rev up your engines welcome to mechanic Monday where I try out actual products
then tell you about the good ones that pass my tests now the first thing I'm
talking about is this dash cam i have tried out scores of
these dash cams a lot of the cheaper ones are just that cheap the directions
sometimes don't even make sense in english you plug and it takes six
thousand years to figure out which buttons do what and then they don't work
at the time this dash cam isn't a toy it's an actual serious instrument it's
got sony exmor sensors in it they really work quite well simple
installation just plug it in a cigarette lighter or if you really want yet
hardwired to the car but most people are gonna plug in because then they can
unplug it and take it out so somebody doesn't steal it when it's just sitting
there trust no one these days I've had customers with dash cams they got the
window broken there so somebody come in and steal the dash cam when you're not
using them take them out put them in the glovebox hide them in the trunk
don't let them sit there because that's just another thing that these will see
hey I can steal that themselves and the cool thing is when you start the car the
dash cam automatically turns itself on so if you get in a wreck you don't
have to say oh I forgot to turn my dash cam on it turns itself on when you turn
the car on it turns itself off when you turn the car off simple operation simple
if you want it to be complicated if you don't got all kinds of buttons you can
set all kinds of shooting speeds how long the loop is how many minutes that
it shoots and then rerecords and shoots and Reaver cards but perhaps the most
interesting thing is it's got a G sensor built in so if you get in a wreck the
machine senses it knows you're in a wreck it locks the recording so all the
information is permanently stored on the micro SD card yeah it's made in China
it's a good product this is one of the few Chinese products I ever got that
came with an excellent instruction manual once you take the pictures it
shows you how simple it is to just plug it into your
laptop or your phone and download the pictures on there if you want in my case
it just said take the short cable there's a long cable a short one plug it
in your computer I plugged it in boom up come the pictures then I can
download them put them on a computer send them whatever I want to do you got
an insurance claim going on you can download on the video send it right to
them or if you're addicted to those Russian car crash videos and you want to
create your own hey this machine is great for that you can upload that stuff
like nothing make a video real fast maybe you'll get lucky and a little
camera see a meteorite creation on earth and you can sell that to the news
agencies hey the things running all the time it's recording and whatever's in front
of you and also in back of your and a side if you want this system comes with
two cameras you can stick the second one wherever you want if you want to have
full coverage front and back or side and when I really found fast thing about
this camera is its night vision capability this thing sees at night
quite well it really works at night no one really interesting aspect of this is
here's my camera at night and as you can see the camera can see the bright light
like your eye but the rest of it is pretty dark watch what happens when
you're looking at it through the camera of this dashcam notice what's a special
infrared camera you can see the buildings all around you get a much
bigger field of view with the camera on the dashcam than with your eyes or with
my regular camera so instead of seeing this where there's a lot of darkness
you'll get a much brighter view especially around the side of what's
happening you can even use it as a little spy camera to look around at
night if you want as you can see it won't see much of the naked eye or with
my Panasonic recorder here but with the dashcam and it's night vision you can
see quite a bit so if you're serious about a dashcam this dual
camera setup it's an excellent product it's not cheap tor not giving them away
but it's quality and you get what you pay for if you want a serious dash cam
now the second product that I like is really low-tech instead of a high-tech camera
it's a low-tech funnel but man does it work it's a sealed unit when you're not using
it it goes back together and when you are using it oh you got to do this on
screw the thing comes apart then when you're done filling things up guess what
you put it back together again you know to worry about it spilling because
whatever little food is left stays inside now the main thing I like about
this is one it can reach all kinds of places there's no arguing that but it's
solid this is strong plastic this is very flexible and it's not some cheap
thing that's just going to snap after you use it a couple of times I've been
using these things for months and months I've had no problems with it they're not
gonna crack because this is thick but flexible it's not one of those cheap
plastic things that you use a few times and it breaks it's solid made when
you're adding oil look the top has a screw in it just screws right on either
the quart so you can put it in for the big gallon in this case it's actually
five quart containers since it's got two sizes built in big ones can go on it too
they just screw on the top where it goes and it's got this tricky valve it's
really cool if you're in a hurry most people seem to be in a hurry these days
when you open this here click that lots more air in so when you pour it in the
air it comes out here and it actually fills up quicker and this actually comes
in handy because on the old Toyota you want it out quick because it flows
really well but you don't want fast falling engines like this Lexus v6
because look inside here as you can see inside there's a baffle plate right here
you pour it in fast it spills up and then drips all over the exhaust of the
engine so on this case you'll want the vent closed so it actually pours in a
bit slower and you know make a mess now who would have thought you needed a
two-speed funnel where all these eco lube guys did and I wouldn't have
thought of making this thing I just thought oh you got a poor it's lower
well this one forces you to parts lower and if you're hurry
have to you know put it up and it goes faster and since its mechanic Monday I'm
giving away one of these dual Pro dash cam setups they have a chance to
win place a clean non offensive comment on YouTube comments below and
the winner will be chosen randomly by computer to get a really high class dual
dash system to make driving that little bit safer in case you get in the wreck
or if you can make a really good video out of it if you can't see something
while you're driving, so if you never want to miss another one
of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell