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First of all, it is uber-important to take the time to warm your car up in the morning. Let the engine run for 5 to 10 minutes before you take off. Remember, your motor oil is about the consistency of molasses in a freezer and until it warms up, won't be doing squat to protect your engine. Same goes for your transmission fluid as well. If you don't allow them to warm up, your engine and tranny have next to no protection. Which leads to this.....
Metal doesn't like cold. Metal gets brittle. Metal can easily fatigue and snap. This goes for your engine parts, the transmission, and your suspension. If you roar off doing your usual Thunder Road trip and hit a pot hole, you will snap your suspension. Which in some instances would be fitting karmic revenge, but generally, most of you are pretty decent folks who don't deserve such a fate. For those who do deserve it, most likely this will happen in a place that will inconvenience the most amount of people, like the Expressway at 4pm. Take it slow and easy, especially when you first get going.
When you start your car and put on your heater, do not run the defrost at full blast. Why? Because you will cause the windshield to expand and it may well crack or shatter. Even just the sun, as weak as it is, can cause this to happen. Run your heater first or if you run the defroster, don't run it at high temperature. And when you drive, be aware of any strange noises, especially cracking ones that indicate your windshield is letting go.
A few maintenance tips. Keep your gas tank at least half full. Before they started adding ethanol to gas, it was a good idea to add drygas, which is just alcohol, to your gas. I'm not sure if ethanol has the similar qualities and if anyone is a mechanic or just knows the answer to this, let us know.
Check your antifreeze. As the name implies, it will keep your engine from freezing and if you are low or the antifreeze in your engine is weak, your engine block can freeze and crack and then you have major major problems and may as well just set your car on fire and blame it on the neighborhood thugs. If you're not mechanically inclined, you can buy pre-mixed antifreeze and add it yourself to your reservior, usually located on the front passenger side of the engine and has a hot/cold level mark on it.
Check your windshield washer fluid too. I recommend the low-temperature yellow/orange fluid, rather than the blue. Lower freezing temperature. Quick fix too is a bottle of common rubbing (isopropyl) alchohol dumped into the washer fluid tank if your lines happen to freeze. Also, a tip I learned from a mechanic- let your windshield wipers warm up a bit before using them. They get cold and brittle and won't do squat until they regain their flexibility.
Get yourself a little thing of de-icer for your locks in case they freeze. Another quick fix is to hit your lock and/or your key with a lighter.
When you park at night, turn off all your electrical things- headlights, radio, heater fan, etc- and let your engine run for a couple of minutes. This will help charge your battery to full and that little extra bit might make the difference between your car turning over in the morning or just sitting there coughing and mocking you.
Good luck and stay warm everyone!
January 3 2008, 20:14:14 UTC 4 years ago
I ride the Red Line!
...
SHIT!
January 3 2008, 20:41:58 UTC 4 years ago
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January 3 2008, 20:14:36 UTC 4 years ago
few clarifications
"..trip and hit a pothole, you will snap your suspension.." your suspension wont warm up with your engine.ethanol IS a form of alcohol
antifreeze goes in the radiator, not in the engine. (yes it runs through the engine though if water in the engine from radiator freezes, the engine will start and promptly melt the ice. it will not however melt the ice in the radiator whitch will lead to over heading your engine.)
another good note is carry a funeral candle in your car. If for somereason you need to spend the night in your car in a snow bank or some stuff. a lit candle is enough to keep the inside fo your car above freezing, and keep you alive.
January 3 2008, 20:26:45 UTC 4 years ago
Re: few clarifications
yeah, but suspension repairs can sometimes run you even more money than engine repairs.4 years ago
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January 3 2008, 20:16:59 UTC 4 years ago
This happened to me. A pupil-sized divot in my windshield expanded into a twenty-four inch crack after one of the cold snaps last week. The entire windshield had to be replaced.
January 3 2008, 20:35:06 UTC 4 years ago
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January 3 2008, 20:27:11 UTC 4 years ago
Warming up. Taking a ride to recharge. Might as well drag the photo gear along too...
January 3 2008, 20:34:06 UTC 4 years ago Edited: January 3 2008, 20:35:29 UTC
<- worked with auto glass for 4+ years.
January 3 2008, 20:38:09 UTC 4 years ago
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January 3 2008, 21:03:24 UTC 4 years ago
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January 3 2008, 20:48:58 UTC 4 years ago
Get yourself a little thing of de-icer for your locks in case they freeze.
AND KEEP IT IN YOUR PURSE/DESK/BRIEFCASE/ETC.
i know that may seem obvious, but goddamn if i've seen so many people who think the best place for car items is the glove compartment. super, but fat lot of good that will do you when you can't get in your car to get it :D
also, my locks don't freeze but the seals around the doors do, again making the car useless if you can't get in. [was real fun last winter climbing in through the hatch for a bit.] anyway it will still happen to me from time to time but a trick is to rub a bar of soap along those rubber things and it happens way less now. i'm also careful about leaving anything with moisture on it in my car - put the wet snowbrush in the house if i'm not going to need it, no open bottles of water or whatever, soaking wet boots, etc.
January 3 2008, 21:23:17 UTC 4 years ago
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January 3 2008, 20:49:45 UTC 4 years ago
And it takes a long time, I find, for the heat from your engine to warm up the transmission fluid.
I think I'll head over to cartalk.com and see if they've got some more tips tho'. Good post!
January 3 2008, 21:02:08 UTC 4 years ago
They do, however, agree that it is good to avoid highway driving for the first few minutes if possible. Low speed driving will warm up the bearings and transmission far more effectively than a sitting idle car will.
Also, the best defense for your engine against cold weather is thinner oil. 5w30 or 0w30 gives you a great deal more protection against frigid temps.
There was one general exception. If you scraped your window but still can't see out of it, it's not a bad plan to let the car warm up 'till your window defogger works. Safety first, right?
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January 3 2008, 20:54:46 UTC 4 years ago
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January 3 2008, 21:40:54 UTC 4 years ago
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January 3 2008, 22:58:02 UTC 4 years ago
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January 3 2008, 23:27:47 UTC 4 years ago
Um ya, not a chance
It is no longer necessary to warm up your car, it is just a waste of gas, money and time. It also increases the chance that your vehicle will be stolen.Having worked with metals for quite some time. It is almost impossible for temperatures to drop low enough to effect the metal in your car. If you really think it can get cold enough to damage your vehicle, please avoid flying. It gets colder out there.
While it is possible for a sudden blast of warm air to shatter cold glass, it is not possible for an automobile engine to generate that kind of heat upon starting cold. Most cold weather windshield cracks are caused by people attempting to clear ice by slamming the ice scrapper on a cold windshield. Not by a sudden influx of warm or cold air hitting the windshield. If this was true, all the people driving out of heated garages would see their windshields shatter in their driveway.
It is not volume that shatters glass, but the sound wave. That is why some singers can shatter glass. Replacing the trunk with big bass speakers can do more damage to windows than just blasting the average car stereo. However, if you blast your stereo over 89db for more than two hours a day you are over the noise level standards set by OSHA for workplace noise.
Anti freeze is mislabeled, it should be labeled 'engine coolant'. It keeps your engine cool in the summer, not really warm in the winter. Being low on anti freeze is a bigger problem in the summer when your engine can overheat while being stuck in traffic. It is still a good idea to keep the coolant at the proper level, but the weather outside has nothing to do with it.
Modern windshield wipers are not made with rubber. Once the blades are no longer frozen to the window they can be used. Using windshield wipers when they are covered with ice is a bad idea because it pushes the wipers away from the window thus reducing contact with the windshield.
Ok, now I am getting bored with corrections. SO -
Don't put rubbing alchol in your washer bays, it's a bad idea for so many many reasons.
Hitting a frozen lock with a bit of flame. Oh the horror. Keys are made of soft metal. Many new keys have smart chips in them. The heat generated even from a small amount of flame is enough to damage a car key.
Once your battery starts the starter spinning, which starts the engine, it switches from draining to charging. Running your car for a few minutes in the drive way does not 'continue' charging the battery. If the company that made the battery did it's job, the battery recharges withing a few minutes of driving.
As for sitting in the car and running it when you have reach your destination, see the earlier sentence about warming up the car. However, turning off all electronics and shutting off your headlights before you shut off your vehicle is a good thing.
In total, I know the OP thinks all this information is correct, but much of it is not.
Considering the length of the OP, how could you have missed clear all the snow off your vehicle?
January 3 2008, 23:59:03 UTC 4 years ago
Re: Um ya, not a chance
> It is no longer necessary to warm up your ca> Having worked with metals for quite some time. It is almost impossible for temperatures to drop low enough to effect the metal in your car.
You've never turned a wrench in your life. Here's one for you, exhaust manifold bolts. I've seen cracked blocks, and actually seen one happen, for someone flooring it after starting it from dead cold
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January 4 2008, 00:44:36 UTC 4 years ago
Corrections to corrections
While it isn't necessary to leave the car idling (and can in fact be better to just drive it away), it's really important for the car to be kept to low RPMs (<2500-3000 or so) until it's fully warmed up. Idling just happens to be one way to safely warm it up, although most people with an automatic transmission driving in the city without a lead foot won't have much trouble sticking to the low RPMs.Yes, it gets colder outside an airplane. And they are specifically designed with that in mind. I'm not saying cars aren't designed to operate in the cold, but they also tend to undergo much less rigorous maintenance schedules than airplanes do, which can weaken parts and make them susceptible to damage.
While the defrost won't cause the windshield to crack at startup, running it at maximum heat and fan speed certainly can once the engine warms up. At highway speeds, the exterior is being continuously cooled while the interior continuously heated, which can generate enough forces to crack the glass. I've personally watched a several inch crack appear in a windshield because of this.
As far as the stereo goes, I think the OP meant to keep it down so you could hear any potential cracks... not because it increased the risk.
Actually, antifreeze is there specifically to keep the engine coolant from freezing when ambient temperatures drop below 32F. In warm climates, you can often run straight water as the coolant, because it never gets that cold. It does also provide protection on the high end by raising the boiling point, but most engines are designed to run below 212F anyway. What I think the OP meant by "check the antifreeze" was to make sure you have the proper antifreeze:water mixture. Some people will top up with just water, which can throw off the proper ratio and raise the freezing point enough to make engine block damage a potential reality. Heck, according to the CarTalk page linked above, even the standard 1:1 mix might not be enough for some winters, as it only provides freeze protection down to -34F.
Considering the windshield washer fluid tends to be some blend of water/ethanol/isopropanol/methanol/etc, why exactly is it bad to add a bit more isopropanol? Not that I think it would do a whole lot to melt frozen lines, but it could help keep them from freezing in the first place.
As far as the fire/lock thing goes... I think by "small flame" he's talking about perhaps a lighter, not a blowtorch. And most locks can certainly take that amount of heat without any problem. If you're applying enough heat to damage the lock/key, it's way too much heat. And why would the key be in the lock while you're applying the heat?
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January 4 2008, 04:40:39 UTC 4 years ago
Re: Um ya, not a chance
Dude. What planes are you flying in that they're made of the same shit as a car, JetBlue?Metals totally feel temperature. As does all matter. It's, like, a law of the universe.
Windchill, however, does not affect inanimate objects.
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January 7 2008, 04:25:10 UTC 4 years ago