Since the inception of automobiles, they have served humanity more than just the need for transportation. For some, they have been a valuable member of the family or even an individual. For those who spend much of their quality time, or even uncountable hours inside their vehicles, high comfort and driving experience are a priority. The modern-day practical cars are packed with these creature comforts and offer a versatile driving experience to the buyers picking their favorite rides.
It’s the same case for every automaker, be it the highest selling sedan- 2021 Toyota Corolla or massive SUV to haul the entire family like the 2021 Chevrolet Tahoe. But there’s almost something more in the market to enhance the existing characteristics. In this article, let’s dive into the Top 10 Car Accessories which can enhance your driving experience.
The most recent and advanced nameplates offer most of the features in the list below as standard itself. But the list below might be helpful to owners lacking such impeccable features for their favorite, but “not-so-recent” drives.
Portable car battery jump starter
What’s worse than a dead battery and you strapped in the middle of nowhere? Other than daily maintenance of your valuable resource of transportation, there’s no way to track the battery levels or unfortunate days. In such scenarios, a portable car battery jump starter can save you from being trapped on the side of the road, trying to find companionship in passing by vehicles.
A portable car battery jump starter is a valuable car accessory in times of crisis. These devices are designed to provide backup power, anytime, anywhere. With such devices stocked in your vehicle, a dead battery is no sweating feat, such as connecting the power source to your car battery using the clamps and crank that engine in no time. Modern-day portable car battery jump starters have attractive additional potentials like flashlights and USB slots to charge your smartphones.
Don’t go too far for suggestions of some great portable car battery jump starter, here’s a list of the best portable car battery jump starts recommended by some expertise:
- NOCO Genius GB70
- PowerAll Supreme PBJS1600-RS
- Antigravity Batteries Micro-Start XP-10
- Weego Jump Starter 44
These are some top-rated portable car battery jump starters and are quite intuitive to use, providing up to 70 jump starts in one full charge.
Tire Pressure monitoring tools
There’s no denying the fact that hot-selling nameplates are already equipped with tire pressure monitoring systems as standard. This feature assists the owners by monitoring the tire pressure of all four wheels of the vehicle and displaying the same supervised values to the infotainment or driver’s display in the cars. They are also equipped with warning alerts that suggest the drivers take note of a specific tire with low tire pressure and also warn the drivers to restrict driving at higher speeds in such conditions.
While not every vehicle in the world would be fitted with this feature, there’s no harm in spending some bucks on some good tire pressure monitoring tools. These come along with four waterproof sensors that can be tagged to each wheel to keep track of tire pressures. These sensors can push the same stats directly to an Android or iOS device using Bluetooth.
The Tire Pressure monitoring tools come in handy to prevent any mishap by taking care of the most elementary aspect. It also reduces the overall tire wear by assisting the owner to maintain optimal tire pressure, thus offering better fuel efficiency, delivering better handling and performance and saving tire costs in the long run.
GPS trackers
Think of a world without GPS, and you’ll realize how lost you’ll be. Puns besides, GPS is what drives the world to the correct location, taking the right turns, reaching destinations right on time. But the same GPS can be utilized to take care of your car, keeping it safe from being stolen, and more if the owners can get a tad bit creative. GPS trackers are small devices that one can utilize to track the location of their cars, and hence locate them after it’s stolen.
These trackers use satellite navigation to monitor the location of a vehicle with the device attached in real-time.
The same trackers can be used to monitor the vehicles when parents hand over their car to their kid, thus this can assist them to keep track of the locations they visited, the movement, the speed, and much more.
Many GPS trackers come with additional features like using these trackers to switch your car on and off by sending an SMS to the tracker’s SIM card number that has been coded in a certain manner. Obviously, remote access like this can be easily availed in new, feature-full cars like the Tahoe and Corolla.
Some GPS trackers can also help owners eavesdrop on conversations in the car directly into your Android or iOS smartphones, that too without the limitations of the distance. This would ideally give the owner an advantage even if their vehicle gets stolen. They can easily overhear the conversations, track the location, and alert the police immediately for them to take action.
OBD2 Scanner tools
Your beloved vehicle, be it a hot-selling sedan, or a humongous crowd hauler like the, has endless electrical and electronics. Thus, it’s hard to diagnose any minor fault that might lead to hefty repair bills or even mid-road breakdowns. The same manufactures that have laid that advanced technology, utilize industry-based tools and devices to diagnose these issues, mechanics do this too. But what if you could do that too, won’t that save you from heavy bills and frequent visits to your mechanic?
For such cases, the owner can own OBD2 Scanner tools. On-Board Scanner tools are small devices that can scan your car for any issue. You might also be familiar with the dashboard warning lights on the driver’s display. These warning lights alert the driver of a possible fault in the vehicle There is a certain code to each fault, and the OBD2 Scanner tools come to the rescue to identify the exact component with the issue.
Thus owning a personal OBD2 Scanner tool can not only assist the owner to maintain their cars but also decrease visits to mechanics and save tons of bucks. It’s easier to head to a garage for issues that can’t be solved without any professional help, than paying them for unnecessary monthly visits.
Car air purifiers
With the pandemic, the whole world has gained a similar perspective towards clean, breathable air and its importance. Modern-day cars are well equipped with advanced tech to purify the air that enters the cabin, or even purify the air that’s already inside and recirculate them. Going for a new car might give you an option for such a feature. But only a few years ago, car air purifiers were something limited to luxury, high-end cars.
But now, after-market car-air purifiers can refine the air and save you from buying a new car for the same purpose. In addition, this air-purifier can also contribute to eliminating dust, lousy odor, pet smell, cigarette smoke, pollen, and any other impurities in the air within your car. Such accessories are often easy-to-use, and these can be plugged in the car’s charging or USB ports, and then they get to killing those harmful germs inside your car.
Blind-spot mirrors
Blind spots are regions that are out of the visibility of the driver. There can be various reasons for such blind spots to exist, but majorly these are due to thick pillars or other parts of the vehicle that obstruct the natural visibility of the driver. Such regions can be fatal in few scenarios, like on a highway, riding at high speeds, if a driver is about changing the lane, and there’s another oncoming vehicle in the blind-spot of the driver, that would lead to a fatal crash.
To prevent such scenarios, modern-day cars with restricted visibility and big blind spots, are equipped with features known as blind-spot monitoring. These alert the drivers in case they detect an oncoming vehicle, especially in the blind spot of the driver.
But a few years back, this feature was offered as an additional feature that requires the buyers to spend extra. For the same owners, blind-spot monitors are the cheapest alternative to such a feature.
Rear backup camera systems
It’s not just beginner drivers, but even some experienced souls have thrashed their vehicles into walls or some other object while backing up. The most major reason is visibility, and rear backup camera systems can prevent such scenarios. While these features are standard on new picks.
These accessories get attached to the rear part of the camera in the central section, giving a clear view of the surrounding in the back of the vehicle. Some advanced systems instantly display the view of the area behind the camera, as soon as the reverse gear is engaged.
These can also be upgraded to IR-sensitive ones that are prone to better use even in the nighttime. Some backup camera systems can also feature alert systems that alert the driver of some object in the path of the vehicle with audio or visual warnings, in case the driver misses them out on the screen.
Dashboard Cameras
Next on the list of “Top 10 car accessories to enhance your driving experience” is dashboard cameras, or dashcam, as known to the millennials nowadays. This might not be the most unique accessory to list, but is surely one that comes in handy. Just imagine all the escape routes you took, to have an adrenaline rush with your vehicle, this small accessory can capture all those memories for you to float in them again to have great nostalgia. These cameras that attached themselves to the dash can record for hours, everything that is visible through the heights of the dash.
It’s not just the favorite moments that can be captured. These dashcams can be your best companions in the worst scenarios. They can be helpful in recording during minor accidents to figure out whose fault during such incidents. Even in major accidents, in case the dashcam is still recording and hasn’t been destroyed in such scenarios, they can assist the investigators to figure out the culprit of the accident, and ease your process of claiming the insurance.
Some advanced dashcams come with additional features like lane departure and front collision warning systems, safety camera alerts, and built-in GPS among more, adding elements of safety too.
Heads-up displays
The vehicles we drive are getting richer in terms of features and technology, but often the same technology distracts us and creates havoc in our life. Think of this, even the biggest infotainment screens will require you to remove your eyes off the road to access them, or even check the navigation. Even the driver’s display that’s right in front of the driver, needs them to shift their eyes for seconds to read essential information like speed and fuel levels. Only if there was the tech that could display these important rights in the sight of the driver.
Heads-up displays aren’t the most intriguing car accessory but they can decrease the amount of distraction caused by modern-day tech. These devices mount on the dash, just above the steering wheel, and project a transparent screen on the windscreen; where the driver can have a clear view of the display without taking their eyes off the road even for a second. These heads-up displays can project vehicle speed, fuel gauge, RPMs, and other vital information that is visible on the driver’s display, but compactly and more cleanly.
Some advanced heads-up displays come with built-in GPS navigation that guides the driver turn-by-turn to their destinations. They can easily be controlled by the controls on the steering wheel and can be customized according to the driver to add or remove some sort of information on the projections.
Mobile Wi-Fi hotspot
We humans can hardly survive or pass an hour without our smartphones and the internet. Think about your thumb-numbing, stuck-to-the-screen siblings without internet or Wi-Fi, the moment they enter the car. In such scenarios, mobile Wi-Fi hotspot can be the savior for the day, prevent any hair-pulling, and fight as the internet goes down. These small devices can create a hotspot inside your vehicle. One can easily grab such devices from the market, but many brands would require you to shell extra as monthly service fees.
With these, we conclude the list of Top 10 car accessories that can enhance your driving experience. It’s quite obvious to miss out on many car accessories, but the above list should satisfy a majority of the car owners.
While new cars would have a majority of these features as standard, but every car can’t have them. Hence, for some extra bucks, they provide additional convenience to the owners while some also add a level of safety to the existing model.