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 Prime Day 2024 will run from July 16 through July 17. As usual, hundreds of thousands of products will be discounted, making it nearly impossible to shop reasonably. If you're looking for discounts on popular automotive products, you've come to the right place. We'll update this post throughout the sales event with the best deals we can find.

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.

Most of us don’t start out working on cars in a well-equipped garage. If you were lucky, maybe your parents or a friend had one of the best floor jacks, and you got to use it for your automotive work. But when most projects seem to require buying or borrowing a new specialty tool, a new, high-quality car jack can be low on the list. Impacts, air ratchets, it’s those tools that get the glamour and end up in your toolbox first. 

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, roughly 9000 sun glare-related accidents occur every year on U.S. roads. Common sense says that having a pair of sunglasses to hand could help mitigate some of the danger involved with driving into the sun.

Most of the time, it’s unnecessary to give your vehicle’s differential cover a second thought; the technology has been around for decades and works well. However, drivers of trucks and offroad vehicles have good reason to consider upgrading their differential covers. Those vehicles are often called upon to operate under arduous conditions that are harder on every component, including axles and differential assemblies.

SUVs and crossovers are the dominant body styles on the road today, and, public perception aside, they are, in essence, tall station wagons. As with the wagons of yore, there’s a large cargo area and seats that can be folded any which way to make efficient use of the space. This is great—until the bags of potting soil stowed back there burst or the family golden retriever has shed his bodyweight in fur all over your car’s cozy cabin.

Toy cars are one of life’s great joys. Some of our best memories are playing with Matchbox or Hot Wheels in the sandpit as kids, before we moved up to remote control buggies, slot-car races, and even building our own.

Not all hammers are created equal—at least according to Thor. Whether you’re a Norse God or a simple art lover hanging a picture over the fireplace, a quality hammer is essential—the best hammers offer power, precision, and ease of use.

No matter how carefully you drive and park, it’s almost impossible to avoid getting a scratch on your car or truck. But if it’s not through the clearcoat and into the paint, one of the best car scratch removers can save you a trip to the body shop. Most light scratches are only on the surface of your finish, and there are car scratch repair products that can make them disappear. 

Any number of people might require safety cones for work, play, or ensuring the public’s safety. Whether you’re marking off a gymkhana course, directing traffic, or need to indicate where the delivery van bearing the Royal Warrant is to park, there’s a safety cone perfect for the job.

Have you ever felt the frustration of your shopping bag or purse flying off the passenger seat and unloading its contents all over the floor? Everything that was safely stowed is all over the car; it’s frustrating, it’s a pain to clean up, and things invariable get lost in the melee. Consider too that having the contents of your bag disgorge themselves in the car could even create a dangerous distracted driving situation.

A quiet, comfortable ride free from dust, drafts, and wind noise is something drivers expect from their cars. Manufacturers spend big money to ensure acceptable levels of noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH); weatherstripping, door and window seals are a big part of that. Without them, your car is a whistling, freezing, scorching, misery machine. Yet who thinks about the molded rubber and metal components that contribute so much to riding refinement?

You may have an image of washing a car in a driveway with a hose and a bucket of suds, but the best foam cannons are a much easier way to do it. Not do they take less time and water, they also takes out some of the risk of rubbing grit into your finish. Even if you’re not that passionate about detailing or washing your car, owning a pressure washer and a foam cannon to use with makes the job a lot faster, easier, and can give you better results.

Every car owner should include one of the best tire pressure gauges in their toolkit. Keeping your tires properly inflated ensures they wear evenly, and that you’re getting the best possible gas mileage. It’s a small investment that will keep you from having to replace your expensive tires too soon, and save money on every fill up.

It’s one of the most basic driving lessons you first learn when you get behind the wheel: check your blind spot. Although your car is equipped with an assortment of mirrors, they’re not always adequate when it comes to covering your blind spots. If you’re tired of not being able to see what’s behind you, it might be time to invest in a new rearview mirror.

When you’re going camping, on vacation, or taking a road trip, expanded cargo capacity is almost a necessity. You don’t want to drive an oversized (and priced) vehicle all year for a few weekend trips! Plus, no matter how large your vehicle is, there’s a good chance you can’t fit everything you need when you’re traveling. That means you’re forced to pick and choose what gear you need to leave at home. The solution is a cargo carrier. A basket that mounts to your trailer hitch and lets you load even more gear that won’t fit inside your ride.

Steam cleaners clean differently from any other method you might use. Because of this, they are often the only tool to get rid of stains and dirt that nothing else will touch.

All new vehicles come equipped with pressure monitoring systems (TPMS), and many have run-flat tires, so you might not think having one of the best portable tire inflators is a necessity. But that’s not the case, because all tires lose air over time, even if you don’t have a puncture. And knowing a tire is low doesn’t mean you can ignore it. Owning your own tire inflator means you can conveniently and routinely check your tire pressure, making sure they’re in an optimal range, and easily refill them when the light gives you a warning. Underinflated or overinflated tires have many adverse effects on your driving experience, hurting your fuel economy, tire wear, and even safety. Purchasing a tire inflator is a small investment in helping make sure your tires last as long as possible, saving you money in the long run.

If you need more cargo carrying capacity for your car, there are a lot of practical options for you that can be installed right on your car’s roof. When looking for the best roof cargo carrier, you need to first figure out what kind of cargo you’re going to be carrying. Not all cargo carriers are the same and there are different products out there for different purposes: there are travel bags, roof baskets, and cargo boxes.

Getting the best ceramic coating on your car was once only a job for the very best specialty car detailing shops. They were only introduced in 2010, and for the first years weren’t really available for home users. Only professionals used the best ceramic coating for cars, and if you ever visited a shop for a quote, you might have left shocked with an estimate that can easily be over,$1,000 for a quality ceramic coat using products from a professional-only brand such as Ceramic Pro. Few normal people can spend that much money on ceramic coating, so thankfully, car detailing brands have formulated their own products at a much more affordable price.

If you tow with your vehicle, you will need a trailer ball mount, which is also known as a hitch ball mount, or simply a ball mount. But it’s not as simple as just picking one that looks nice – there are a lot of considerations to make when buying a ball mount for your towing vehicle. Ball mounts vary in terms of size, type, weight capacity, price, features, vehicle compatibility, and so much more.

Whether you’re striking out on a two-week camping trip or heading to the beach for a picnic, no outdoor adventure is complete without food and drink. That means you’ll need a cooler to keep your beverages chilled and food fresh. But even the best coolers can only keep things cold for so long. Eventually, your freezer packs will thaw out, and you’ll have to stock up on ice from the nearest gas station or convenience store.

If your car came from the factory with halogen or HID bulbs, you’re going to need to replace them or upgrade them down the line. Both of these bulb types lose light output over time; thus, even if they’re functional, they aren’t performing like new. When it comes time to replace them, why go with the same lighting solution when there are better options? The LED light technology that illuminates the newest models can work with your older car too.

If you’re going to be storing a car for a long time, going on a long holiday, or don’t drive your car in the winter (or summer), then using one of the best trickle chargers to maintain your battery is vital. Without a car battery charger, you’re likely to come back to a dead battery when it’s time to put your ride back on the road.

There’s a common misconception between tow straps and recovery straps, and often they are marketed as the same product. Although they look very similar, there are defining features to separate the two and their purposes. The largest difference between the two is that tow straps feature large metal hooks at each end, designed to hook onto towing points and shackles. Recovery straps meanwhile, do not have these hooks.

It’s an unfortunate part of owning a vehicle, but there’s always the possibility your bumper will get scratched or even hit. If you live in tight urban areas, like New York City, for example, you’ve likely seen bumper guards on vehicles. Designed to protect the bumper from substantial damage, a bumper guard may not be the best-looking part you can add to a car, but it looks a lot better than a bumper maimed by scratches and dents.

Some people are perfectly happy washing their car by hand with a bucket of mild soapy water and soft wash mitt; some only have the time to run it through a drive-thru wash after a fill-up, and others can’t be bothered to wash their car at all. However, regular exterior cleaning will keep your vehicle in better condition in the long run, both in areas that use salt over the winter months and in places where dust, sand, and urban pollution are present.

Whether you’re a kid at heart or shopping for a child, Hot Wheels track sets are the perfect way to have fun away from your actual car. Modern Hot Wheels track sets offer a ton of versatility, allowing you to put together the wildest creations and tracks of your dreams. Whether it’s to race head-to-head or side-by-side, or you just want to capture some spectacular crashes or gravity-defying stunts, Hot Wheels offers it all with a huge variety of track sets.

Car seat covers are a practical, stylish accessory; they can also add value by keeping your interior in top-notch shape. A removable car seat cover can have fancy patterns and colors that spice up your interior, but its main purpose is to keep your car’s seats clean. Whether you want to protect protecting against spills, dirt, mud, or sweat, car seat covers come in a variety of prices and materials, so they’re not as easy to shop for as you may initially think. If you have a truck or large SUV, we cover those in a separate article.

One of the best parts of owning an electric vehicle is never having to go to the gas station to refuel. Instead of finding a pump, you can charge at home every night. Not only is having an EV charger at home convenient because you can charge any time you want, but you’ll also never have to worry about waiting in line if all public chargers are occupied. Wake up every morning to a fresh and fully charged battery. You can even pre-condition without reducing your range.

Windshield wipers are an often overlooked maintenance item on your vehicle, but they’re one of the most important features when it comes to safety. Both for summer and winter driving (see our Winter Wiper blade picks). Poor wipers can affect visibility in bad weather and you don’t want to wait until you’re caught in a storm to realize your wipers are worn out and you can't see through the rain on your glass. Fortunately, now you don’t even have to navigate the confusing rack of indistinguishable versions at an auto parts store to buy the best windshield wipers for your vehicle.

If you really want to get the most out of your crossover, you’re going to want these ten must-have Toyota Highlander accessories.

If you’re hunting around for the very best Toyota Corolla accessories to improve your ownership experience, you’ve come to the right place.

There’s no denying that your Toyota Camry takes good care of you, but with the right Toyota Camry accessories, you can transform your vehicle into an even more practical, convenient, comfortable commuter car.

Most brand new cars leave now the factory with USB ports inside the cabin, allowing you and your passengers to charge your mobile devices. While USB ports come in handy for daily use, they don’t offer enough power to charge larger accessories, or sometimes even quick charge phones. The best power inverters give you household AC power ands plug to charge laptop or camera batteries, and even run small appliances like a coffee maker while you’re camping, or a TV for tailgating.

In a market awash in SUVs, the Toyota 4Runner still stands out, in that it’s one of the few SUVs that has kept its design focus on off-road capability. We’ve rounded up the best Toyota 4Runner accessories to help you tackle the roads less traveled.

Living in Vermont, I’ve gone through snow tires like some people eat mints. Even a decade ago, there were only a few snow tires that I’d have been willing to call “serious” winter tires—Bridgestone Blizzaks, Nokian Hakkapeliittas, Michelin X-Ice, a few others. And I stuck with them, buying them (usually Blizzak tires) generation after generation, and for every car.

Coilover suspensions are just about the only way to change your car or crossover’s ride height safely and easily. Traditionally, the name meant a shock running inside the hole in the spring, usually with an adjustment to let you alter the height of the spring. The point is to let you lower your vehicle, either for appearance or for better cornering performance. With the popularity of lowering modern cars, there are now dozens of companies selling coilover suspensions. Here’s your guide to some of the best in the business and some tips on what to avoid.

The Nissan Sentra has long served as one of the most popular and most affordable compact sedans sold in North America. That is great for drivers who want an inexpensive, roomy four-door to get their coworkers to the office or their kids to school. The downside to many lower priced compact sedans is that they also lack some conveniences features that are optional in pricier models. You can solve this dilemma by taking advantage of the best Nissan Sentra accessories the aftermarket has to offer..

Tire manufacturers have done an amazing job at using modern rubber compounds and computer tread designs that give studless winter tires more grip than the studded tires from just 30 years ago. While that’s made studded tires less popular than they were in the past, they haven’t gone away. Why? Because some parts of the country still see winters where the snow is measured in feet, not inches. Where there is more ice on the road than there is sun in the sky for half of the year.

If you’ve been searching the web for the best Honda CR-V accessories available to take your ride to the next level in terms of functionality and comfort, you’ve come to the right place.

If you’re a Toyota RAV4 owner, there are plenty of aftermarket Toyota RAV4 accessories you can add to really maximize the utility of your ride and transform it into exactly the sort of practical, all-purpose vehicle you’ve always wanted it to be.

What’s the point of an outdoor car cover if it can’t protect your vehicle from all of the elements? For much of the US, that means not just wind, rain, and snow, it means the likelihood of hail. Hail is the precipitation most likely to damage your vehicle, and it’s extremely difficult to repair that damage. You want to look at quality hail-proof car covers that can stop it.

Finding the right wheel for your muscle car is one of the biggest challenges to making your Challenger look just right. You can have every bit of chrome trim perfectly polished and aligned and the lumpiest cam in town, and if your wheels are wrong then your ride will never be right.