Cars and cold weather have never been the best of friends. When the mercury dips below freezing, all sorts of automotive coughs and colds begin to materialise. At exactly the time when your engine needs a little extra help, your battery may give up the ghost and lose its charge. Engine oil tends to thicken, making starting harder on both the engine and the driver. Door locks can literally freeze you out of your car, and when you finally get moving, your tyres often have to fight to maintain decent grip on a slippery road in icy conditions. Seeing where you are going can be difficult as a frosty mist collects on your windscreen, and even those smug drivers with heated screens may find themselves scraping the side windows to enable half-decent vision.
This is a time for care and a little extra preparation. To help us (literally) slip through the winter months unscathed, there are measures you can take and products you can buy at your local Halfords or Motorworld to take the bite out of cold weather driving. What follows are a number of hints and tips that will enable you to fight back against the frost gremlins.
FROZEN OUT !Almost as frustrating as a car that wont start is being frozen out of your vehicle altogether. Fortunately, this can be easily resolved with a de-icer spray or even a match or lighter. There are even some electric de-icers around that are designed to thaw frozen door locks by inserting a heated metal rod into the key slot. Such gadgets can be very useful and normally require just a pair of standard AAA batteries.
FLAT OR WEAK CAR BATTERY?Flat car batteries and difficult to start engines are common problems. The chemical reaction that produces electricity in batteries cannot always generate sufficient power when temperatures fall. Also, oil in the engine thickened by the cold makes the starter motor work harder when you turn the ignition key. At freezing for example, the power of a car battery can drop by about 15%, while the engine needs about 150% more cranking power. At about zero degrees fahrenheit, the battery has lost about 35% of its power at the same time the engine's demanding two and a half times more work. Making sure both the battery and associated systems are in tip-top shape is critical.
Always keep a good set of jump leads in your boot. Even better, use a portable power source which eliminates the necessity for having a good Samaritan on hand who is willing to lend a hand by using their car as a power source. Believe me, when people are rushing to get to work in the morning, you may find a bit of goodwill hard to come by. These rechargeable power sources contain a 12-volt battery inside a plastic casing, along with positive and negative clamps for jumping a battery.
PREHEAT YOUR CARAnother little-known solution is to install an engine pre-heater. These turn on automatically at a preset time and warm the engine prior to setting off. This can facilitate cold starts and is less wearing on the engine.
You could also consider having a remote control engine starting system installed. This enables you to start your engine from inside your home or office, pre-warming the vehicle interior. This may be of particular interest to those with leather seats, who know only too well the discomfort of getting into a freezing cold car first thing in the morning. This also gives the oil a chance to circulate around the engine before you set off, significantly reducing engine wear. This can be especially beneficial for some turbocharged vehicles.
CHOOSE THE RIGHT ENGINE OILA really good way to ease the load on your engine when starting the car in freezing conditions is to switch to a lower viscosity (thinner) oil for the winter. Something around 10W should do the trick, and still provide adequate protection when your engine warms up after running for a few minutes. Low viscosity oils are thinner on start-up than conventional oils, meaning your car will spring into life a little easier. Your engine is still protected in start-up temperatures as low as -50 degrees and up to about 400 degrees running temperature.
COMBAT POOR VISIBILITYMaintaining good visibility through your windscreen is always a challenge on a cold morning. Unfortunately there is still no substitute for a good scraper, a sturdy brush and a can of de-icer. In addition however, windscreen treatments are available to help prevent snow and ice from sticking to the glass. In addition, you could also add de-icer washer fluid to your screenwash reservoir, not only to help keep the screen clear, but to keep the fluid in the reservoir from freezing.
DIFFICULTY SETTING OFF?Despite your best efforts, you're always going to get stuck from time to time. This is where traction mats come in handy. They're laid out in front of the drive wheels to provide enough grip to get rolling and hopefully get out of the tough spot. You may also consider buying a bag of road salt, a relatively cheap solution to de-ice your driveway, or you could buy a specially formulated ice melter.
POOR TRACTIONAs the road gets slippery in icy conditions, the traction your tyres are able to maintain on the road can be greatly reduced. This can also be significantly affected by the type of car you drive, which wheels your car delivers the power to, your driving style and your level of experience of driving in adverse conditions.
Four wheel drive cars (Land Rovers and similar, and some sports cars) are generally the safest vehicles in icy conditions. As the car delivers power to all four wheels, when traction is lost by one or two wheels, the others can pick up the deficit. The easiest way to describe it is that each powered wheel can offer a certain amount of grip. Four wheels gripping the road will usually mean better stability and less tendency to lose control and slide.
Front wheel drive cars (the majority of small to medium hatchbacks, and some executive saloons) deliver all of their power to the front wheels. If the car does start to slide, the front wheels are likely to be able to pull the car back into position without the back end sliding out, simply by pointing the steering wheel in the direction you want to go, and applying gentle, controlled power to the front wheels. Whilst not as safe as four wheel drive cars, front wheel drive is the next best thing.
For the inexperienced driver, rear wheel drive, front engined cars (most executive saloons, some older vehicles, some sports cars) can pose problems in icy conditions. Fundamentally the main issue is that unlike a front wheel drive car where you can correct a slide by basically pointing and shooting, applying power to the rear wheels during a slide will often aggravate the problem by making the slide worse, or by making the car travel in whatever direction the nose is pointing. Furthermore, rear wheel drive cars are also prone to getting stuck in icy or muddy conditions as they are trying to 'push' rather than 'pull' out of the situation. For rear wheel drive owners, the advice is to keep your traction control (if you have it) on at all times, corner as gently and as smoothly as possible, and avoid sudden bursts of acceleration. If you do get into a slide, come off the power and counter-steer against the skid.
Typically, the most hazardous cars to drive in winter are mid-engined, rear wheel drive cars, accounting for most two seater roadsters and cabriolets such as the MGTF or Lotus Elise. These are even more dangerous in icy conditions than standard rear wheel drive cars as the bulk of the weight is in the middle of the car behind the seats. During a slide this causes the engine to act like a pivot and can send the car into a spin fairly easily. By their sporty nature, powerful acceleration, harsher gear changes and stronger brakes are more likely to incite a skid. Our advice is simply to drive very carefully and be respectful of the fact that your car was designed to thrash around a track, not an ice rink! Avoid sudden movements and drive as smoothly as possible. Again if you do get into a skid, come off the power immediately and counter-steer against the skid.
Whatever car you drive, the same basic advice always applies. Take into account the road conditions by adjusting your driving style and speed accordingly, leave plenty of time to brake, avoid sharp steering, acceleration and braking, and always drive in as high a gear as possible. Also remember that other road users are encountering the same conditions, so give them plenty of room.
EXTREME CONDITIONSFor extreme conditions, there are such things as heated windscreen wipers. Wired into the car ignition circuit and warmed by an etched foil heating element, they're available in various sizes and include an adapter to fit most wiper arms.
Many of us don't really have the need for full-blown winter tyres or snow chains, however in many areas of the UK, particularly hilly or rural areas, their use is fairly commonplace. Even if you stick to your all-season rubber, make sure you have a good tread depth. Worn tyres of any type will compromise both traction and safety, and may get you penalised. You can buy tyre grip resins that can improve traction by up to 250%. Such products have been used in Scandinavia for many years, although bear in mind they wear off over time depending on the road conditions.
AND FINALLY, A SHAMELESS PLUG!This is a car mats site after all! To keep your interior as clean as possible during icy or muddy conditions, a set of decent quality tailored mats will be easier to clean than some cheap mats, or for the ultimate protection, a set of rubber car mats may be the answer. |
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