Whether you enjoy working on your car or you just do this type of work to save yourself some money rather than paying a mechanic to do it, if you want to be safe while you’re working on your car at home, you’ve got to have the right tools to use. 

Before you start another project working on your car, here are three helpful things to have at home when you’re working on your car. 

A Waterproof Tarp

When working on your car, there’s a good chance that you’ll have to be down on the ground at some point. And while you might not mind if some of your clothes get a little messy when working on your car, to keep this mess contained and not have to walk through your home to your bathroom with dirt and grease all over you, it’s a good idea to have a waterproof tarp that you can throw on the ground underneath you. 

With a waterproof tarp, any wetness on the ground won’t soak into your clothes. Additionally, if anything spills out of your car, it will get caught on the tarp rather than soaking into the ground or running all over the place. 

Along with having a waterproof tarp in your garage, where you might be doing the bulk of your mechanica work, you may also want to have a waterproof tarp in your vehicle at all times as well, since you never know when it might come in handy. 

Jack Stands

For those times when you have to get physically under your car in order to see what’s going on, having a jack at home can make this happen for you. However, while a jack might be able to get your car off the ground, you shouldn’t necessarily trust these to hover over you. 

Rather, to ensure that your car won’t fall on you when you’re working underneath it at home, you should always use jack stands in addition to just having the jack under your car. By placing jack stands on solid parts of your car, you’ll have a fail safe ready in the event that your jack falls or fails. 

Options For Lighting

Whether you’re working on your car in your garage or out in the open, it can often be hard to see exactly what’s going on with only the light from the sun or the overhead light from your garage. 

Knowing this, you should have multiple options for lighting that you can use when working on your car. Bright lights that you can shine on specific areas and allow to hang over you rather than having to hold will make for the most ideal lighting option. 

If you’re going to be working on your car at home, consider getting the items mentioned above to help you make your repairs quickly and correctly.