Oufitting Your Truck for Winter With 4 Wheel Parts

Rigid round LED lights and mount kits feature up to 3,100 lumens of light, aluminum housings, and are SAE compliant. Universal fit applications use OEM mounting hardware, and are available for a wide range of late model SUVs including Wrangler, 4Runner, Bronco, and others.

We've upgraded a lot of lights to LEDs, and the difference can be striking. Even factory LED fog lights and LED running lights tend not to be very bright, and these are a huge upgrade. They also make outstanding bed, side, or rear work lights; or to add to a custom light bar. With a 2.14 amp draw, you can run them off batteries for a long time and still have juice to start, and they're rated at 50,000 hours lifespan. That's 34 YEARS at fours hours a day, or 5.7 years nonstop. Wild. Rigid has a limited lifetime warranty on these, so if you accidentally leave them on for 5.6 years straight and they die, the company will replace them.

But please, be respectful and remember that while these are street legal, they will absolutely blind oncoming drivers if you've raised your ride height, so turn them off when there's oncoming traffic.

You probably know all about the laser-measured, custom-fit, USA-made WeatherTech floor liners, and 4 Wheel Parts has them for almost 4,000 applications, all at least 10% off. We've used and actually tested countless cheap floor mats and while WeatherTech floor mats are more expensive, after a while you'll realize it's probably worth a few percent more for what you're getting.

If you want the WeatherTech limited lifetime warranty but want to save money, 4WP does carry their Universal cut-to-fit line as well. It takes some time and care to get any universal floor mat right, but it might also be your only option for an older or lower-production vehicle, or if you've tubbed it or otherwise altered the floors. At the top of the range are the DigitalFit floor liners, which use laser measurements of actual footwells to generate a precision pattern; and in between are the All-Weather floor mats. These are also custom fit, but just for the flat part of the footwell. The DigitalFit floor liners are sculpted to go up towards the sills, and around the various humps behind the pedals.

We just came back from SEMA, where seemingly every offroad build was on a set of Mickey Thompson M/Ts. What makes the Baja Boss A/Ts different from almost every other offroad-focused tires is that they are Severe Snow rated, meaning the tire's silica rubber compound will stay soft in subzero weather; and the tread is built with snow tire-like sipes that grab on to both rocky and icy slick surfaces.

Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/Ts come in a wide range of sizes for 15- to 24-inch wheels, and 20- all the way up to 37-inch height, in a variety of sections and width. They're the ideal cold weather on/offroad tire and will fit applications for which there might not be any other winter tires.

We were already fans of Security Chain maker Peerless, which is an American company over 115 years old, and makes our overall Editor's Pick for tire chains. They're also one of the few manufacturers which makes tire chains in larger commercial sizes for up to a 22-inch wheel diameter.

The Security Chain line is lighter duty than Peerless' Auto Trac, which makes it easier to put on. It uses a self-centering and self-tightening system which takes a lot of work out of the whole process. One of our commentors also mentioned,

"Every article mainly talks about chains for ice and snow (read: winter). When I was working in the Oil and Gas industry, there was quite a few times where I had to chain up the service truck on wet clay roads (mainly in the spring). That stuff is as slippery as ice! Chains saved my bacon in those conditions."

We've all been there (or in the ditch), so this is a great opportunity to grab a set and toss them behind your seats or in the truck box for an emergency. Just be sure you've put practiced putting them on at least once first, so you're not doing it for the first time in knee-deep snow.

We can't say much about Smittybilt that you don't already know. The company that Basil "Smitty" Smith started in his garage in '56 is still based in Southern California, and turns out a quality trifold tonneau under the Bed Guard name. We're shuddering just thinking of the times we've dug around in a snowy bed for a strap—or the gloves we left in there. Then there was the time we ran into a store for literally 90 seconds and when we came out, our grandfather's toolbox with his old specialty automotive tools was gone. That one hurt.

The Bed Guard cover is a low-profile design that installs easily and unlike some trifolds, can fold up vertically against the back glass for maximum bed access. It's available in a variety of sizes for most late-model trucks, although for the price we'd like more than a one-year warranty.

There are three essential tools for self-rescue: A winch and lines; a hi-lift jack; and traction boards (or whatever you call them). They're the first and easiest thing to try when you're stuck and let's face it: Nothing makes a rig look cooler than a set strapped onto the side. 4WP has several dozen different options, including some very aggressive deep sand, mud, and snow models, along with bags and mounting hardware. The sale includes traction pads from Smittybilt, ARB, DV8 Offroad, Mishimoto, Rough Country, and Rugged Ridge; and they come in 14 different colors because if everyone is going to see them, they might as well match. As of writing, prices started at under $100 before using our exclusive AUTOG104WP coupon, which makes them giftable, too.

We're actually in the middle of testing tow and recovery straps at the AutoGuide Garage right now, and we had a 3 x 30, 30,000-pound Smittybilt out in late October. It might be overkill for you, but thought it was easy to work with, and we didn't find any flaws in the stitching or construction. The sale includes 12 different two straps, snatch ropes, and kinetic ropes, so you can put together a complete set. There are also several different recovery kits; receivers, hooks, shackles, and rings; mounts; and even their great 54-inch trail jack.

Our golden rule not just offroad but every time we're out is that recovery gear isn't just for yourself, it's for everyone around you. In the last 12 months alone, we pulled a Jetta out of a ditch with a minivan, and a Mazda SUV up a snowy hills with a station wagon. Keeping a set of recovery gear in the back of everything you drive is the difference between being a good person, and one of those dopes who just keeps on going when they see someone in trouble.

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