As-Seen-on-TV Products Test ( I'm sure some of you have bought one or more of these )

There’s a ton of money in what appears, at first glance, to be junk. Just ask Mr. Ginsu, the Abs man, and George Foreman. Grillmaker Salton paid Foreman $137.5 million for the use of his name in perpetuity on its grill, basically a low-dollar, plug-in frying pan with ridges to drain off fat. The King Tut of  hucksters, Veg-O-Matic’s Ron Popeil, sold his business five years ago—ever see his tool that scrambles an egg in its shell?—for $55 million.

That got us thinking of automotive cockamamie like gas savers and smokeless ashtrays. What’s out there? We logged on to AsSeenOnTV.com and filled our virtual cart with $144 of the finest and flimsiest items that late-night TV—or, in this case, midafternoon internet—has to offer.

1. Sun Zapper

<table style="float: right; margin: 5px 1em 1em;"><tbody><tr><td> </td></tr><tr><td><small>The Sun Zapper, AutoVent SPV, and The Swivel Seat
</small></td></tr></tbody></table> ($16.95 + $6.95 S&H)

THE PROMISE: “Provides protection from the blinding sun, as well as reflections from other cars and reflective surfaces.”

HOW IT WORKS (SUPPOSEDLY): The tinted plastic panel clips to your sun visor. It’s like sunglasses but without all that strain on your ears. The “Sliding Sun Terminator” provides extra protection.

DOES IT WORK? It’s supposed to shield you from reflective surfaces but is itself a reflective surface. If you try to stare right through it, you’ll be confused by reflections of the cars behind you, of the rear of your car, and even of your own face. Also, the Sliding Sun Terminator is a small panel so dark it might terminate the driver—or others he crashes into. Flipped up so that the driver isn’t looking directly through it, the Sun Zapper works okay, but the constant play of reflections across its surface and the two-tone view out the windshield are unsettling.

Rating: 1 (out of 5)

ALTERNATIVELY YOU COULD: Drive while wearing a welding helmet.* *Not actually recommended. Just buy sunglasses.

2. AutoVent SPV

($19.95 + $6.95 S&H; buy two and the second is $9.95)

THE PROMISE: “Silently and efficiently eliminates stale, stuffy air from inside your vehicle, even on the hottest summer days!”

HOW IT WORKS (SUPPOSEDLY): A small, solar-powered fan clips to the top of your window and blows hot air out of the vehicle while it is parked.

DOES IT WORK? We placed thermometers in two Mazda 3s parked side-by-side in the summer sun. The car with the AutoVent clipped to the window heated up less quickly, but after just a couple of hours, both cars were the same temperature inside. The solar-powered fan has no switch, so, amusingly, it is always on when pointed at the sun—inside the car, tied to your dog, it doesn’t matter. It also has no battery, so the power quits as soon as the unit is out of direct sunlight. Which is good, because it’s not like the sun moves in the sky or anything.

Rating: 1

ALTERNATIVELY YOU COULD: Roll down the windows for a minute when you first get into the car

3. Swivel Seat

($19.95 + $7.95 S&H)

THE PROMISE: “Let you climb in and out of your car without twisting and straining your back or hips.”

HOW IT WORKS (SUPPOSEDLY): Add-on device is placed on a seat, and it swivels, kind of.

DOES IT WORK? It consists of two plate-sized disks of one-eighth-inch-thick plywood (severely warped, in our case), covered in “plush faux sheepskin.” The disks are connected by a bearing that sounded like it was filled with sand. Just place the unit on a seat, sit down, and rotate, though we found that there tended to be less resistance between our pants and the car seat itself. Also, one of the wood pieces broke. The weight limit for the device is just 250 pounds, rendering it useless for a potentially very profitable market segment.

Rating: 0

ALTERNATIVELY YOU COULD: Avoid being pathetically weak

4. Wiper Wizard

<table style="float: left; margin: 5px 1em 1em;"><tbody><tr><td> </td></tr><tr><td><small>Wiper Wizard, Smokeless Ashtray, and Pops-a-Dent
</small></td></tr></tbody></table> ($12.95 + $7.95 S&H)

THE PROMISE: “Will clean and sharpen the [wiper] blades, restoring complete windshield contact for better performance.”

HOW IT WORKS (SUPPOSEDLY): Simply slide the Wiper Wizard along your blades, and—voilà!—the edge is restored. Your wiper is as good as new.

DOES IT WORK? Sort of. We tested it on an intern’s Honda Accord and saw debatable improvement. So we followed up with another treatment, and now he needs new wipers.

Rating: 2

ALTERNATIVELY YOU COULD: Rain-X a pair of goggles and drive with your head out the window.

5. Smokeless Car Ashtray

($9.95 + $6.95 S&H)

THE PROMISE: “Pulls the cigarette smoke into the ashtray where it passes through [a] super-absorbent activated-carbon filter that instantly removes the smoke and odors.”

HOW IT WORKS (SUPPOSEDLY): Plug it into the cigarette lighter (which presents a problem, seeing as you’re going to need it to fire up your cancer stick in a moment), and a fan pulls smoke into the can. There it is filtered and exhausted out the back of the device.

DOES IT WORK? It doesn’t. Smoking in press cars is expressly forbidden, so we lit up a Camel in the author’s cube. The neighbors instantly complained. Not having the ashtray buried in a cup holder gave us a great view of the “filtered” smoke blowing from the unit’s exhaust vent. It runs on batteries, too, so you can have a nonfunctional smokeless ashtray with you wherever you go.

Rating: 0

ALTERNATIVELY YOU COULD: Use that $10 bill to roll a, um, cigarette.

6. Pops-a-Dent

($19.95 + $7.95 S&H)

THE PROMISE: “Professional quality dent remover.”

HOW IT WORKS (SUPPOSEDLY): Using a glue gun that’s included, you smear hot glue onto a threaded stem resembling a rigid, flattened suction cup, which you then affix to the middle of the dent. When the glue cools, lay the plastic bridge over the stem and screw a knob onto its base. As you tighten the knob against the bridge, it pulls out the dent; repeat as necessary.

DOES IT WORK? We chose the Pops-a-Dent not just because of its awesome name (although that was a factor), but because the patent-pending, arched design is claimed to eliminate the possibility of causing other dents—apparently a risk with these sort of things. Nevertheless, we could clearly see the metal bowing at the feet of the bridge, and it seems entirely possible that these indentations could become permanent. The pressure the unit applies to the sheetmetal is tremendous: During one application, when the glue finally gave way, the device shot more than 10 feet into the air. But, lo and behold, after four tries, the dent was nearly gone. As a bonus, the glue gun can be used to repair the Swivel Seat.

Rating: 4

ALTERNATIVELY YOU COULD: Go to a body shop. (Wow, a product that’s better than the alternative!)