Driving visceral vintage cars and knowing the finer points of working a manual transmission or changing your own tire will all get you in touch with your car — in the classic sense. However, you don’t have to be born with an affinity for analog tech to get the most out of your car. From navigation apps (other than Apple Maps) to apps that help you find where cheap(er) gas is, these are our favorite digital friends for the motoring enthusiast.
Waze
If you think navigation apps begin and end at the default Apple Maps or Google Maps, you’re holding yourself (and your driving) back. Waze actively and accurately re-routes you around traffic accidents and construction while alerting you to road hazards and police.
MileIQ
If you commute to or drive for work, chances are you write off the travel expenses for business and tax reasons. When that’s the case, you don’t want an app that is cartoonish and laden with bells and whistles you never need. MileIQ cuts to the chase and just tracks and records keep a mileage log in the background while you drive to make it easier when you go to file tax deductions and saves users an average $6,900 per year.
GasBuddy is a way to find and share gas prices in your area. On top of that, if you join Pay with GasBuddy, you can save 15 cents a gallon on your first fill-up and 5 cents a gallon every fill up after that.
RoadTrippers
RoadTrippers can help you plan and record short weekend drives or cross-country road trips. Discover local dives, scenic points, national parks, and hotels along the way or take suggestions from friends directly through the app.
Castbox
Whether you’re a die-hard podcast listener or the local radio stations along your road trip route are all static, Castbox has you covered. With over 50 million episodes of podcasts in 70 languages from 175 different countries to listen to, Castbox works a lot like Spotify or Pandora, except purely for podcasts. Build a library of your favorite podcasts or discover something new with recommendations based on listening history and daily lists. Make the dread of the daily commute disappear.
Parkify
No one likes to forget where they parked. Even worse is when you download an app to help you remember, only to realize you forgot to turn the app on and mark your parking spot. Parkify uses the accelerometers in your phone to detect when you have parked and gotten out of your car after which it tags your car’s location — all without you ever opening the app.
Drivermatics Blackbox Dash Cam
Dash cams can be expensive, but they’re useful for a lot more than just recording meteor strikes in Russia. Drivermatics Blackbox Dash Cam records video, travel time, distance traveled, plus your average and top speeds for personal month-to-month comparisons, but that info can also come in handy for insurance purposes.
Dynolicious Classic
When car many magazines report 0-60 mph times, lap times, cornering forces and MPGs, oftentimes those stats are courtesy of test vehicles fitted with incredibly expensive data logging gear. If you want to head to the track or learn how to drive your favorite road to the fullest, that cutting-edge tech might not be fiscally possible. Dynolicious Classic does much of the same: it records all the data you could ever hope to know, is said to be accurate up to 1 mph and lets you share your stats with friends via email and social media.
Save yourself the cash and separation anxiety. Refresh your old ride with a few affordable upgrades.
