Top 10 Tools You Should Have for Car Repair

Keep them close!

Possible accidents on the road can be a real bummer. Usually calling a tow truck, mechanic, or roadside assistance can fix the serious damages, but for minor issues, you can rely on yourself. Having a flat tire or a little break down in the motor can easily be determined and get fixed. If you have the right tools in the trunk you could prevent extra charges and avoid long waiting times and get to your destination on time. In the following text, we are going to introduce the top 5 tools you should have for sudden car repairs. You may know these tools already but they can have other uses and can help you in different situations. For this reason, it is worth to know all about them and get a pair of each and put them in your family garage and your trunk.

1.Jumper Cables

Confronting a non-starting car can be caused by one of the most common cases: a dead battery. You might have parked somewhere for only a few minutes and then witness that your vehicle doesn’t start. Since the odds against dead battery is pretty high in these situations, having a pair of Jumper Cables in the trunk is helpful. However, choosing the right jumper cables can cause a huge difference in durability and lifetime. Therefore, we are going to mention 3 main factors to consider before you buy your jumper cables.

Metal composition

First, make sure you buy the one with thick cable and made out of copper, rather than aluminum. The ones made of aluminum may melt when you jump a dead battery with it for larger vehicles.

Gauge

When it comes to jumper cables, gauge means the thickness of the cables. This unit works vice versa: the lower the gauge, the thicker your cable gets. For large vehicles such as trucks, it starts from 1 to 2 gauge. If you own a normal passenger vehicle, a 4- or 6-gauge cable could do the work. However, keep that in mind that as the gauge goes higher, the quality fell. For this reason, a 10-gauge cable is too thin to handle the juice of a battery and will melt as soon as you connect the clamps.

Length

In case you can park your car and the second vehicle front to front, a 6-meter-long jumper cable could do the work. But in case of emergency, a longer cable is a better choice, although the price could get higher.

2.Car Jack

Jacks play a huge role when it comes to car repair, jack more than a ton up in the air in a short period of time. Your ideal jack should hold up the car long enough so you can do the process without any harm. The willing task can be a change of flat tire, fix brakes, etc. For all the previously mentioned tasks, a solid metal four-wheel jack is the type that you can better rely on.

3.Duct Tape

Have you ever fixed a flat bike tire? You cover the leak using a patch in case it is a small puncture. The same thing can happen when you are driving and see that the radiator is leaking through a hole. At this time the coolant warning light goes on and if you keep driving, your coolant system will be lost and the motor may experience overheating. Because of that, to be able to get to your destination you can use duct tape. Just simply wrap it around the desired section for a few times and you are good to go!

Having a duct tape also comes handy when you have a loose part of a vehicle and you cannot drive away without it: a broken bumper or the window that the broken pumps can’t hold anymore and it fell down in a rainy day!

4.Ratchet and Socket Set + Lug Wrench

Since you can find bolts and nuts all over any car, then having a proper handy tool to loosen or tighten them is a must! A tire replacement is maybe the most common application to get involved with bolts and nuts (lug bolts and lug nuts actually). Although a ratchet is not a good choice for tire replacement, it could be really useful for engine and suspension system repair.

For example, for spark plug replacement you will need a ratchet, an extension bar, and a universal joint bar that enables you to work in the desired angle. If you are fully familiar with engine repair, I suggest you buy a good ratchet with a set of sockets like the Ronix RH-2644 that I own right now.

Mentioning a lug wrench before, as you may have seen one during a tire replacing process, this hand tool is a must. They are simply used to loosen lug nuts on tires and can hold high weight for when the nut is too tight and you go stand on the wrench for more pressure! However, it’s important to know when to use this wrench, before jacking up the vehicle or after?

For knowing more about how to change a flat tire make sure you check out my article How to Change Tire Alone – Full Tutorial.Also, if you fancy a full-equipped garage to fix and repair things immediately and completely, you can buy a pneumatic impact wrench to have another hand by loosening and tightening nuts. Why another hand? With its impact force when it comes to a real tight nut, you can loosen them easier with no worry.

5.Brake Fluid

Brake fluids are one of the reasons you get to your destination in one piece! As a result, you should pay attention to either your ABS light or if you experience any problems by pushing the brake pedal. But “Is it ok to add brake fluid to your car all by yourself?”.

It is a good rule of thumb to service your brake system if the problem seems serious, but you can add brake fluid when the level is simply low. If the brake fluid level is between min and max, it’s fine. But fluid line below the min requires adding till the line sits near the max line. However, keep that in mind, overfilling the brake fluid can cause problems since the fluid may expand when it gets warm.

6.Antifreeze

Antifreeze prevents the water in the engine from freezing – as you can tell from its name – by bringing the freezing point lower than usual. On the other hand, a mixture of antifreeze with water, known as coolant, can keep the car radiator from overheating and boiling. This item will raise the boiling point of from over 100-degrees C.

7.Common Hand Tools

Different Pliers and wrenches can come handy in every little part of the motor and other active engines in the car. Therefore, a set of different and compact hand tools can become helpful in any kind of situation. To open up about the issues that can get fixed with a typical hand tool is an article for itself. As a result, we are going to mention one of the common cases as an example that can cause a useless battery and therefore, a none-starting vehicle: Loose battery terminal. Depending on the form of the bolts, you can tighten it with either an open-end wrench or a locking plier or even a combination plier.

8.Air Pump

Air pumps can be a better choice than air compressors for keeping it in the trunk. You can easily plug them into the cigarette lighter and they mostly have a long cord, long enough to reach any of your tires. With a compact little air pump, you can fill an empty tire up in all about 4 to 5 minutes!

9.Flashlight

Imagine you are driving in the middle of the night and something goes wrong inside the engine. A light supply is needed if you want to take a look inside the motor and check if everything is ok. But this is something that most people forget about and when it comes to trouble, they do not have any. “Why not using the mobile phone’s flashlight?” you might ask.

As an answer, these tools can also be used as a warning device when you stranded them at night, then people can see you from hundreds of meters away. One of the most famous ones is the Nebo Blueline flashlight that is popular among mechanics.

10.Gloves

The obvious thing in mechanical work is greasy hands after work or even a little touch on any part of the engine. Same as the corona pandemic world where everyone sanitizes everything before using, you don’t want to touch the door handle or the wheel and leave greasy stains. Then get yourself a pair of thick, crenulated gloves with long collars.

Ronix

31 October 2020