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: DepositPhotos.com
Park.
Go Inside
Go with the actual – pre-windchill – temperature when figuring out what to do with engines and anything behind sheet metal. Windchill only applies when a surface is directly in the wind. Windchill won’t affect those parts as they’re blocked by the wind. Door seals, wipers, and exposed soft parts are going to be subjected to -40. The interior of your car and the motor/transmission won’t be.
More to the point, windchill is about how the conditions – actual temperature combined with the accelerated heat-removing potential of moving air – feel to a person. Things that don’t generate their own heat to live are unaffected by wind chill, they cool to the temperature of the air and that’s it.
Wind chill can prevent the electric cooling fan from turning on, if there’s sufficient flow over the radiator of a running, parked vehicle.
I’ve lived in new england my whole life, so my vehicles are always ready for cold weather. I just make sure the washer fluid is topped off before a storm, usually. (Or that I have a spare bottle in the trunk.) The down parka and scrapers stay in there year-round.
Move to an area that doesn’t get snow. There you go. Problem solved!!!
Replace the summer air in the tires with winter air.
Also top off with winter-blend blinker fluid.
I live in an area where the winters are significantly more mild than people who don’t live here would think (especially this year), so really all I do is let my car warm up a bit if it’s really cold and take it easy/keep it off boost until the coolant needle moves. And I try to avoid taking my 7.3 up to the mountains in the winter, especially if I’m staying the night. It will start but it doesn’t feel worth the trouble and extra wear on the engine. I think they treat fuel here but I also put additive in the diesel for winter just in case I need to drive it. I also just run the orange low temp washer fluid all year because I never had it time out where the right fluid was in my car before a deep freeze.
I mean… Not much? Even in -30 celsius my Honda Fit will usually still start after a few seconds of cranking. The battery is just over 2 years old now. My apartment parking spot isn’t energized so I can’t usually use my block heater, but that hasn’t really been a problem. I am accepting extra engine wear, I know, but I use slightly thinner oil (0W-20 instead of 5W-20) because Honda actually changed the recommended oil partway through the model cycle of the 2nd gen Fit, and that has helped with cold starts. I also avoid short journeys in wintertime, I always make sure the vehicle warms up less than halfway through the total journey time. Also started doing 8k oil changes since it’s getting old and seems to maybe be burning a little so limiting wear is already beaing somewhat addressed.
One thing I always make sure to do is start using real winter washer fluid come around October, like the -49 celsius-rated stuff. The -45 celsius “all-season” stuff is garbage and will freeze onto the windows at -10. I don’t know how they can get away with calling it that when it clearly cannot do the job properly.
My dad wired a cabin heater into the footwell of our Matrix (in parallel with the block heater) and it’s fantastic in super cold weather. Warms up way quicker, starts happier, and you’re not an instant ice cube the moment you step inside to warm it up!
Also- winter tires! Are so so important. Like I do not know why anyone would accept any less. Frankly if you can’t afford ANY winter tires (I know used ones are not the best but if you have no other option they are still better in that they are softer and still grip better) then you should not be driving in the winter. Period. Conditions can change on a dime in most parts of the continent. Be prepared!
This is all the right answers from a presumed Canadian who lives in the cold: thinner oil, no short trips, washer fluid (I once had to borrow a garage to thaw and empty my reservoir), and winter tires. As an Alaskan, I would only add put in a quality ice scraper and a shovel and, if you are leaving city limits, a winter sleeping bag.
That said, for everyone that will experience a few days of snow and ice, just stay home until it melts. Even if you are prepared and capable, few others will be and the roads not maintained so you are just putting your vehicle and self at risk.
“My dad wired a cabin heater into the footwell of our Matrix (in parallel with the block heater) and it’s fantastic in super cold weather.”
That is a really good idea, so good I’d expect sellers of block heaters to have this as an additional add-on kit option.
I prepared by pulling the cars in the garage. This is easy since my wife helps me keep my desires to own 20 cars in check so we only have 2, haha.
Well, obviously you should build a 20 car garage. Duh…
Ah yes the dream!