Five useful accessories your car needs to have

Most of us get a bucket load of accessories for our vehicles from floor mats, parking sensors, body covers (that we probably never use), seat covers to in-car entertainment units. To help fellow car buyers, I’ve put together a list of accessories that will get you out of a tricky situation and should be present in your car at all times. 

Portable Air Pump
Running the car on a wrong tyre pressure will result in a damaged tyre and low fuel efficiency. The Portable Air Pump allows you to fill air in the tyres yourself incase of an emergency. The pump can run off the the 12v socket in the car and is capable of inflating a flat tire quickly. Some might be wondering if you would really want an portable air pump sitting in the boot, only to be used occasionally in case of punctures. But trust me, the pump is seriously helpful in emergency cases where it is a boon.


Electric Car Jack / Hydraulic Jack 
All cars come with a car jack in the boot. The ones that the manufacturers provide need a lot of manual effort when raising the car up. So in case you have a flat tyre and need to change it, you’ll probably spend half of your energy jacking the car up. To make this process easy there are electric and hydraulic car jacks available in the market. The electric ones draw power from the 12V socket in the car and can be controlled via the attached remote. Once properly positioned, the user simply has to press a button to lift the car up to the required height. After the tyre is changed it can be lowered easily without much effort.


OBD Scan Tool
Cars today are built to alert the driver when something isn’t right. All modern cars come equipped with an OBD II (On Board Diagnostics II) port. This port can be used to get information from the car with the help of an OBD Scan tool. The Scan tool is a Bluetooth device that is connected to the port in the car and transmits data to the phone or laptop wirelessly. Both Android and iOS have applications in their respective app stores to support the OBD Hardware. It also shows a range of car parameters like engine temperature, throttle position, current load, power it is producing and a lot more geeky stats. 


Portable Jumper pack
Sometimes we accidently leave the headlights or the cabin lights on and come back to a dead battery. If you drive a car with manual transmission, you’ll need to gather people to push start it else if you have an Automatic transmission you’ll need a jump start. This is where the Portable jumper comes handy. It acts like a powerbank for your car. You can simply connect the jumper pack to your battery directly and crank the car back to life. These packs have specifications for each car. 


Jumper Cables
Jumper cables will be extremely helpful in a breakdown scenario. These are probably the most inexpensive must-haves in the car. The Jumper cables are used to start your car by connecting them to the battery of another car. I’ve seen people use different types of wires to connect the two batteries for the process but would advice people to invest in good quality cables. These will ensure that none of the cars are damaged in the process. 


Aditya Shenoy is a hardcore car enthusiast and the Associate Editor at Pricebaba.com