Your Year-round Car Kit

In the past few postings (see the Winter Preparedness category for all of them), I have been dealing with having a kit that you should have in your car during the winter. If you just read those, you would still be missing some things because I believe that there are a few other things that you should have in your car year round. And I didn't reference those at all in the postings.

A Year-round Car Kit

• Mechanic tool set


• First Aid kit


• Fire Extinguisher


• Jumper cables


• Tire changing kit

Now let me explain why.

A Tool Kit
Everybody should have a small took set in the trunk of their car (or under the seat). It should include both metric and inch wrenches. A socket wrench is useful (but you can usually get by without them if you have open and box-end wrenches.) It should have pliers, flat-blade and Phillips-head screwdrivers. You can often find a pre-built kit at a really good price around Christmas, Father's Day, and Mother's Day (usually comes in pink or pastel blue for Mother's Day.) Since you are only expecting to use it very occasionally, you don't have to get top of the line.

I know. Some of you are saying, "but I wouldn't know which end of the wrench to hold. It is pointless for me to have a tool kit in my car."

Unless, of course, a "rescuer" stops to help, has the knowledge, but doesn't have the tools. (Maybe he (or she) is in a rental car, so they are away from their tools at the time.) If you have the tools, you have the help. All it takes is one of those times and you have saved the price of the tools (and then some.)

First Aid Kit

You had to change a tire, work on the engine, remove the plastic bag that fluttered up against the nose of the car and started the engine overheating. In the process, you

• scrape your knuckles


• cut your finger,


• get a nosebleed from bending over and looking under the car


• bump your head (and now there is a nasty welt as well as a headache)


• or all of the above

Right about now, wouldn't it be good to have a first aid kit handy? It doesn't have to be a huge thing, either. Big box discount department stores and drug stores sell car first aid kits--incredibly cheaply. You could also go to a sporting goods store or auto parts store and find one--they just won't be as cheap.

Like everything else I've mentioned, they don't take up much room and can be a life-saver. Literally.

Fire Extinguisher

This is one of those items that all the "experts" tell you should have... and that nobody does. Well, nobody except me, my wife, and the experts. I know another guy who does. I don't know his name because we didn't have a formal introduction.

A number of years ago, I was sitting in the turn lane at an intersection waiting for our turn. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw what looked like smoke coming out from under the hood of the pick-up truck just behind me. He was just jumping out of the cab. As he opened the hood, we saw orange flames shooting up from the air filter and carburetor. I jumped out of my car, popped open the trunk, pulled out the fire extinguisher and calmly sprayed the base of the flames. The fire went out, the danger was over, he started the truck--no fire, the light turned green and I got back in the car and drove away. Really glad that I had a fire extinguisher in my trunk... and so was he.

I guarantee you that he has a fire extinguisher in his car to this day.

I know of two other people who wish they had one... in time. In the last two weeks I have seen two car fires. One was just the burned out hulk on the shoulder of the road. It hadn't been there 12 hours earlier. The other had the dash burning, the driver was standing in front of the car, helpless, just watching it burn. I was in the wrong lane of a divided highway with no exit for several miles. It would have been five minutes at least before I could get back around to him... maybe more. (And this was a rush-hour traffic.) By that time, his car would be a cinder. I really don't know if someone on his side of the road saw it and had a fire extinguisher. By the time I came that way the next day, the car had been removed.

What do you think they would have said if you had asked them why didn't just put the fire out? No fire extinguisher, of course. Why not? Do you think they thought it was too expensive? Or that they had never needed one before, so it was just a waste of money? Or perhaps it would roll around in the trunk and make a lot of noise and was just too much bother?

I have no idea what started any of the fires I have mentioned. Only a small percentage of the automobiles on the road catch fire... but when they do, if you don't have an extinguisher, you are highly likely to watch your car burn up. Every year, several thousand automobiles are recalled by their makers because "x" could happen, possibly causing an engine fire. (Don't believe me? Look it up.)

So do me a favor. Get a fire extinguisher for your car (and put it in it.) I don't want to lose a reader because of a car fire. :-)

In the next post, I'll talk about the other things.