Virtually all cars these days have some sort of gas-charged strut. You find them on hoods, on trunks and hatches. They’re what make the hatch, or whatever item it is, move up and down smoothly and keeps it up in the air. You don’t want it to come thumping down on you, and that does happen because these struts can wear out.

So, there’s something new out theres by Sachs it’s called Lift-o-Mat, and they are not temperature sensitive. They compensate for temperature so that they always work smoothly and they don’t drop when the temperature changes. They’re pretty slick and they solve some of the common problems that you find with gas-charged struts.

Now in the area of safety, there’s the auto-dimming inside mirror. Now it is available with or without compass and thermometer and it works very simply. When the car comes up behind you at night with the headlights on, it dims automatically. Then when the headlights are gone, it comes back to normal. It’s a great safety feature and it’s a do-it-yourself installation.

Now this you’ll find on a lot of late model cars as an option. Smart Park 2000 is a retro-fit that you can do yourself. When you put the car in reverse and start to back up, if there’s something that is closeto the rear bumber, it beeps loud and fast. The closer the item gets, the faster it beeps.  Both of these are from the Mito Corporation and they add a lot of safety to the vehicle.


Last we have the Bosal exhaust system. Now it’s a Cat-back system you, may say ‘‘Well there’s all kinds of Cat-back systems out there.’’ But this one is unique in as much as it is called a Chameleon and has a wide variety of tips that can be bolted onto the end of the system. This gives you the look that you want, regardless of what that is. These systems are becoming very, very popular, especially on small imported cars.