I ride a scooter around my city for fun and often find people having car struggles. I’m skilled with automotive work, so I figured I’d fill a “go bag” with stuff to bring anytime I’m riding for pleasure and have extra space. My goal is to cover as many common issues as possible while fitting everything inside a 30 liter top box.
My current list is:
- Jumper cables or small jump back (interesting edit at bottom)
- Common wrenches (10, 12, 14, 17mm)
- Common screw drivers
- Maybe common fluids (5w-30 oil, distilled water or coolant, etc.)
- Tire plug kit
- zipties
- duct tape
Suggestions from this thread I will add:
- OBD-II Diag tool
- Telescoping magnet
- cig lighter charged air compressor
- Pliers
- wire stripper/crimper combo tool
- crimp terminals/splices
- multimeter
- fuses
- SNACKS!!!
- gloves
- air-freshener/momento type of thing :)
Are there other super useful things I might have left out, or niche stuff small enough that it’d cost nothing to bring on the off chance it helps? Common spec bolts/o-ring sizes, or something like that?
I want to make sure when I stop to help someone I can actually help, and not narrowly miss an opportunity because of an oversight.
Thanks for the help with this :)
Edits:
- formatting list
- adding “?” to title
- added zipties and duct tape to list, added o-ring example
- added suggestions from thread list
Interesting edit at bottom: TL;DR is supercapacitors. Main story: My concern was the longevity and cost associated with jump packs; lithium batteries don’t like to be stored at high charge and also don’t do great in varying temperatures. Enter the TIL: supercapacitor jump packs, which seems absolutely perfect for my use-case. They’re designed to be stored with no charge, and are super happy with offloading all their charge at once. The intended use is to be charged off of the dead battery just enough to breath life into the starter long enough to get it running, but they can usually be charged quickly by other methods like an outlet (plentiful in the city) or a working vehicle.
Fix-a-flat. Its compressed can of air and goo that will plug up surprisingly large punctures and keep your tire drivable to get to shop to fix. Keep 2 cans on my 4 wheeler and 2 cans in my truck.
The other carry everywhere item i have on 4wheeler and truck is the battery charger/aircompressor combo units. They sell them at any auto store or walmart. Its a battery charger that you plug in to charge and also has a built in air compressor.
Afrer a year or two of carrying both those items with me I stopped paying for AAA. Oh but also carry bags of cat liter in my car in the winter time for weight and get out of the ditch or snow pile aid. I guess add the cat liter and collapsing shovel to the winter everyday carry items.
The truth is, mechanics tools in your car are fenerally useless. You arent carrying with you every part that could ho wrong or need replacing with you, there isnt much that can go wrong that doesnt involve buying a part to fix. I spent decade and a half driving around $500-$2000 cars because it made more financial sense than buying newer vehicle. Anything broke that cost more than half the car id scrap them and buy the next. The last thing ill add is that any vehicle 5 years old or newer is guna need oem tools to fix for like 70-100% of everything that could possibly go wrong with them. Even the dumbest most common shit like swapping winter/summer tires on rim certain shops cant do any more for a bunch of makes and models because of the change in rim design without buying a new tool. Spend the money on a rolling cabnet toolbox for your mechanics tools and rolling stackable toolboxes for your home repair tools because they are things you will buy once and store a life time of tools in for decades.
Edit: add ratchet straps for anyone not redneck who wouldnt laugh at the notion of ever not already having ratchet straps in their vehicle, even for a car. Hood latch breaks-strapit, door latch or lock breaks-strapit, tailgate wont latch-strapit, muffler falls off after bottoming it out jumping the tracks-strapit, people ne3d ride to town who are gross or scummy - close ratchet in trunk and let strap free for scummies to hitch on skateboard or bike.
Flix-a-flat and similar products should be an absolutely last resort. They can plug the tire pressure sensors and they will corrode the tire over time, and the patch itself will deteriorate quickly so it will be leaking air after a while and most shops won’t touch a tire that has been plugged with one of those products