I just checked the forecast, and my little slice of Northern Illinois will be a whopping -16 degrees Fahrenheit tonight before warming up to a balmy -6 degrees by daytime on Friday. Then, it’ll dip back into -11 degrees tomorrow night. Wind chill? Glad you asked! It’s going to be -40 degrees. How do you prepare your car for this?
Deep freezes can have a profound effect on your car. Let’s start with diesel vehicles. Diesel struggles to remain a liquid under 32 degrees. Diesel vehicles are basically doomed in sub-zero temperatures without liberal use of anti-gel. But even if you can keep your diesel a liquid, it could be so cold that your starter just can’t crank your freezing diesel engine and its syrupy fuel fast enough to actually fire the engine. A block heater and maybe an engine wrap are necessary here.
In the coldest regions on the planet, like Yakutsk, Russia, the risk of an engine failing to start is so huge that some people run their engines nonstop all winter. Others take measures to insulate their engines from temperatures that can drop below -50 degrees Fahrenheit. Even gasoline cars struggle when temperatures drop below zero. Engines crank slowly, batteries struggle, and if you’re as unlucky as I am about once a year, your car is staying where you parked it because the battery and starter just can’t get the job done.
EV owners aren’t totally safe, either. Aside from losing some range, some EV models may not even charge at certain crazy low temperatures, and some chargers may not be particularly responsive, either. What I’m getting at here is winter can be a menace to a machine just like it can be to your mushy, fleshy body. Oh yes, that’s a big deal, too. You don’t want to get snowed in while driving, and if you do, you have to make sure your exhaust pipe is clear.
Anyway, I get concerned whenever there’s a deep freeze. I fear one of my cars has condensation in its gas tank, wonder if its battery will survive the freeze, and worry my sunroofs and such may not be leak-free enough to not leave huge chunks of ice waiting for me on the other side.
I often prepare for a freeze by running my vehicles to operating temperature, removing as much snow as possible, and making sure the battery is topped up. Then, I flip up the windshield wipers, make sure everything is closed up, and hope for the best. The photos in this story show how bad things have been at home lately. It’s so cold and snowy that everyone’s car is messy and icy.
I tend to buy cheap batteries, and this is when they usually let me down. If I need to drive somewhere when it’s -10 degrees or colder out, chances are that super cheap Walmart battery is not going to be ready for the job, even if I had only recently purchased it. One time, this led to a weird situation where the only vehicle in my fleet that started was a motorcycle. So, I bundled up in snowmobile gear and went for a ride.
As you can probably tell, I’m not looking forward to the next couple of days. How about you? If you live in a place where winter exists, how do you prepare for what’s about to happen?
Top graphic image:Â DepositPhotos.com
I live in San Diego.
The trick to batteries in cold places: buy a heavy-duty battery (more than the factory one on rated cold cranking amps) that has at least a 4 year warranty for the daily driver.
It means the battery will actually likely last a while and won’t be junk in a year, because manufacturers don’t want to eat warranty costs.
When I used to have engines that could take conventional oil, I’d run conventional oil in the summer and synthetic in the winter, because synthetic flows so much better at low temperatures.
Finally, for really cold places: block heater. A hour or so on the block heater before I leave in the morning and the engine just snap fires on the first try.
Edit: Winter tires, too.
Unless you live in a place where it’s -20F or less regularly and for a long time all you really need are:
True winter tires aren’t a necessity but they really do make a big difference too.
“How Do You Prepare Your Car For Subzero Temperatures?”
I don’t do anything special. My car has quality all season tires that are good enough for winter… so nothing to do there.
I keep my fluids topped up and I plug in every night (as it’s a plug in hybrid). But that’s not specific to winter. Plugging in not only charges the HV battery, but the 12V battery as well.
Oh at the start of winter, I do take my snow brush and compact shovel out of storage and put it in my car. So there’s that.
Well, if you’re Ted Cruz, you leave your car at home and hop a flight to some place warm the minute the governor declares a state of emergency for cold weather.
It can’t be your fault when the power grid can’t keep up if you’re not there.
Nah, it’s the evil windmills’ fault!
Green power; the evil you least expect.
Switching to winter tires in the middle of October. A bit in advance , as after the first freezing day (we call it “body shop day” here) tire shops will have long queues. Also I used to change windshield fluid in advance cause if the damn thing freezes and you try it, you get a blown fuse in the best case or a burned water pump in the worst. Now I have a heated underground parking so it’s not a big issue. Maybe throw a brush in the trunk. Aside from all this – nothing else.
Um, don’t drive in such cold temperatures.
Prepare for a cabin-ation by getting plenty of food and water, make sure you have plenty of fuel for your emergency generator.
Heat your garage.
I keep my cars in a well-insulated garage. In the winter months, I keep a brush / ice scraper and a set of tire socks in the trunk, just in case.
This is true, and it’s worth explaining why. Lithium batteries like to be around 75F during charging/discharging for the optimal electrochemical ion exchanges to occur. This means when the batteries are very cold, the car actually needs to warm them up before charging, and this eats into the available charging current for the batteries.
I saw this firsthand trying to charge my Mach-E outside on a trip in -10F temps using a 120V charger. Nearly all of the wattage when into the battery warming, leaving only 100-200W for actually charging the battery. The car estimated it would take something like 4 entire days to charge while still drawing that 1500W maximum from the outlet. It’s like setting a space heater outside in a snowstorm.
I ended up just driving to a DC fast charger which had plenty of overhead to power the battery warmers while still charging the batteries at a fast rate, but it was really interesting to see how much power it takes to keep a big battery pack warm like that.
As a lifelong MN resident, I don’t do anything special to our garaged cars and they start just fine down to -30F+ (outdoor temp, likely warmer in garage but still very cold). This includes our 2012 Touareg TDI since the diesel here is adjusted for winter temps. As mentioned in the article, having a good battery is well worth the peace of mind in cold winters. Our 2011 Outback is parked outside and starts every time in the dead of winter with a decent battery. However, starting is just the first hurdle. After an older vehicle is started it’s always painful to listen to the engines/belts/accessories make awful noises to voice their discontent at being run so cold.
Depends on the vehicle. For my wife’s car I put winter tires on around the end of October. I will also make sure there is deicer in the wiper fluid or add methonol or some kind of rainx addictive that’s probably just methonol. I keep bottles of heat in all gas cars. I always make sure I have a shovel of some type they make some compact ones that fit in most vehicles ,some kitty litter and I’ve taken to keeping these rubber tread things for traction too. If I know I don’t have treated or winter blend diesel in a truck I’ll add some treatment. Typically I’ll check all the batteries during the first hard freeze. And always have a few jump packs ready to go. The $30 to $40 Chinese lithium ones have treated me well and I have several around. When the vehicle is outside I’ll leave it unlocked and wipers up and make sure I have a brush and scraper inside.
1) In my RAV (and similarly in the car it replaced, a GenII Prius) I get in, start the car, and drive away.
2) In my old Toyota truck, I get in, pump the gas about four times, give the key a twist.
2a) Say a bad word when the engine turns but nothing else happens.
2b) Pump three more times. This is usually enough.
2c) Twist and listen while the engine struggles. Stab the gas to get the choke to set properly.
2d) Go inside and finish doctoring my coffee while the engine warms up.
2e) Shuffle back to the truck, get in and drive away.
I live in Alaska. I don’t do anything special. My cars are parked in the garage though. When I didn’t have a garage, I’d plug in the block heater an hour before driving if it were below 20 degrees F. When parked away from the house out in the cold, I don’t worry about it. I never drove my car to work (as a bike/run/ski commuter), so I’ve rarely needed to leave a car out in the cold for more than a few hours.
When it’s below zero F, snow is less of a worry in terms of sticking to the car or making the roads slippery than when it’s around 32 F because it’s dry.
The diesel is all treated before it gets to the pump here, so no worries, even when I was driving the old diesel F-350 work truck for -20 F environmental field work back when I was working. I didn’t even know diesel could gel until reading previous articles here.
I think about extreme cold more on winter road trips, but that’s more a matter of having a winter camping gear. I already keep up the maintenance.
The one thing mechanical to consider for the handful of people that use aftermarket, unheated catch cans is to uninstall them and not use them in extreme cold. I had one a Gen 3 Prius and I needed to check it every fuel stop (about 500 miles) which was every day on a cross Canada winter road trip. Extreme cold condenses water vapor passing through and it freezes up. It would fill to as much as 1/3 full in a day. If you don’t check, it can potentially cause a blockage. Unscrewing a catch can with frozen threads in -40 temps is not fun.
Ohio guy. I have left cars unlocked because I’m not dealing with frozen locks in -10F weather. Wipers in the fully upright position if there’s any chance of freezing rain. Otherwise it’s just winter to me. Might take the snowbrush in the house the night before so I can remove 8″ of snow before I open the door and it all falls on the seat.
Swap the nordic winter tires and put the snow brush inside around November. The brush has a ice scraper, and Skoda has hidden an additional scraper inside the tank flap for emergencies. Mix the correct wiper booze mix. What more can you do?
Ok, during winter (and we have winters, -25 C two weeks ago): Wipers are lifted up or at least in the service position.
Start up? Since there is no block heater, the Webasto has a programmable timer or I just use the remote while having coffee… 10 minutes is usually enough to defrost the windows. If not, fire up the engine and turn on the electric windscreen defroster/heater? Also steering wheel and seat heaters. Yes, I’m just a big toasty cinnamon bun during the winter…. Of course the mirror and rear screen heaters are switched on if necessary.
If there is snow, it will be brushed off. There usually is. Also some shoveling or snow clearing may be needed as well.
Ok, esp. with the auxiliary heater and cold temps you must pay some attention to the battery, as the heater arsenal does consume relatively lot of electrons. But as I drive longer trips basically every week there have not been any issues.
That was an inconvenience of my former Golf of remembering to leave the wipers in the raised position if there’s chance of ice.
Also, on older cars with a cable driven tachometer and speedometer, don’t be surprised at below 0F the needles on the dash won’t move from their resting spot until the lubricant on the cables warms up.
Which is why in northern climates the diesel from the pump is treated to remain liquid down to whatever low temperature that region generally sees. Around me that’s -20. Further north they go down to -40 or -50.
I guess my answer to the question is that I built a new house with a large enough attached garage to park all of my vehicles inside. Unless I venture out into the frozen tundra this weekend they won’t be exposed to the bitter cold at all.
The only other thing I do is block the grille on my Prius. That tiny aluminum engine struggles to stay warm in really cold weather, to the point where you can feel the heat getting cooler. Blocking most of the ventilation in front helps a significant amount. I don’t bother with the truck because it’s got active shutters that do the same thing, and it’s a big V8 that stays warm much better.
As a young mountaineer in California, we would go into the Sierra in winter without much thought about cars except for the need to carry snow chains. Then in the winter of 1975 we rented a cabin in Alpine County to use as a base camp for a week. It got down to very low temps for CA (-8F was the high one day). The VW Thing would start right up (we drove around in it wrapped in our down sleeping bags), but the big Ford station wagon would not start because the dad we borrowed the car from used only 40W engine oil. So we lit a Svea white gas single burner stove under the drain plug, set out pots to catch the warming goo, and then brought the pots into the cabin to be heated further on the wood burning stove (BTW, the toilet bowl in the cabin froze solid) and then we poured the oil soup back into the crankcase of the Ford.
In 1991 we moved to western Montana, and that first winter it would get to -20F and the CRX was parked outside. I would bring the battery into the house at night to warm over a heater vent, and no problems. Door lock frozen? Heat the key with a cigarette lighter. Windows wont go down because the seals are frozen? Apply graphite spray after they’ve warmed up. Oil too thick (and no block heater)? Light a camp stove under the oil pan.
Also, when it is very cold, tires will roll square for the first few miles.