Roundups

Early this past summer, I noticed the stock tires on my 2018 Hyundai Tucson were just about on their last legs. Looking for a new set of shoes, I ended up installing the Uniroyal Tiger Paw Touring All-Season tires. About 3,500 miles later, here is my review.

After picking up my Hyundai Ioniq 5 N in June, I reached out to the pros at Meguiar's to get some tips on how to care for matte paint. The team provided me with their product recommendations and a wealth of knowledge on how to keep my matte paint in pristine condition. Over the past couple of months, I've been testing numerous products and decided to compile a collection of my recommended products for matte paint care.

One of the best ways to do this is to create your own crash structure for your dog. After all, your car provides the same to you. Arguably the best way to tackle this is with a crash-tested dog crate. The Center for Pet Safety is a nonprofit that tests dog-friendly restraints, crates, and other travel accessories to keep your dog safe in the car. They recommend a number of crate options for various sizes of dogs.

The recent rise in popularity of car cleaning gel has been interesting to follow. As someone who has spent nearly a decade following the best sellers list in the automotive category on a giant e-commerce website, it's been entertaining to watch this random little product constantly hover at the top of the list. Is it because it's cheap? Are people actually finding car cleaning gel helpful? Is it because everyone on social media nowadays is an aspiring car detailer?

It’s a digital world full of video and almost everyone wants to capture it in crystal clarity. Although that’s a bit of an overreaching statement, thanks to YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and more, recording high quality video and getting it online easily has become quite the industry.

For our younger readers, there was a time when the most convenient way to put air into your tires was by visiting a local gas station and paying $0.25 to use their air compressor. That started giving way in the late 1990s and early 2000s when some companies offered portable tire inflators, but they were typically purchased from your local auto parts store. Even then, they were sold at a bit of a premium, and the average car owner didn't understand the importance of having one. As tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) became more ubiquitous, those same average car owners became more aware of their tire pressure.

Going back to my youth growing up on a farm, my grandfather would always say that having the right tools was very important, and having those tools be good quality was a vital part of being successful. He never saw the value in having a tool that wouldn’t last and/or could get the job done. One thing he always had handy was a good, high-quality battery charger. As an adult with a small hobby farm of my own, and a lot of stuff like ATVs, boats, vehicles, and yes, even tractors around my place, I can attest that having a quality battery charger is a must. When I decided to test out the TOPDON TB6000 Pro, I thought, why rush it. Let’s see if it can handle some serious usage. What I found surprised me.

For years now, I've been mainly using a pressure washer to take care of my cars. Oftentimes, when friends or family ask me how to best take care of their brand new car, the first thing I always recommend is getting a pressure washer and a foam cannon. Not only does it make washing your car much easier, but it also provides a better and safer wash. Up until now, though, I've always just used the wand and pressure gun that came with my pressure washer—including the recent Chemical Guys ProFlow PM2000 I recently tested.

Being a car enthusiast on a budget can be tough. I know as I’ve firmly been a member of the limited funds for automotive fun camp since I got my license. But not having endless cash to throw at a weekend toy doesn’t mean it’s impossible to have fun.

Recently, I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N. While I had an internal debate on which paint color to get, I ultimately decided on Performance Blue Matte. I was hesitant at first because owning and caring for matte paint seemed a bit daunting to me. But as a friend said, choosing another color for the Ioniq 5 N is like buying a Type R and not getting Championship White. Yeah, Phoenix Yellow is cool and all, but we all know Championship White is where it's at.

When it comes to car cleaning and detailing, the drying towel might be the most underappreciated and overlooked tool by the average car owner. After all, you're just absorbing leftover water on the surface of your car. How fancy does the towel need to be? It turns out, not only is there a good variety of drying towels available, but some also perform noticeably better than others. Over my 20-plus years of caring for my own cars, I feel like I have tried every popular drying towel under the sun, from the Absorber to various shammy towels to all sorts of cheap options on Amazon. So, when Chemical Guys reached out to me asking if I would be interested in testing its new The Thirst Trap towel, I didn't hesitate to say yes.

Performance tires are engineered for speed; prioritizing grip and driving dynamics over year-round functionality and durability.

If your car experiences poor fuel economy, lacks power, feels sluggish, idles rough, or has an illuminated check engine light, your O2 sensor might be to blame.

A torque wrench is a valuable tool for anyone serious about their mechanical work. Professional mechanics understand the importance of properly torqued fasteners, which is why they keep a selection of ¼”, ⅜”, and ½” drive torque wrenches in their toolboxes.

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

When it comes to washing my car, I prefer using a pressure washer, but I'm well aware that isn't feasible for everybody. One of the main reasons why I enjoy using a pressure washer is because of the foam cannon, which blankets my car with a nice layer of soapy car wash. But if you aren't able to use a pressure washer with a foam cannon, the Foam Blaster 6 from Chemical Guys is a great alternative.

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.

When it was time to replace the budget off-brand all-terrain tires on my 2008 Ford F-150, I decided to go with a set of BFGoodrich T/A KO2s. It’s a decision I should have made years ago, but I found a deal on a set of budget tires and regretted it as soon as I pulled out of the shop. They were squishy, loud and the shop had challenges balancing them.

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.

As the garage door rises from the floor revealing just how much snow has fallen overnight my first thought is how bad my back is going to feel after I finish shoveling. My second thought is if I’m about to regret my all-weather tires.

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.

The latest entry in Pirelli’s Scorpion line of crossover and SUV tires is the Pirelli Scorpion All Season Plus 3.

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.

Earlier this year Sailun launched the latest evolution of the brand’s Ice Blazer line of tires. As it’s the first new winter tire from the manufacturer in quite some time, the new Sailun Ice Blazer WSTX is a big deal. It’s also the perfect opportunity for us at AutoGuide to perform another in-depth, winter-long tire test.

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.