Case and point, in the Ohio Valley and the northeastern states like Pennsylvania, New York or New Jersey, one of the most popular truck accessories on the market would be the truck tonneau cover. This is truck accessory purchase is totally weather related because people in the northeast have to put up with a lot of cold, wet and snowy weather in the winter and want to try to keep their truck beds dry if they can, and keep the snow out as well. Yes, a tonneau cover looks nice, and yes it might help you save a few gallons of gas on a nice long trip, but the main reason that customers ask for the tonneau cover would be to keep out the weather.

In the southern states like Florida, Texas or Arizona they have different problems to deal with. The sun! Can you imagine having too much sun? I know its hard to do, but when thinking about what auto accessories you want to add to your car or truck it has a lot to do with it. The sun can really beat / burn things up if left outside every day.

In the southern states the most popular accessories that people add to their trucks are the stainless steel accessories including nerf bars, rocker panel moldings, billet grilles and truck bed rails. Why? Stainless steel wont burn, deteriorate, shrink, crack, fade or anything else like that. Thats one of the reasons that the southern folks like to dress up their trucks with chrome accessories.

Most of the time the influence starts at the dealer level, being maybe your local Chevy, Dodge or Ford dealerships in your area. They seem to be the guys that would initially test aftermarket accessories like these on your truck, and after they dress up and sell a lot of them in town, the potential new customers see these vehicles driving down the road and actually start calling the dealers asking for the parts they see.

Sometimes customers dont know what to ask for, for example a stainless steel nerf bar is sometimes referred to as a chrome nerf bar, a chrome tube rail, side bars or side steps, but many suppliers of aftermarket truck accessories such as those at Custom Auto Trim are well versed in synonyms in the business. They will know what you are looking for.

About the Author

Mike Briglia is the owner of Custom Auto Trim, a car accessories company based out of San Diego CA. Find more information on nerf bars at http://www.customautotrim.com/

TIP SHACK

This month we’d like to address something a little different—saving money at the gas pumps.

We all know that gas is just about as expensive as it’s ever been. And yet, despite rising costs, we still have just as many places we need to go. But there are ways you can cut costs, without having to cut back on your driving. The thing we’d like to focus on is how you can get better gas mileage every time you drive. And these tips are so easy to implement that you’ll be doing them for life, even when (if) that gas prices finally go down.

The first thing you need to look at is your car or truck’s wind resistance. If you drive a pickup truck, this is likely the easiest thing you can address when it comes to saving money. This is because as you drive, air flows into a pickup’s bed and runs into the tailgate, causing a lot of resistance and making your car work harder to get from point A to point B. To reduce wind resistance, you can drive around with your tailgate down, as some people do. Or you can remove your solid metal tailgate and replace it with a tailgate net, so the air can flow through. An air gate operates under the same principle, but it’s made from metal tubing or mesh, instead of vinyl netting. Another option is to install a tonneau cover or a truck cap. Not only do these products smooth the airflow over your bed, they also can provide lots of secure storage space.

Another simple savings solution for both cars and trucks is to keep your tires properly inflated. Tires that are low on air are going to decrease your gas mileage, again by making your car work harder. Under inflated tires will also wear out more quickly and require replacement sooner.

Taking it a step further, you can improve your gas mileage by making your car’s engine more efficient. An engine that burns 90 percent of the air and fuel mixture is much more efficient than one that burns 60 percent. It therefore will make more power from the same amount of fuel–because what isn’t burned in the combustion process becomes waste and gets sent out your tailpipe. So, a more efficient engine is not only more powerful, it gets better fuel economy. One way to address this is to improve the spark to your engine, so it burns the air and fuel mixture better. You also can make a motor more efficient by reducing internal friction, so it doesn’t have to work as hard. One way to reduce friction within an engine is to run a high-quality–or synthetic–motor oil.

This is by no means all of your options for improved fuel economy, but I hope this will get you thinking of other common sense practices you can put into play to shell out a little less cash at the pumps each week.

WEB NEWS

This month we are proud to offer you a brand new product to AUTOMEGA® at a fantastic deal—Aluminium Billet Grilles, as well as on our very own brand, MegaBillet Stainless Steel Billet Grilles. These lightweight all stainless steel Billet Grilles are made of 304 grade polished stainless steel that will not tarnish. This grille will look brand new even five years down the road. Several makes and models available.

If you haven’t gotten yourself a set of Altezza tail-lights yet, now is the time. We’ve recently added in several new models and have everything in stock reduced to it’s lowest pricing yet. This won’t last forever, so get started finding what you need.