So your Toyota vehicle is no longer just another car passing in the street or parked in another fellow's garage.

Just a month ago you were bored with your car's looks and have been scouring the market for ways to give your beloved Toyota ride a little facelift without necessarily wiping the face off your wallet, or your credit card. You were happy to find that Toyota offered a vast array of top of the line car parts and accessories to give your car that additional zing - from colorful seat covers, floor carpets, and steering wheels for your car's interiors to body kits, ground effects, spoilers and hubcaps for its exterior.

For your car, you picked the Toyota hubcaps (also known as wheel covers) - those round metallic disks designed to fit snugly over the center space of a car's tires. More than protecting the lug nuts from exposure to the elements, Toyota hubcaps were guaranteed to give your vehicle a boost to its overall style. You were amazed at the vast collection of hubcap designs you were free to choose from: from the simple yet elegant steel wheel covers to the trendy hubcaps featuring a free-spinning center element, and to the upscale wheel covers which used separate anti-theft retaining screws with separate caps or covers. Before you knew it, you were sporting a trendier car around the neighborhood and the city.

So now that the new look is in place, how do you get to keep it?

True, maintaining a complete set of hubcaps can be a real challenge. The main reason for this is the process of changing tires. Every time you change tires, your Toyota Hubcaps must be pried out with a screwdriver or some other tool, which eventually causes the cap to warp. Since few drivers diligently carry around rubber mallets with them, more often than not, hubcaps are reattached loosely and incorrectly. This ultimately leads to the loss of one or more hubcaps. To avoid this from happening, take the time to periodically secure your Toyota Hubcaps by tapping the rim in a circular pattern with a rubber mallet.

In addition, your hubcaps should also be cleaned periodically. When washing your car, always use a suitable cleaner. Use care when removing your Toyota hubcaps when changing tires to make sure you don't damage or dislodge any of the retention clips. Bent or missing retention clips will cause your hubcaps to fall off, a waste of good money if you never find the missing hubcap again. When reinstalling the wheel cover, use extreme care not to break or bend the retention clips, especially when it comes to hubcaps with plastic clips. Apply pressure to the wheel cover evenly and gradually; never force the cover on. When installed properly, your Toyota hubcaps should be evenly seated around the edge of the wheel. If in any unfortunate event you should lose a hubcap, you can find comfort in the knowledge that finding an affordable replacement may only be a mouse's click away.