Road Trip Prep With Prestone and 3M & Giveaway

This summer the boys and I will be making our annual trek to Minnesota. That means getting the car prepared for the miles we're going to be driving and having the right items tucked away! This is where Prestone & 3M comes in. They reached out to me asking me to try their products, and hello, who could turn down such an automotive staple? Of course I agreed!

Now, dad has always done minor work and maintenance on his cars. He didn't pass that gene on to me.

Kidding! I love doing what I can on my own with my car. So much so that I've tried to pass that on to my kids. What I love is getting a call from my oldest daughter (who's in Minnesota) and her starting off with, "Mom, my car is..." I try narrowing down what might be going on and try to give her the confidence to figure it out or to be wise in finding someone who can help her.

Empowering myself and my family when it comes to our cars is really a necessity. Do you realize how much money you can save by doing things like checking brake fluid, restoring headlights, and checking your antifreeze/coolant? Keeping up with home maintenance on your own vehicle will not only save you money, but will extend the life of your car.

So, let's get into the nitty gritty before we talk about what you should take with you on any road trip!

Have you EVER driven in Minnesota in the middle of mosquito season? It literally rains bugs. And at night, forget about it. You may as well drive with the windshield wipers on. The Prestone BugWash® is what will get us through driving through the midwest in July! lol It's also great because it creates a barrier from things sticking to your windshield.

When we moved into our house Fred was parking on the right side and I parked on the left. I don't know what happened, but somehow we ended up swapping our cars around. One day I came out and noticed both of our driver's side mirrors were warped. I also realized my driver's side headlight was messed up. We think the windows on the house are doing the damage. The 3M Headlight Restoration Kit is exactly what was needed!

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm as skeptical as they come. For real. I'm rarely buyin' what you're sellin'. Get my drift? I'll be honest with you (aren't I always?) that I wasn't sure how this was going to perform. THEN what do I do? I kind of gave the kit the stink eye as I started the process.

I read through the instructions, grabbed a small spray bottle, and a Meguiar's microfiber towel, and set to work. The first step was to clean the headlight and then tape it with the tape that's provided in the kit. I was only targeting the damaged area because the rest of the headlight looked fine. If you're going to be scrubbing near the paint of your vehicle, I would highly suggest doing a double wide line of the tape in case you slip as you're sanding. Nothing like working on one thing and scratching up another.

There are 3 different grits of disks: 1000, 3000, and 5000. You use them in order from smallest to largest spraying the water on the light and disc as you go along. The steps are incredibly easy to read and understand. With the first pass of the 1000 grit the headlight was still pretty hazy. I was trying not to be too judgey judgey. I still had a couple steps to go.

Next the 3000 and 5000 grit were used and I finished by spraying off the headlight and then wiping it down once again. My initial response was, "No way!" I hadn't been expecting the results I got. It was literally crystal clear. You can see the difference in the before & after images. The only negative part was I now see how bad the rest of the headlight is and will have to do the rest of it! I mean, eureka. No need to drop cashola on replacing the entire headlight cover.

My hubby came home halfway through the restoration. Now, some of you might have a hubby who will just take care of all things automotive or if he sees you attempting something will swoop in and just do it himself. Not my guy. He knows better. lol He came over to say, "hi," and then went about his merry business.

I thought checking and filling fluids on my car would be relatively easy. And I'd say it was other than Chevrolet putting covers on things so you have to unsnap them to get to what you need. No problem. Just went to grab my car manual and flat head to find what was needed.

It was easy enough to fill up the windshield washer fluid. It's one of the most obvious looking caps under the hood. Every car engine I've looked at has that windshield wiper design on it. It was nearly full, but since it's spring, aka "bugs are alive and well season", no reason not to top it off!

From there I checked my brake fluid, but that was already full since my car had been into the dealer recently. Then came the fun of finding the spot for the power steering fluid. I found it in the manual, but realized it had to take off a rather large cover to get to it. So strange. Once I took off the oil cap, I just had to heave ho the large cover and it came off. Voila there was the power steering fluid. I cleaned off the dip stick, filled it up until the fluid was between the min & max, replaced the cap, and put the cover back on.

The antifreeze/coolant was a different story. The place to ADD the coolant was visible. The place to CHECK the radiator fluid, not so much. I had to remove an extremely large cover from the engine to see how the radiator fluid was doing after I filled the reservoir. Thankfully removing the covers only takes a minute. Everything was good to go so I replace the cover and was finished with my tasks.

Now that everything under the hood was taken care of, I wanted to show you what I like to keep in the car for not only road trips, but for any surprises that might come up! Here's the list of what we'll bring:

• blanket
• emergency road side kit
• snacks
• personal reading light
• power inverter
• hand wipes
• first aid kit
• sunscreen/bug spray
• bottled water
• tire gauge
• umbrella

I bought a tote a couple weeks ago, and a friend from church has an embroidery business. I put in an order for her to personalize the tote for all of the road trips we do, including to Minnesota. I love, love, LOVE how it came out!

Will you be hitting the road this summer? Where will you be headed? Before you go anywhere, be sure to enter the giveaway to win what I received from Prestone and 3M!

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