5 Tools That Make Working on Your Car Less Frustrating

The most frustrating part of a check engine light is not knowing what it means. It could be a loose gas cap, or it could be something that needs a mechanic this week. A code reader plugs into the OBD2 port under the dashboard and tells you the trouble code, so you can look it up and decide what to do next.

The AD310 is a plain wired reader: no app, no phone, no subscription. It also shows readiness monitors, which tell you if the car is ready for an emissions test, and it can clear the light once the problem is fixed.

Pro tip Write the code down and check the freeze-frame data before you clear anything. Clearing the code also erases that snapshot, which is often the most useful clue about when and how the fault happened.

Working on a car is mostly a fight with space. A socket won’t fit, and a regular wrench can only move a few degrees before it hits something, so you take it off, flip it, put it back, and repeat forty times. A ratcheting wrench keeps the box end on the bolt and clicks back on its own.

With 72 teeth, this set needs only a 5° swing to catch the next tooth, which is what makes it useful in a crowded engine bay. Use the open end or a breaker bar to crack a tight bolt loose first, then spin it out with the ratchet.

Pro tip To loosen instead of tighten, just flip the wrench over. Check the direction before you push hard, since a wrench that freewheels is how knuckles meet the engine.

“Tight enough” is how lug nuts end up either loose or stretched, and how oil drain plugs strip their threads. Every car has torque specs for exactly this reason. A click torque wrench lets you hit them: set the number on the handle, tighten until the wrench clicks, and stop.

This one covers 10 to 150 ft-lb, which takes in wheel lug nuts on most cars and a lot of the bolts around brakes and suspension. It’s calibrated before shipping, with a certificate in the box.

Pro tip Turn the setting back down to the lowest value after you’re done. Storing a click wrench under spring tension for months is what makes it drift out of calibration.

Lying on cold concrete is the least fun part of working under a car, and dragging yourself out every time you need another tool makes it worse. A creeper lets you roll in and out with a push of your feet, and padding takes the floor out of the equation.

This Pro-LifT folds into a Z-shape and becomes a low rolling seat, which is the more useful position for brake jobs, wheel changes and anything around the bumpers. A pin switches between the two modes.

Pro tip Never get under a car that’s held up only by a jack. Put it on jack stands on solid ground, give the car a firm push before you slide under, and keep the jack in place as a backup.

The oil change itself takes ten minutes. Cleaning up a splash of hot oil on the garage floor takes much longer. Oil coming out of a drain plug shoots out at an angle, and a shallow pan or a cut-off jug won’t catch it all.

This pan is deep, with a curled lip that stops oil from sloshing over when you slide it out from under the car. The spout on the side makes it easy to pour into an empty jug for recycling.

Pro tip Put the pan a little to the side of the drain plug, in the direction the oil will shoot. As the flow slows, it drops straight down, so slide the pan under as it does.