DON'T Get a Flat Tire at Night !

Since a light inside the car won't illuminate the tire attached to the car, having a flashlight is a necessity anyway. I have one in the glovebox and another on my keychain.

The keychain light (for example) is very handy to have. I'm surprised how often I take advantage of it.
.

 

It also can't hurt to find all that stuff in the *daylight*
in a safe setting and actually practice using it a couple of
times, right down to swapping on the spare. That way you've
got it in "muscle memory" for when you really need it...
.
_H*

 

Every BMW I've owned had a rechargeable flashlight in the glove box, plugged into a charging port.

 

Yes, it's true, my BMW had a glove box mounted, rechargeable flashlight, and a cool little toolbox mounted to the trunklid. For only $25,000 more!

 

Most cars I have owned each contained a flashlight and one set of dead batteries. The old tubular flashlights are especially good for storing dead batteries.

Tom

 

That is why I kept two dead battery storage tubes in my cars. That increased the odds of one failing and actually producing some light.

Battery shelf lives have greatly improved, and LEDs are much friendlier to nearly-dead batteries than were old-fashioned incandescent lamps.

 

That is certainly true. I like the new LED flashlights and headlamps, although I do miss the excitement of opening up an old flashlight and pouring out a couple of rust colored D cells and some suspicious looking chemical waste.

Tom

 

Love the description of the contents that you'd pour out of the flashlight!

Don't they make those flashlights you can shake and get light? Something like 20 minutes of shaking it for 20 seconds of light, right?

I have a small, LED flashlight that uses AAA batteries sitting in my center console. Needless to say, regular check ups of the flashlight is probably a good idea to make sure the batteries are relatively fresh/charged so that when you need it. On another alternate option, they do sell battery chargers (AA/AAA/etc) that come with cigarette lighter plugs so you can charge them from the car. Of course, you'd either have to keep it plugged in all the time, or hope it's a fast charger and you can get just enough to get the task at hand completed.

 

You must have used more capacious storage tubes than I did. My household has lost more than one Maglite because the leaky cells would not slide out. Not slide-hammer out. Nor let go of a cell with a lag screw bored in and trying to yank it out.

 

This option also has the problem that the calendar lifetime of most rechargeable batteries is shorter than the shelf life of modern alkaline batteries.

 

Me too, so I took to keeping one of those LED flashlights you crank to charge. A couple of minutes of cranking can give several minutes of light. They can be bought for about $10 and you NEVER have to worry about dead batteries. And while the light from these can be a little anemic, they have saved my bacon on more than 1 occasion.

 

That Superledlight place seems to sell a LED light that will charge in a 12V Aux power socket - which is pretty close to the BMW flashlight idea - though perhaps Toyota might have to look into nabbing the rechargable LED flashlight idea - even as a 'the port is free, buy the flashlight' type option.

 

dp

 

Use one of the flashlight apps on iPhone.

 

buying a $400 iphone to use as a flashlight strikes me as a pretty expensive solution to the problem...

 

I live in NY and called AAA when I got a flat. I sat in the car playing games on my iPhone until the truck arrived.

 

Lots of us here already have an iPhone, no need to stock a separate flashlight if you already have the device.