5 Menards Tools Worth Keeping In Your Car

Driving can be a stressful experience, with traffic, incompetent drivers, damaged roads and bridges, and foul weather each presenting a different set of problems. In addition, when your car breaks down, repairs can be expensive and their costs hard to estimate. Not all of us are comfortable fixing our cars, but just doing routine maintenance like oil changes and tire rotations can save you hundreds of dollars a year. It's also good to be prepared for roadside emergencies with a few helpful tools. In her song "Mastermind," Taylor Swift cautions, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." A similar phrase, "by failing to prepare you are preparing to fail," is attributed to Benjamin Franklin, but they both could be talking about making sure you have the right emergency supplies in your car.

John Menard started a construction company in 1958 to help pay for college and opened his first hardware store after graduation. Menards now has 330 stores across the Midwestern United States and also maintains a website where it sells appliances, paint, building materials, and other home improvement products. Menard's also carries a broad selection of tools, many of which are helpful to have in your car for various emergencies. Building a kit with the five items here can give you peace of mind while driving, whether you're making a quick trip to a record store to pick up Swift's latest release or taking a cross-country road trip to visit the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

Another all-too-common roadside emergency is a dead battery, and when you're stuck with a car that just groans at you when you turn the key, having a battery booster in your glove compartment can save you time and money. Menards carries the NOCO Boost Plus 1000-amp jump starter for $99.95, far less than the cost of one emergency roadside service call. It can provide as many as 20 jump starts on a full charge and will start vehicles with gas engines up to 6.0 liters and diesel engines up to 3.0 liters.

It can be charged via your car's cigarette lighter using a USB adapter and the included micro USB cable, and has a 100-lumen flashlight so you can see to connect the clamps at night. It weighs just 2.4 pounds and will fit in the glove box of most cars, can hold a charge for up to a year, and will fully charge from empty in three hours at 2.1 amps. It also has a warning light that indicates if the cables are connected incorrectly, so you don't have to worry about damaging your car's electrical system if you make that simple mistake.

A useful tool to have in your car for any kind of emergency that leaves you immobile on the side of the road is the Performance Tool LED safety flare that Menards sells for $12.99 each. This flare has 12 individual LED lights around the edge and three LEDs on top. It has five separate illumination patterns: all 12 red lights lit, 3 white lights lit, flashing, blinking, and rotating. It has a magnetic base and hook on the back so you can attach it to your car or truck, and will run for up to 50 hours on the three included AAA batteries.

It measures 8.3 inches x 5.2 inches x 1.5 inches high and weighs eight ounces. The single button is used to toggle between modes and turn the light on and off. The Menards website doesn't have customer reviews, but Amazon buyers rated this emergency light 4.5 out of five stars.