Top Car Tools and Gadgets of 2021 (Christmas Gift Ideas)

hey guys chris fix here with the sixth annual top five christmas gift ideas for car guys and car girls like you check it out i haven't done this in a while well here goes nothing let's decorate this tree [Music] [Applause] hmm [Applause] [Applause] [Music] all right now that was so much fun it was my first time ever decorating a christmas tree with my drift car and i think it came out pretty good now this year just like every single year i've come up with a bunch of really helpful gift ideas for anybody who works on cars and the best part is not only are they helpful but they're unique they're different there's stuff that you're not already going to have in your toolbox and i'll be sure to link all these gift ideas in the description so you can easily find them that's the whole point of this video it's why i've been doing this for the past six years to make it fun to make it stress free to give you gift ideas you could send this video to a family member to a friend whoever needs to get you gifts and they have a bunch of ideas right here easy to find really cool and you're gonna love it i'm like a kid on christmas right now i cannot wait to open this up and show you guys what we got this year so let's go get started all right the first gift let's see what we got okay it looks like some ramps nice but wait there's more alright another set of ramps sweet so ramps are great it's a quick safe and easy way to lift your vehicle off the ground and i have two different sets of ramps here we have a more expensive set and we have a more budget friendly set let me show you the difference between these two so these less expensive ramps could hold 8 000 pounds they're 36 inches long and have a 17 degree approach angle that's fine for normal cars and trucks but not for sports cars and lowered cars and then once your car's up on the ramps the wheels are lifted six inches off the ground and real quick i want to show you guys how to check to see how much your vehicle weighs you just go on the driver's side here and look for the sticker in the door jam you're going to want to check the front weight since we're lifting up the front and you can see it's 2 285 pounds and these ramps hold 8 000 pounds so we are good and that's the easiest way to tell how heavy your vehicle is and if the ramps could hold your car and finally even with these smaller ramps there's plenty of room to get under the car and do an oil change or something like that next we're gonna really prove the weight capacity of these ramps by putting my hummer on it and that right there is one of the downsides to these ramps since they're plastic they slide pretty easily but now she's in four wheel drive so there's no problem getting up these ramps so i just wanted to show you guys real quick that the ramps although plastic could still withstand the weight of my twelve thousand pound hummer which is awesome so it could give you some confidence that you know they're pretty safe okay and to show you one more downside of these ramps if i try to go up the ramps with a lowered car like the drift staying the approach angle is too steep and it hits the front bumper so the solution is these longer ramps these ramps are 67 inches long which gives you an 11 degree approach angle so your sports car or lowered car won't scrape and these ramps lift your car up 10 inches which is almost double the other ramps so you have even more room to work under the car so while these ramps are definitely a lot more expensive they make it possible for me to put my lowered vehicles up on ramps without scraping this works for my c4 corvette as well any lowered car is pretty much gonna work with this and the nice thing is this is two pieces so it comes right out and you have access under the vehicle from the side now these ramps are made of a foam or composite it's not really plastic and i've been using these for about 10 years now they've seen better days you can see the edges are getting a little bit warped here and the tip of my ramp is starting to come apart a little bit here but after 10 years i really can't complain and these ramps are definitely not rated for the same weight as those plastic ramps this is 1500 pounds per wheel so 3 000 pounds for the front it works perfect for your lowered vehicle sports car stuff like that i've had regular cars on here i've had my pickup truck on here but i will not put my hummer on here for sure so both of these ramps are great it really depends what vehicles you have and what you're going to be using it for either way you have two good options and ramps in general are awesome which is why they made the list this year all right now although we call this the top five christmas gift ideas i like to add in some stocking stuffers these are just smaller gifts that are usually less expensive and we use cooper's stocking and you can see he's waiting he wants to get this first stocking stuffer open he knows what's up and cooper usually helps us out and opens these gifts so let's get this first gift open okay first stocking stuffer cooper what do we have [Music] good job cooper and check it out an oil utter now this is actually the perfect opportunity for me to show you how the oil utter works because i need to change the oil in my newest car which you guys haven't seen yet now the whole point of the oil utter is to make oil changes mess free and specifically mess free when dealing with the oil filter so they make a couple of different sizes of these this is the xl and this is the double xl this fits most vehicles but i had to get the double xl for the hummer and for the new car because the oil filters on those cars they're just huge that's four inches in diameter but for most vehicles this will work perfectly fine and just to give you an idea this is the typical oil filter for most cars and how this works is there's a magnet right in the oil utter and then basically what you're going to do is you're going to put the oil utter over the filter it's going to stick to the filter and i mean it really sticks in there that's not coming off and then what you're going to do is this is really grippy so you're actually able to use your hands and spin it and break it loose and then normally when you break an oil filter loose the oil drips all down all over the sides and makes a mess but with this you can see there are gaps along the entire edge so this oil utter actually collects the oil that way you don't make a mess and if you want there is a fitting on the bottom here this is a three-quarter inch fitting so the tube diameter has to be three-quarter inches on the inside diameter and you could use that to direct your oil flow to your catch can and like i said the whole point of this thing is to make it mess free so they actually thought of a really good idea they included an extra cap here so you could take your hose that you used and you could actually cap it off and now it's leak-free it won't drip everywhere it's capped off so it's a pretty good idea now let me show you how it works with the new car and this is the one that we're gonna have to use all right first oil change on the new car so let's remove the drain plug and then we need to let this oil drain and this engine holds 11 quarts of oil and to get an idea of the condition of this engine i'm going to grab an oil sample and then once the engine oil is completely drained we could install the drain plug and tighten it down all right so now we're going to remove the oil filter and you can see there's this line right here that it'll get all messy the oil get all over it and it'll drip everywhere it just makes a big mess so this is where the oil utter comes in handy it'll go right over the oil filter and it magnetically sticks and then it'll grip the oil filter so you could turn this and you can see i'm loosening the oil filter no problem at all and you can see the oil dripping down through our oil udder into our catch can mess free i love this thing all right so once our filter is all drained we could go here and we could cap this off and we could unscrew this filter the rest of the way and after it's removed lower it down and dump it into the catch can now we can add the new filter which i filled with fresh oil and only hand tighten this never tighten it with any tools then i like to write down the current mileage so we know when the oil was changed and finally fill up the engine with new synthetic 10w40 so there you go the oil utter kept all the oil inside of here and it's a neat tool to have which is why it makes the list this year alright gift number two what do we have here all right just what we needed a battery powered dual action polisher now if you guys like to clean and detail your own vehicles this is an awesome gift idea a da polisher is very diy friendly and it makes your job so much easier to remove swirl marks scratches and just bring paint back to life this is a very nice kit from ryobi it's part of their new oneplus 18 volt system there's a bunch of other tools that these batteries work with but this kit specifically has a 18 volt 4 amp hour battery it has three pads here we have our compound polishing and wax pad it comes with the tool obviously i'll show you how that works and it comes with a charger and also a handle if you like to put a handle on top of here so let me show you how a da polisher works and we'll be working on the side of my truck because from going off-roading we have a lot of scratches from all the tree branches also the paint itself is very faded it should be nice and glossy and it's more of a matte and we're gonna bring that shine that gloss back and we're gonna remove all those scratches all of that using a d a polisher and it's a three-step process the first step is going to be to compound the second step is going to be to polish and the third step is going to be adding a wax so let's get started by adding some compound to the pad now i put a piece of tape here because i want to show you the difference so we won't touch this side and we will correct this side and we'll get all those scratches and everything out now before you go and do anything you want to make sure that you clean and clay bar the surface so it's nice and smooth that's already been done so let's get started so first pat the compound onto the panel like so then set the da polisher to the lowest speed which is 3000 rpms here and spread the compound over the surface now increase the speed to about 5000 rpms and then we want to move about an inch per second and go back and forth in one direction and then go back and forth in the perpendicular direction and just a couple of quick tips when using a da polisher always keep this pad flat against the paint surface follow the curvature of that paint do not go at an angle like this you want to keep it flat and then pressure wise you want a light pressure up against the paint do not push hard if you push hard you'll notice this doesn't spin right all you need is light pressure use the weight of the machine don't work hard let the machine do all the work for you so with the compounding done now we can wipe it off and it's looking better already next we want to follow the same exact process for our polish then we can wipe that off and again the same process for our wax and buff that off for protected finish and just look at that difference before and after what an incredible transformation scratches haziness glossy clear no more scratches so there you go ada polisher is an amazing tool for anybody who likes to clean and detail their own vehicle this one is the lightest in its class which is nice because you won't get tired as quickly it doesn't have any cords or cables so you don't have to worry about cable management making sure your cables don't hit the car scratching the paint stuff like that and speaking of scratching the paint all the hard surfaces like this right here is rubberized so it won't scratch the paint they even have a rubber bumper on the back so if by accident this goes and hits the paint you're not damaging the paint i thought that was smart and then the last thing is battery wise what i suggest these are 4 amp hour batteries they last about 45 minutes to an hour of continuous use if you grab another 4 amp hour battery these batteries are awesome they only take about an hour to charge so you could easily just swap out the good battery and then put this battery in the charger and by the time you need another battery you just swap them out again and that's exactly why a da polisher makes the list this year okay cooper second stocking stuffer what do we have here go ahead get that wrapping paper off there okay check it out a drill brush so the first brush kit is awesome it goes on your drill and it comes with three different attachments this is the one i like to use the most it has a large surface area and it works great on carpets and floor mats so normally i would vacuum this up first but i want to show you guys how well this works so spray it down with your favorite carpet cleaner and then let the drill do all the work going back and forth and brushing the entire floor mat [Applause] and finally the best part use a vacuum and suck out all that dirt look at how clean that's coming out so a brush like this works amazing to clean your floor mat your carpets even cloth seats it's real quick it's real easy and that's exactly why it made my stocking stuffer list this year all right gift number three what are we gonna get next okay and this is a leak detector smoke machine perfect now i'm not sure if you guys remember when i said i was going to teach you how to build your own affordable smoke machine at home roll the clip and don't you guys worry i will make a video on how to make your very own smoke leak detector because they're expensive to buy and that's how you find leaks like the evap leak and i'm gonna do something that's inexpensive to make it's actually really cool so stay tuned for that well i realized after you're done buying all these different parts and then you have to put it together you're about eighty dollars in and for a few more bucks you could get yourself a brand new already built already made one year warranty made in the united states smoke machine so sometimes although i do like to build things on my own and try to make it less expensive it's worth it just to spend a few extra bucks and get one that's already made and it just makes sense so let me show you how this one works now this smoke machine comes with everything you need from the fluid to the hose to the electrical cable to get this thing going it has a one psi regulator so it's safe for your evap system so let's pop this open and add our smoke fluid and you can see there's a marble in there we have to add the fluid up to the top of the marble don't go over that and then what happens is that fluid gets wicked up onto this cotton here and that's what has a coil on it to heat it up and create that smoke then on the side of this there's a spot to put our electrical connector and then finally attach your rubber hose and we are good to go now this does get pretty hot so it's a good idea to hang this up so it doesn't touch anything then we connect our battery and turn the switch on now all you need to do is let that warm up for about three minutes and that'll be enough time for that to heat up and create smoke and then we'll add our compressed air but for now as we let that warm up let's go and look for a vacuum leak so when we're looking for a vacuum leak there's a couple ways that you could tap into a vacuum line my favorite way and the easiest way usually is right back here at the brake booster so grab onto the hose clamp and slide it up the hose and now we can remove the hose from the booster now you need an air compressor it doesn't have to be a giant air compressor it could be a small one you just need something that has pressurized air that you could connect right to this and with the air connected the smoke should start coming out just like that and all you need to do is stick the fitting into the vacuum line all right so with that connected now we are filling up our intake and all these vacuum hoses with smoke so if there is a leak somewhere from a crack on a vacuum line from an intake manifold gasket that's bad a hose that got disconnected whatever it is you will see smoke coming out and it'll be nice and clear and you can see how it works you could clearly see the smoke coming out so you know the vacuum line is well in this case disconnected just for an example but it could be cracked it could be a bed gasket something like that and that's all there is to it wherever you see the smoke is where your vacuum leak is this was right in front of our face but it could be underneath the intake manifold where the intake manifold gasket is stuff that's a lot more hidden and the smoke makes it really easy to find so this is a great tool it'll pay for itself the first time you use it and there's also some other adapters just in case you want to pump smoke into the fuel tank you have this gas cap adapter if you want to pump smoke into the intake you have this adapter and then if you want to check your evap system they make this adapter that way you could do all the tests you want if you need but you can get away with just using the base kit like we did here and that's exactly why it made the list this year it's a very helpful tool okay stocking stuffer number three what do you think we have coop [Music] no way a scraper utility knife sweet and you guys are gonna love this this is such a good stocking stuffer okay so we have a regular old utility knife you guys know the usefulness of a utility knife but when you need a scraper you flip the switch and now you have a scraper and it goes back and forth between utility knife and scraper with one hand flawlessly and then when you're done you just flip this button down it retracts so you can't cut yourself and you can store this in your pocket so basically we have two tools in one we have our scraper and we have our utility knife into one tool and i just can't get enough of this thing i love it let me show you how it works so we have two different scenarios here we have a box and we have a differential cover let's just say we need to cut open our box you just lift that up and then you could cut open the box and get whatever you need now we're going to be working on our differential and just as you would expect it works as a scraper and you guys know i typically like to use plastic razors so we don't gouge the surface and create leaks but this is just a real quick example to give you an idea of how it works and then replacing the razor is pretty simple you just lift this up press down on that little tab and the razor comes out and then you can get a new razor it fits right in just like that and you're good to go so an awesome tool it's a great stocking stuffer and that's exactly why it makes the list this year all right gift idea number four let's see what we have now okay okay this could be very helpful extension wrenches and we have a bunch here look at all these extension wrenches and look at the size of this one okay let me show you how these work so these extension wrenches are pretty interesting and the reason why i picked them out for you guys is because you probably don't have these in your toolbox and it's a good gift idea now they aren't something you're going to be using every single time you use your tools but when you do need to use them they come in handy and you're going to love it and i'll show you how to use these in a second let me just show you each one so this is the diy version it's a 3 8 inch and it's made of plastic and then they have their pro series which is made of aluminum and has a lifetime warranty you have quarter inch 3 8 inch and half inch and i have my impact gun here because apparently you could use these with the impact gun now i don't know about you guys but i'm the type of person that wants to know how things work so i took this apart that way we could see the inner workings and check it out it's actually pretty interesting it is chain driven and that's how it drives both ends and now that we know how it works let me show you a good application for this like where you would actually use this when you're working on your car and i have a pretty good example of where something like this comes in handy if we pop the hood here and we go to the back of the engine bay that's covered over here you can see there is a bolt all the way back there that holds in the valve cover so first we'll try a ratcheting wrench and you can see it works but the throw is only a couple degrees and it's really tight in here so this would take forever to unscrew next let's try a ratchet and with this we run into the same problem with a short throw and finally let's try the ratchet extender and you can see this is a lot better with a full swing possible because the ratchet is moved out into the open so that's where this comes in handy and that's why it's a good tool to have and one last test i want to do is try out my impact gun using this half inch version to see if i could remove lug nuts and not break anything okay so that worked to loosen a lug nut and you could use this with a torque wrench but you lose about six percent of torque so if it's supposed to be 100 foot-pounds you need to set it to 106 foot-pounds so there you go it's a pretty unique tool that most of you probably don't have and it can be useful it wouldn't be a bad addition to your toolbox and when it comes in handy you'll be glad you had it in my opinion i wouldn't go for the diy version it's the cheapest it also feels the cheapest it's made of plastic if i were to pick one instead of buying the whole set because it can be pretty expensive i'd probably go with the 3h drive or this one the quarter inch drive it's pretty long it's pretty narrow it gets into those tight spots and it won't break the bank it's good to have in the toolbox which is exactly why these made the list this year okay cooper stocking stuffer number four what can this be oh man a 230 piece drill bit set and we do have some more so let's check this out and this wrapping paper is really hard to rip all right a magnetic spark plug set i love these so this first stocking stuffer offers a lot of value it is a 230 piece titanium coated drill bit set and it has a lot of drill bits sizes range from 360 forts all the way up to half inch and the nice thing is they include a lot of extra drill bits so for the smaller sizes where they tend to break a lot you have 32 extra drill bits you can see the bit size is engraved on the base of the bit and these bits are made for an electric drill like this i checked a bunch of these bits and they all run true and straight which is important and with these you could drill through steel this is 1 8 inch thick you could drill through aluminum this is 3 16 inch thick and then you could also drill through plastic and pvc this is 3 16 as well and then wood's no problem this is an inch and a half thick so because it has a great value there's a ton of extra drill bits and it comes in a nice case that's exactly why it made my stocking stuffer list this year now the next stocking stuffer is very helpful and it's specifically designed to remove spark plugs so we'll use this four cylinder as an example and we'll just remove a spark plug to give you an idea of how it works so from this four piece set i'm going to use the 10 inch long 5 8 socket then we can break the spark plug loose with the ratchet and remove it the rest of the way by hand now a nice feature is this diamond grip pattern which makes it easier to grip and not slip while you're loosening it by hand okay so with this plug removed you can see the socket holds onto the plug nice and tight and that isn't coming out and this holds the spark plug with magnets which is a really nice feature so let me tighten this back up and i can show you why the magnetic spark plug socket is so nice okay good that's tight and then my favorite thing about these sockets is every time you pull this out it's gonna come out the socket is attached to the extension you don't have to worry about the socket getting stuck inside the spark plug well i don't know if that's ever happened to you guys but it's happened before where you have this down on the spark plug and then you pull it out and you're just pulling the extension out what let me show you i mean there's nothing wrong with your typical spark plug socket you have your extension this is what most people have this spark plug socket has a rubber grommet in there and then basically that rubber grommet fits onto the spark plug like that and then you could tighten or loosen the spark plug the problem is after you tighten it down and you want to remove this you can see oh man the spark plug socket gets stuck in there well i mean that's a really good example but now my spark plug socket's stuck down there and then you have to go down there with the needle nose pliers and pull it out and that's just a hassle so a regular spark plug socket sometimes grips too hard onto the spark plugs and it's really difficult to pop that off like that the magnetic ones have the same type of grip every single time and it pops off and it's magnetic so you don't have to worry about that getting stuck down there so that to me is an awesome feature and it makes changing spark plugs that much quicker now while these are very helpful they aren't made for every single engine you wouldn't want to use these on like a box or engine from a subaru you'd never fit it in there but on those four cylinders and even straight sixes that have those deep spark plug wells these work great and another thing that i like a lot is it fits nicely in your toolbox you can have a nice spot like that and this will fit snugly in there and it's not super expensive and it makes a great stocking stuffer and that's why it makes the list and then there was one we are on our last christmas gift idea i wonder what it could be so let's open this up no way an ethanol conversion kit for your car such a good idea let me show you how this works so with gasoline being so expensive right now it doesn't look like it's getting any cheaper anytime soon this is a great gift idea to save money at the pump what this allows you to do is run e85 which is a lot less expensive than regular gasoline check this out at this gas station premium fuel is 369 if you use cash but e85 is only 1.85 so half the price and here's one more example where premium is 429 a gallon and e85 is 229 a gallon that's a savings of two dollars per gallon which is huge so if the gas stations by you have e85 it's definitely a good thing to look into because of all the cost savings now you're probably wondering can your vehicle use a kit like this and it's actually really easy to figure out if it can i'll include a link to this website in the description all you have to do is enter your year make and model and then it'll let you know if this kit is compatible with your vehicle so after you've verified that this kit could be installed in your vehicle the installation is very simple i will do an entire video on how to install an e85 conversion kit but for now quick and dirty this is the computer this tells your fuel injectors to stay open longer to add more fuel because you have ethanol in it it uses this ethanol sensor which runs in line with the fuel line to let the computer know how much ethanol content is actually inside the fuel you could run zero ethanol or you could run e85 and anything in between so that makes the adjustments and then we have the wiring harnesses here that connect to this computer and connect to our fuel injectors it's very straightforward i'll show you real quick on the drift stang right here is where i placed my computer it's out of the way it's in an area that's cooler in the engine bay and then if we go over to the fuel rail right here are all the connectors connecting into each fuel injector so you just tap into each one you make the connection there's four on this side four on the other side and then if we come over here this is our ethanol sensor again it runs in line with the fuel line that goes to the fuel rail very easy to install and that's all there is to it so let's go starter up and then driving your car and starting your car is just like with any other fuel sometimes it takes one extra turn to kick over especially when it's cold and then they do have an app you can see it has a snowflake because it's cold outside and it lets you know the ethanol content and the duty cycle and to make sure all the injectors are working as it should and that's really all there is to it another benefit is the exhaust actually smells kind of good so i've been testing out this e85 conversion kit for the past two years both on the track and on the street in the drifting and in the del sol and it's been working great which is why i'm now comfortable recommending it to you guys there's a lot of stuff about ethanol i didn't cover in this video i'll make another video all about ethanol and installing this but the ease of install the potential performance gains the potential fuel savings all that stuff is why this made the list this year for my christmas gift ideas and finally the last stocking stuffer cooper what do we have go ahead get that paper off it's orange all right a spill proof funnel and sorry cooper that's all there is left see nothing left now you might be thinking to yourself chris it's just a funnel but trust me a spill proof funnel is the ultimate funnel for changing the coolant in your vehicle i used to use a regular funnel like this but after using a spill proof funnel i'll never use a regular funnel like this again and what makes this funnel so awesome is inside the funnel we have all these attachments which means this pretty much fits on any vehicle let me show you this right here is my mazda b3000 pickup truck and unfortunately it has a bit of a coolant leak at this t-fitting right here that i patched up that way i can make it home without overheating and that means we are going to be low on coolant so it gives me the perfect opportunity for me to show you how to add coolant using the funnel now the first thing you need to do is come over here and grab the correct fitting i know for this truck it's the green fitting and we'll add this onto the radiator so this green piece fits right into this filler neck and then this green radiator cap holds it in place perfect then all you need to do is add your funnel in and you're good to go and then what you do is you add the correct coolant to your funnel and you could actually fill this funnel up unlike other funnels where you have to wait for it to go down into the radiator this one actually holds coolant so fill it up and then start the car and now all you need to do is let your engine run and get to operating temperature you can see some bubbles coming out that's a good thing that means the air is being bled out of this cooling system and the reason why this works so well is because the funnel is the highest point in the cooling system you can see everything else in the engine that coolant hose the radiator even the heater core back there is below our funnel meaning any air in the cooling system is going to travel and find its way up and out through the funnel and then after your truck is warmed up to operating temperature you could shut off the engine and then now your cooling system is completely topped off but what about all the coolant in this funnel we don't want to waste this if we pull the funnel out it's going to get everywhere right well that's why they include this plug which pushes right down into the funnel and then you could carefully pull this out and you can see there are no drips no spills all our coolant is contained in our funnel and another good thing about this you could easily put the funnel over your coolant bottle pull the plug out and easily transfer your coolant into the bottle just like that so a spill proof funnel makes your life so much easier trust me if you don't have one definitely get one anytime you change the coolant you're gonna love it and that's exactly why it makes the list as a stocking stuffer this year so there you go that is this year's top five christmas gift ideas for car guys and car girls like you all these gift ideas we're pretty cool they're unique they're different they're helpful and i'll be sure to link them in the description so you can easily find them also i'm gonna put a link to my brand new boat fixing channel chris fish where i show you guys how to fix boats how to catch and cook different fish the basics of boating and just random projects that don't make it to the chris fix channel if you like boating or fishing definitely consider checking it out and maybe even subscribe my goal is to hit 50 000 subs by the end of the year and i'm so close and then next year i have a lot of awesome videos planned for you guys now i hope this gave you a ton of good gift ideas if it did remember to give the video a thumbs up as always if you're not a subscriber consider hitting that subscribe button and have a merry christmas happy hanukkah happy kwanzaa whatever you guys celebrate enjoy it and if you don't celebrate anything enjoy your time with your friends and family and have a happy new year

Channel: ChrisFix

Views: 1,650,513

Keywords: Christmas gift ideas, car guy gift ideas, ChrisFix Christmas, ChrisFix Christmas gift ideas, chrisfix

Id: vYv4QAqRwBw

Length: 29min 38sec (1778 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 11 2021