Brace yourselves fellow petrol heads, Winter is coming ! No matter what car you drive, BMW, Mazda, AUDI, Subaru, Honda or any ordinary 4 door sedan we all have the same annoying problems. Being a community, we asked our car friends for tips and ideas to make Winter less comfortable and less damaging to the vehicle.
Winterizing your vehicle is a wise idea. An investment of an hour or two to have your vehicle checked is all it takes to have peace of mind and help avoid the cost and hassle of a breakdown during severe weather.
You don't want to be stuck with an unprepared car ! Check out our tips, some are pretty straightforward and some pretty outrageous, but they WORK !
1. First thing's first. Liquids
Clean your car water cooling system. Go to a Professionalist if you are not sure how to do it exactly. Flush the old liquids and put new antifreeze in the cooling system. As a general rule of thumb, this should be done every two years. Many folks run on water, that's just too dangerous for the engine under freezing temperatures ! Best case scenario, the engine won't start, but if it starts it will surely overheat.
Also ditch the water in your Windshield wiper fluid tank and invest 5$ in some wintertime mixture !
If it's really cold in your area and you are closing your oil changing mileage it's not a bad idea to make an engine oil change earlier. Your oil loses it's viscosity with time and wear.
2. Electricity of the car!
No electricity means dead car battery and that means you are stuck in the cold with nothing to operate. Worst of all you might end up stuck on a icy road with no lights to warn the other cars that are heading your way. Imagine the cold you feel as you are slowly freezing and then colliding with a 2 ton object doing 70mph.
Not the most pleasant picture. To avoid that check the voltage of your battery with a multimeter as on the picture above, it should be around 12,4 volts but if your results show something under 12, the battery must be replaced !
You need to do a bit of car battery maintenance . Clean the clamps. Don't touch your eyes or your face ! Wash your hands thoroughly! Check to see that exterior and interior lights work and headlights are properly aimed and if everything works!
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Source: @topcarrating; @cheatsheet
