Author Archive: Chad Baus

When the season changes to spring, our cars often wear the scars of the winter they’ve just endured. And not just from the harsh weather.

Road salt helps melt ice, which definitely makes the roads safer. However, there are some definite downsides when it comes to your car. Read on to learn exactly how road salt works—and what road salt does to your car.

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Road trips with children are often difficult ordeals punctuated by endless variations of “Are we there yet?” But they don’t need to be! The next time you’re venturing out on the open road, try these 21 fun car games to keep your young crew entertained.

When they’re distracted by these car games, your kids will (hopefully) behave in the backseat, making the drive more enjoyable for the adults, too. You’ll feel less stressed when you finally reach your destination, whether it’s Grandma’s house, Legoland, or anything in between.

And an added bonus? Engaging car activities give kids the cognitive, social, and emotional benefits of play. A real win-win.

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Fitting a car into your household budget is no easy task, and financial experts do not agree on how to determine its affordability. One school of thought holds that all your automotive expenses — gas, insurance, car payments — should not exceed 20% of your pretax monthly income. Other experts say that a vehicle that costs roughly half of your annual take-home pay will be affordable. Then some frugal personal-finance gurus say you should spend no more than 10%-15% of your annual income on a vehicle purchase. Pretax, post-tax, annual income; these terms are enough to make a person ask: “How much car can I afford?”

There’s no perfect formula for how much you can afford, but our short answer is that your new-car payment should be no more than 15% of your monthly take-home pay. If you’re leasing or buying used, it should be no more than 10%. The reason for finding a vehicle [...]

Some of us keep absolutely nothing in our cars’ trunks, while others have enough packed in there that they could live in their car for weeks. Somewhere in between is this list of 30 things we think every car owner should always have on hand.

You can buy packaged emergency safety kits which includes a booster cable, flashlight, first aid kit, and many other items—but the DIY approach is more satisfying and cost-effective, as you probably already have many of these items lying around. It’s not just about emergencies or safety, either, so we’ve separated the checklists by category.

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If you’re buying or driving a 2008 or newer car, truck or SUV, it has a tire-pressure monitoring system (TPMS), which uses sensors to continuously monitor pressure in the tires and warn you with a dashboard symbol when tire pressure is dangerously low. The feature is standard on all 2008 and newer models, thanks to the TREAD Act, which Congress enacted in 2000 after rollover incidents involving the Ford Explorer and Firestone tires. Some 2006 and 2007 model-year vehicles also have TPMS.

The TPMS symbol is either a cross-section of a tire with an exclamation point in it or an overhead view of a car with all four tires exposed. Because of a variety of considerations from tire companies and automakers, a TPMS warning light isn’t required to come on until a tire is 25 percent below the manufacturer’s recommended tire pressure. That’s also well below the pressure required for safe driving, according to the American Automobile [...]

When most people think of exterior car detailing, the old-fashioned “wash and wax” comes to mind. Today’s drivers who know better realize much more goes into detailing a car’s exterior like the pros. For example, carnauba car wax following a hand wash was the go-to form of paint protection for decades. That standby has given way to paint sealants and ceramic coatings in recent years.

An often forgotten or unknown action is using a clay bar to deep clean paint and remove bonded contamination before adding a new layer of paint protection. And while the clay bar is excellent for wholly and safely removing surface contamination, chemical decontamination is necessary to remove the contamination embedded beneath the paint’s surface. Using an iron removal product will help remove brake dust from the color before it can blossom into unsightly rust blooms.

Read on to learn about the steps for professional exterior car detailing to help keep your vehicle looking new.

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The Great American Road Trip can become even greater when you tweak a few simple things about your approach.

Heed our advice, grab a couple close friends, and get out there on the best trip of your life.

1. Make a plan, but not a rigid one.
If you’ve got a time limit (as most road trippers do), it’s smart to plot out which city you’ll sleep in each night before setting off. Plan so your driving time is eight hours or less per day, but don’t plan anything more than that. Then watch as your days become hilarious sagas of driving, wandering, and following your wild road trip whims.

2. Don’t research your stops beforehand.
Ahh expectation, the grand crippler of many a road tripper’s happiness. On a road trip, your schedule has extra room, so you can afford to enter a new city with no prior knowledge of what you’ll find. Being relatively clueless has [...]

Most people spend a significant amount of time in their vehicles. If you are one of those that live in your car and, especially those with kids, you know how dirty your car can get. Follow along as we show how to clean common automotive fabrics and stains.

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Having written not only one, but two blog posts about my grandfather, the second generation of our family business, literally on the day of his passing, I expected that I would be able to do the same about my dad, who I was blessed to work with almost every day for 19 years, and who passed away unexpectedly on Nov. 24, 2022.

But those words just won’t come – at least not yet.

Thankfully, words DID come at his Celebration of Life service, when we marked his passing with family, friends, church and community. So instead of waiting for what won’t come, I’m going to share here what already has been.

I pray it helps you remember Dad, or, if you weren’t privileged to know him, feel a bit more like you did.

Dad loved telling stories, and so after the service we thought it fitting marked his passing by telling some [...]