash.

For over 20 years, I've managed to wash and detail my own cars, whether for weekly maintenance or getting them ready for a show. In my early years, I bought any and all car care products I could afford from my local Pep Boys, which made me familiar with the different brands available on the market. This trend continued into my 20s and 30s, where I began to develop brand loyalty and learned what to look for when choosing a product. Initially, it was always exciting when something new hit the market, but over time, it became clear that many products were similar in performance and price.

When judging the quality of a product, most popular doesn’t always mean best. But there’s clearly a correlation between the value of an item and how many people vote for it with their wallets.wallets.

The phrase “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” has about 4 billion applications in the automotive world. One of them is driving during winter. While how you prepare your car for snowy (and salty) conditions is one thing, what you keep in it can be just as important. Here, we’ll go over all the supplies you might need in an emergency, plus some nice comfort items to make the season a little more bearable. Depending on your vehicle, we’d also recommend storing all these items inside a single “Oh S@#%” bag for easy access. If you’ve got a smaller car, distribute them throughout the interior, keeping essentials nearest to you.

Fantastic Hardware, Promising App

Officially, Black Friday isn’t happening until November 24, 2023, but that hasn’t stopped online retailers from releasing seasonal deals without warning, which began this year in early October. So if you’re in the market for saving money and avoiding the Black Friday rush, you can start taking advantage of some best Black Friday automotive deals from major retailers’ websites such as Amazon. We’re including some of the best automotive deals from them below. Automotive tools, parts, supplies, accessories, audio, fluids, equipment, and more are the same year-round, so we like to wait for sales like this to snap up the things we’ve had our eye on.

The usefulness and purpose for a dashboard camera extends well beyond catching quirky or interesting auto accidents on camera. Even a mediocre dashboard camera, or dash cam as they have come to be known, can help with defending oneself for insurance purposes or even in aiding the authorities when valuable footage is captured. But the world of wiring and installing technology into vehicles is a wild one; Is installing a dash cam difficult, or can an amateur do it?

Dash cams are nothing new, but they are growing in popularity. Whether it be over concerns of in-car assault, car theft, road rage, or car collisions, a lot of people want the added security of having any incident caught on camera.

There's a certain something about cooking over a campfire in the great outdoors. It's one of those experiences that is great in your mind but absolutely miserable in practice. A campfire for cooking is hard to control, dirty, dangerous, inconsistent, and inconvenient. That's why camping stoves were invented. Camping stoves use butane or propane in small canisters that make a perfect flame for cooking every single time. They're contained, they're wind-resistant, and they have a place to put a pot or pan. That's why a portable camping stove is essential for your next overland adventure. We've done the research to find the best portable camping stoves so you can get out there and get grilling faster.

Stop bouncing around or jumping up into that Jeep. Hold on with the grab handles you need.

Your battery is one of the most critical parts of your car. It keeps things moving and is often a deciding factor in your car’s overall health. It charges things inside the cabin, gets your car moving on a cold day, and more. With so much to do, car batteries can last anywhere from three to five years, perhaps more with proper care. That’s why we’re here. Like any other aspect of a car, batteries need to be used and cared for properly. These tips will help you keep your car’s battery in good health.

If you're planning on heading off-road, then it's time to upgrade the tires on your SUV or pickup.

Help is there when the worst happens off-road

Getting out of cell service is more than just a side effect of exploring the outdoors. Sometimes it's the point.

Going off the grid is great until you realize just how many modern conveniences you don't want to live without.

The best roof rails, cross bars, and roof racks should be high on the list for anyone looking to add storage capacity to their car, truck, or SUV. You can put any odd-shaped cargo that won’t fit inside—or that’s dirty and you don’t want inside—up and out of the way, and still have all your interior room. You can use roof racks and rails to attach a secure, weatherproof cargo carrier; use as a rooftop attachment for kayaks, surfboards, snowboards, skis, fishing rods, bicycles, or just about anything else you can think of.

One of the best parts of having a truck is just how versatile it can be. You can tow a camper behind it, put a tent on the roof or a rack, or you can even turn the entire truck bed into a tent.

Going doors-off is one of the best parts of driving a Jeep, but it can also be one of the more frustrating. Taking your doors off can make things more complicated when it comes to safety, convenience, and even the law. Fortunately, there are some great Jeep tube doors available that can solve all of those problems but still give you all of the benefits of no doors.

The fight for supremacy between the Jeep Wrangler and Ford Bronco could go on forever, but there’s one line where Ford is the clear winner. When you take the doors off of your Wrangler, the mirrors come with it. Ford’s Bronco lets you see behind you. But thanks to the aftermarket, you can even the score in a hurry. With Jeep Wrangler doors off mirrors that give you options to let you see traffic behind you when you’re feeling the breeze.

If you’re like us, you love camping. But you might not love sleeping on the ground. A tent is great to keep you out of the elements, but it is also, well, a bit of a pain. Finding the right site takes work, avoiding rocks, worrying about water pooling, and then there’s the setup itself. A rooftop tent takes all of that work out of the equation.

Want to join the growing ranks of overland campers? Here are 10 items you’re going to need from Autoguide.com.

Owning a pickup truck has plenty of benefits (like making you very popular with your friends when they’re moving), but everything you have sitting in your truck bed is exposed to the outside world. That means weather, thieves, and even just falling out in the wind on the highway. To protect your truck bed, you need a tonneau cover. A cover that sits over the bed, usually mounted to the sides of the bed, keeping everything out of the weather and out of sight.

What’s less than an inch in diameter and keeps your car’s wheels from flying off the axles? Lug nuts. Besides securing the wheels, a spiffy set can enhance your vehicle’s appearance.

Getting the best ice scraper and snow brush to clear off your windshield isn’t just convenient, it’s an important safety issue. If you live where it snows, you’ve seen someone either trying to see out of a partly cleared window, or driving around with a pile of snow on the roof. In many states, it’s illegal not to clear both your windshield and roof, but it causes multiple accidents every year. Clearing your car properly should be part of your planning for safe driving in the winter.

Over the past few years, we’ve tested every possible configuration of the best car phone mounts: CD slot (remember those?), cupholder, dash mount, windshield mount, and vent mount, with clamps, suction cups, magnets, and even elastic.

If you are the kind of driver who prefers to keep your vehicles for many years, you will know well that rust is one of the most significant obstacles to keeping your car or truck roadworthy. Rust is the result of a chemical reaction that occurs when untreated metal is exposed to water or moisture-laden air, conditions that frequently exist in many coastal locations. And if you live in a part of the country where snow and ice are a regular part of winter, you will have noticed that the salt used to treat slippery roadways accelerates the corrosion process.

We just didn’t understand the fuss about the best heated seat covers until we owned a car with heated seats. Since then, getting into a cold car with non-heated seats (or as we call them now, misery seats) has been an occasion for dread. Outside of some high-end models, they’re still not common standard equipment in most new cars, not that there are any new cars available now. You can upgrade your ride to get that warm behind, but there’s an easier and cheaper way. If you want warm seats, your best option is to upgrade to a new aftermarket heated cover and warm up the ride you already have.

Between the invention of the self starter and the end of the 20th Century, the best portable car jump starters weren’t something you carried with you. They were heavy lead-acid automotive batteries that only garages and tow truck drivers used. Everyone else carried (and still should) jumper cables, which require two cars and enough knowledge not to short them out. If you had a dead or weak battery and you were on your own, you had to get to a phone or flag down another motorist to have a chance of getting going again.

After a great floor jack and a tool chest, getting the best air compressor is probably next on any home mechanic’s wish list. Cordless tools are so good now that in some cases they’re even better than air tools, but we don’t know any electric tool that can sandblast, spray paint, inflate a truck tire in a few seconds, or blow off a work surface like an air compressor. Air tools are also less expensive than comparable cordless tools, and never run out of batteries. Once you have your compressor set up, you can turn it on in the morning, and it’s ready to go at a moment’s notice at for the rest of the day.

Who among us hasn’t wished for a second pair of helping hands when struggling with a project? A well-made bench vise is the next best thing to having extra hands; its metallic jaws hold tight to a workpiece allowing you to bend, saw, grind, shape, or weld it with ease. A bench vise is indispensable in most professional garages; they also make a valuable addition to the DIYer’s workbench.

If you’re one of the lucky few who haven’t had a flat tire yet, you may not think you need one of the best tire repair kits. But it can happen at any time, whether you’re going to the mall or travelling across the country: You drive over a nail or screw that has fallen into the road, and it becomes embedded in your vehicle’s tire and causes it to go flat. Obviously, that is the kind of scenario for which your vehicle was probably equipped with a spare tire. However, most modern vehicles come with compact donut spare tires that can only be driven for a short distance, and to a maximum speed of 50 MPH.

Car vacuums are often very affordable, they list cool features and have great reviews. Then they usually don’t work. The best car vacuum promises to make car cleaning easy: Just plug it into your 12V port or pick it up off the charger, and in just a few seconds you can clean up your seats, floor mats, cupholders, and console. Your actual experience is likely to be a lot more disappointing: When we started testing, we were surprised by just how bad they were. After testing, we didn’t find any 12V car vacuums we thought were worth your money. Struggling to remove dust, crumbs, and dirt, and absolutely failing against pet hair.

If you own a trailer, the first accessory you want to invest in is a quality trailer hitch lock. Unfortunately, trailers are often sought out by thieves since they’re relatively straightforward to steal and easy to sell once stolen. In addition, stolen trailers have a low rate of being recovered. Even if they are found, there’s a good chance all the stuff stored inside is gone. A trailer lock is a small investment that could potentially save you a lot of headaches and heartache down the road. After all, the money spent on a trailer lock will be less than the cost of replacing a whole trailer.

Road trips are a blast…for a while. Amping up your in-car entertainment options will help stave off the inevitable cries of “are we there yet,” and might preserve a shred of your sanity in the process. 

Everyone knows how imperative it is to service their vehicles to make sure they’re running smoothly and efficiently. But even if someone is following the manufacturer-suggested service intervals and keeping their car in good shape, the check engine light might show up and ruin the good feels that come with proper maintenance. But there’s no need to panic and take another costly trip to your mechanic. Running diagnostics on your own car is easy.

Gas and diesel engines still power most vehicles and look poised to be with us for some time to come, even if their dominance is waning. Any engine that develops its power from burning fuel depends on vast amounts of air for the combustion process and efficient operation.

We’ve been covering dash cams for several years, and we still find the market confusing. There are familiar name brands like Nextbase alongside fly-by-night companies that might disappear at any time; and nearly identical rebranded commodity products with just enough good reviews to make a brief appearance in searches. In fact, from updating our Buyer’s Guide for the last four years, we’d say that about 40% of the brands-you-never-heard-of last less than a year, which is not good news for anyone making a warranty claim or looking for customer service.

With more and more drivers choosing to buy SUVs and pickup trucks for family duty, trailers of all types are becoming a more common sight on our roads. Deploying this newfound hauling prowess is one thing—but deploying it safely? That’s quite another.

If you've been eyeballing those big tow numbers on modern pickups, there's something you should know: Most of them are not rated using a traditional under-bumper hitch. Instead, they're rated using a 5th-wheel hitch. The tractor-trailer style kingpin and horseshoe hitch head take weight from the trailer, and put it over the middle of your tow vehicle, right over the rear axle. This eliminates one of the major causes of trailer sway and jackknifing: Too much weight on a trailer hitch.

Routine washing of your car is great for keeping your paint looking shiny and new, but occasionally, you’ll want to put in some serious elbow grease to ensure your paint remains protected. You’ve likely heard of polishing and waxing your car to restore some of its lost shine, but to really keep your paint finish pristine, you’ll want to use a clay bar.

There’s a good chance you frequently give your car a nice wash. But how often are you devoting attention to your car’s interior? As you can imagine, the seats, floor mats, and carpet of your car experience plenty of daily abuse. From dust and dirt to mud and grime, thorough interior detailing can go a long way in preserving its resale value. If you often travel with children or pets, you’ll want a bottle of quality upholstery cleaner.

Here are the best car waxes you can buy that will give you great results and help protect your paint.

Not everyone has the time to wax their car regularly. Traditional paste wax can take over an hour to apply, with a thorough process of rubbing, buffing, and cleaning up afterward. If you’re looking for an easy and efficient way to give your car’s finish a layer of wax protection, consider spray waxes. While spray waxes don’t last as long as traditional paste wax, they can be applied in as little as 15 minutes, depending on the size of your car. Spray waxes are designed to offer a good level of protection with less effort; they work better if your car already has a layer of existing wax protection.

All passenger vehicles in North America have had polycarbonate plastic headlights for decades, and they all have one thing in common: They are constantly exposed to the elements and over time they turn dull, yellowed, or foggy. Not only does this look bad, but it can cut down the amount of light dramatically. Fortunately, headlight restoration kits can restore almost all old headlights, or at least bring make them bright enough to be safe again.

Unless you have some of those fancy and increasingly rare glass headlights, you will need a headlight restoration kit one day. As far as we know, 1997 was the last year any passenger vehicle in North America was sold with glass or sealed beam headlights, and plastic lenses have been mandated by both US and Canadian transportation agencies for decades. Plastic lenses have a lot of advantages besides the obvious one of not shattering on impact (or when a stone hits them): They let you replace ( or upgrade) just the bulb, and they’ve allowed designers to create complex shapes that not only look interesting (good or bad is in the eye of the beholder), but spread light better. And of course, they’re much lighter and less expensive, not that the cost savings gets reflected in an MSRP.

If you own a high-performance car or are performing upgrades to your vehicle, you may want to look at getting some ultra high performance tires.

Amazon is hosting Prime Big Deal Days October 10-11, so expect even more savings ahead of Black Friday this year. We'll be sure to follow up and update this post with the best automotive deals for Prime Day in October, so check back on October 10 and 11! For now, you can see some of the deals from earlier this year during Prime Day.

The carpet in your car has to endure a lot. It’s not just getting in and out, and everything you track in with you, but most of the wear and tear comes from shifting around as you drive. The abrasive grit in dust and dirt actually damages nylon fibers and makes it wear out faster, so installing a set of the best floor mats will also preserve the appearance and resale value of your car.

Trucks and SUVs are the largest they’ve ever been, growing almost 25% between 1989 and 2019. That makes it increasingly hard just to get in your door if your vehicle didn’t come from the factory with running boards. It’s particularly hard for smaller people, children, and older adults, so much so that according to the most recent data from NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), falling while entering or exiting a vehicle is the #1 cause of non-crash injuries. An estimated 146,000 people a year require a trip to the hospital or or a visit from an EMT for injuries caused by getting into and out of vehicles. That’s 400 people a day, every single day. Anything you can do to make that safer, especially installing side steps or running boards, won’t just make your life easier, it could save you a trip to the hospital.

We included this McCulloch steamer in our Best Steam Cleaners article based on over 11,000 positive reviews. As it’s the best selling canister steamer on Amazon (and probably the world), and tied for best-rated on our list at 84%, we bought one to find out not only if it’s as good fans of the model say, but how useful a steamer really is for both interior and exterior automotive cleaning.

You depend on your truck to start reliably every time, every day; but then comes a critical moment when you twist the key and your engine fails to come to life. Instead, an insipid clicking of the starter solenoid and dimming of the lights betray a dead battery. It could be snowing or raining, you could be late to work, and instead of getting on your way you’ve got to summon a tow truck to defibrillate your truck back to life.

The personal effects that travel in our cars with us can collect into distracting, unsightly mountains of clutter; it makes sense, then, to try to organize them. But there’s another side to controlling the mess—safety.

They’re everywhere today, but lithium-ion jump starters only first appeared in 2013. Now there are thousands of them (see our favorite portable jump starters), and what was once an expensive specialty product is affordable enough that most people should keep one in their car. They’re not only convenient, but safer than using jumper cables, as all the good ones detect reverse polarity. This prevents injuries from sparks and arcing; possible fires; and damage to a car’s battery and even electronics. In an emergency you don’t need another vehicle to get your car started, plus they almost all have flashlights and various USB ports to act as giant chargers and battery banks.

Installing one of the best bed liners helps your pickup truck last longer, protects your resale value, and can even enhance its appearance. A bed liner not only protects your truck’s bed from being damaged by whatever cargo you are hauling, they also help to protect the bed from rust.

All plastics eventually fade when exposed to the environment, but if your car’s trim is starting to look gray and sad, the best trim restorers can help to revive it. This weathering is a complicated process driven by UV light, and ultimately can’t be stopped, but you will be happy to hear that not all hope is lost, and you can actually bring some of that shine back to your plastic and trim pieces by using a high-quality plastic restorer. 

Nothing adds road presence like a set of high-quality side marker lights. Marker lights make it easier for other drivers to see your truck or trailer, which is particularly important if you have a larger vehicle than most on the road.

It’s hard to think of a more important automotive component than brakes. The ability to stop your car quickly, consistently, and repeatedly without losing control is crucial to keeping you and others safe out on the road. If your braking system isn’t well maintained, your chance of being involved in something “unfortunate” increases significantly.

If you have a heavy trailer to tow with your truck or SUV, you probably already have a Class III, IV or V receiver and hitch. But what you need to go with the receiver is a weight distribution hitch to level your rig and prevent sway.

After years of delay and hundreds of avoidable deaths, all cars sold from the 2018 model year onward in the US and Canada were required to have a backup camera (the EU is phasing them in during 2022, and the UK is discussing them). But while this important safety feature is now standard across the board, most cars on the roads today are not equipped with a reverse camera. That’s where an aftermarket backup camera comes in. We’ve combed through the top-rated models across styles and price points to bring you what we think are the best choices for different needs.