Aftermarket

There’s a lot of gross, nasty stuff on the road. We’re not just talking about poorly modified Jeeps and de-catted Mustangs here, either. The road is a dirty place, and that’s obviously why your car needs a wash every so often. Little bits of dirt, debris from trash, tarmac, and even organic um… “material” can stick to your paint and make your car dirty. Just like dry-shampooing every so often isn’t as good as a real shower, eventually your car will need more than just a wash.

The BFGoodrich HD-Terrain T/A KT tire is designed to be a durable tire for towing/hauling not just on the road but in off-road conditions as well. Dual purpose commercial type tires like these have been around for years from various companies, Toyo, Firestone and Bridgestone to name a few. To see how the BFGoodrich HD-Terrain T/A KT tires stack up, I was sent a set for a full, extensive evaluation.

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.

Going Skiing (or snowboarding, if that’s your jam) takes a lot more than just the gear you need on the mountain. With resort prices soaring lots of folks are resorting (get it?) to making their cars their primary base camp while on the mountain. That means you’ll want lots of the comforts of the lodge in your car, in addition to your gear. Today, we’ll take a look at all the skiing (or snowboarding) essentials you’ll need for your car this season.

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.

The brightness of your vehicle’s interior lights usually doesn’t cross your mind until something goes missing in the cabin’s depths or you need to buckle a squirming baby into her car seat at night. Most vehicles come with standard, inexpensive bulbs to light the passenger compartment; they do the job, but little more. Having experienced both of the aforementioned circumstances over the last few months, I decided to spend the time and money to upgrade my vehicle’s incandescent interior lights to LED bulbs.

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 KO2 s. 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 dilemma over whether your trusty truck needs a tonneau cover has plagued truck owners for years, sparking heated debates among the automotive aficionados and leaving many a pickup owner pondering the pros and cons. So, does your truck really need a tonneau cover, or is it just another overhyped and needless accessory in the world of vehicular extravagance? Let's delve into the reasons behind using them and not.

The Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) is a crucial safety feature in modern vehicles. It’s designed to alert drivers when the pressure in their vehicle’s tires falls below the recommended PSI. When the TPMS light comes on, it's essential to take quick action to ensure the safety of you, your passengers, and the other drivers on the road. Correct tire pressure also helps to maintain fuel efficiency and prolong tire life. Understanding the importance of the TPMS light and knowing how to respond when it illuminates is key to being a responsible and safe, responsible vehicle owner.

The nature of owning and/or operating a vehicle comes with the inherent likelihood that at some point the amount of air in one’s tires will need to be adjusted. This can be up or down; certain weather and climates or circumstances may dictate the need to remove or add air. Luckily, this is a relatively easy process done with simple, inexpensive tools.

You’re hurtling down your favorite highway, foot planted on the accelerator, engine playing its sweet song of mechanical harmony when an auto enthusiast’s most feared sights: Blue and red flashing lights. Speeding might be the means to an enjoyable end, or at least cutting down the time spent commuting, and avoiding traffic stops is a trick of the trade for knowledgeable drivers. Doing so can mean employing the tried-and-true tech known as a radar detector, which has been leaned on for decades to help prevent expensive tickets. Yet skeptics remain, questioning the efficacy and relevance of these electronic chaperones.

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.

Not all tire tests are equal.

It's 10 pm instead of 10 am thanks to flight delays, I'm headed two hours out and seven thousand feet up into the San Bernadino Mountains, and the temperature display on the dashboard of this Ford Bronco Raptor is quickly dropping toward the low 30s. My tires are a set of big and chunky Xtreme All-terrains from a brand I've never heard of. Hit it? Or is this going to be a very hairy drive?

Cold Air Intakes (CAIs) are among the most popular modifications enthusiasts make to their cars. Of course, like anything popular, there’s a fair bit of discourse surrounding them. Claims range from big horsepower gains on some cars to cool noises and improved aesthetics. So, do they really work?

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.

To a small group of people, the metal cylinder that interrupts the otherwise perfect circle of your exhaust pipe looks like a big ol’ bag of money. It’s the reason we’ve seen frequent coverage of catalytic converter theft over the last year.

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.

Keep Cool This Summer

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.

The Importance of Reliable Rubber, From Race to Road

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 Pirelli P Zero All Season Plus 3 UHP is the Italian tire company’s latest entrant in the Ultra High Performance all-season tire category.

The Toyota 4Runner is an iconic off-roader.

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.

One of the biggest battles in keeping vehicles clean has to do with their wheels.

One of the industry leaders in after-sales dash cams, Thinkware, has introduced the brand’s latest product, the U3000 dash cam.

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.

A Value Tire for the Budget Enthusiast

It’s that tine of year again, time for the Yokohama Tire spring seasonal annual rebate promotion. Staring on April 1 through April 30, consumers looking for a new set of tires can get up to $125 back from a Yokohama prepaid Mastercard when buying four or five select Yokohama tires.

If you’ve spent any serious amount of time as a shadetree mechanic, more than likely, you’ve watched as the number of diagnostic tools in your toolbox has grown steadily over the years. OBD-II scanners, borescopes, multimeters, circuit testers, oscilloscopes – you’ve likely shopped around for one or all of them at some time or another. But there’s one particularly versatile, yet often overlooked, piece of diagnostic equipment that’s been growing in popularity over the past few years, owing both to the breadth of applications in which it can be used, and to the steady growth in availability of the technology: the thermal imaging camera.

Car subscription services have really struggled to take off in the US.

The Toyo Celsius II all-season tire will supersede the Celsius and Celsius CUV tires. As you’d expect, the new tire is designed to provide good year-round service. It departs from the norm with a Three-Peak Mountain Snowflake (3PMSF) designation, which means it’s qualified for severe snow conditions. 

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.

With the introduction of affordable mass-market models like the Ford Mustang Mach-E, the Chevrolet Bolt EUV, and the Hyundai Ioniq EV, electric vehicles have officially broken into the mainstream.

In the world of portable power stations, the EcoFlow Delta Pro stands at the edge of where “portable” and “big” meet. It’s only portable because it comes with wheels and a telescoping handle like a piece of carry-on luggage, because even with two wrapped handles, you’re not slinging this nearly 100-pound box around casually. We have moved ours quite a bit, including bringing it to a Level 2 charger and literally out into a field, but unlike the smaller Jackery we recently reviewed (and EcoFlow’s own Delta 2, which we have in testing right now), tailgating isn’t what the Delta Pro is aimed at.

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.

Over the past few years, our northern editors have tested tires from all the major brands, but it’s been quite a while since we ran a set of Michelin X-Ice snow tires (“X-Ice Snow” is the tire name). Industry-wide shortages meant Michelin wasn’t able to get them into our hands until mid-November, which is later than we like to put them on; but because of  a very mild fall in the East we didn’t have any early winter weather to contend with.

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.

From bewildering new technology embraced by tech lovers and early adopters, electric vehicles are quickly entering the mainstream with nearly every auto manufacturer offering at least one – if not an entire range of EVs.  But the biggest limiting factor in EV acceptance is the lack of public charging infrastructure. Fortunately, unlike gas-propelled vehicle owners, EV folks have the ability to install their own home “refuelling” or charge stations. Though we refer to these devices as chargers, they’re more properly known as Electrical Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE), passing AC current to the vehicle where it’s then converted to DC by the onboard charger.

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’re not a car person, and you want gifts for car lovers, you might head over to Amazon’s “Most Wished For” automotive products and find what looks like a random mix of great and terrible gift ideas, without any way of telling which one is which. That’s one of the main reasons we’ve spent the last 12 months evaluating, purchasing, and testing automotive parts and accessories, sometimes for months, figuring out which one are worth your money ( and which ones aren’t).

Chemical Guys has substantial Cyber Monday discounts on a range of products—some are marked down by as much as 70%.

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.

Car enthusiasts want their automotive pride and joy to always look its best. 

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.

While we were working on our annual Black Friday deal guide, we started to run across a startlingly large number of a specific kind of Amazon scam. Rather than the phishing, credit card, or text scams that usually make the news, these come from fly-by-night sellers with amazing deals, popping up right now during the first rush of holiday shopping. They have listings for legitimate products, but their prices undercut all the real sellers. What’s worse, Amazon’s algorithms that recommend products and sellers sometimes bring these scams to the front, scooping up enough sales to make a profit and disappear before the retailer catches on and bans them. But by then, it’s too late: They’ve got the payments, and are busy coming up with their next grift.

With the first snow already falling, AutoGuide is bringing you the best 4 Wheel Parts winter deals we could find to get your truck, Jeep, or other SUV set up for the oncoming cold and mud. And this isn’t just random leftovers: We’ve worked together to find bargains on brands including WeatherTech, Rigid Industries, Smittybuilt, ARB, Mickey Thompson, and others that you know and trust.

Back in the day, vehicle customization was only possible through physically accessing and modifying the systems within your car. If you wanted, say, sequential turn signals, you had no option but to purchase specially manufactured lamps from an aftermarket manufacturer and install them. But as the auto industry has become ever more reliant on embedded computers, the door has been left open to software customization. Suddenly, kids with laptops and OBD dongles are concocting all sorts of clever ways of modifying their cars’ programming to unlock new features and implement custom routines, and as time goes on, the tools are only getting better.