Message Regarding Your Privacy. I accept Submit Submit. Baby, its cold outside! Tips for starting your vehicle in cold weather. Turn everything off: Your battery needs to focus all its energy on starting your vehicle, so help it by turning off all electronics such as the radio, heater, defroster, headlights and windshield wipers. Try to start your car: Turn the key and hold it. Try again: If your engine is close to starting, but sounds slower than normal, give it another break and try starting it again.
Preventing cold-weather engine trouble There are some things you can do to ensure that your vehicle starts on those cold winter mornings. Check the battery: Ensure that your battery is in good condition and has enough cold cranking amps for the area where you live. Consult our winter driving tips guide on how to prepare for winter driving. Below, we list the four main reasons for winter starting problems:.
All your standard electrical accessories such as headlights, heaters and radios use up battery power, so turning all of these off before trying to start the car will give the battery a much better chance of getting the engine going.
If your engine does start, let it run a while before you switch any of these accessories back on or you run the risk of killing the battery again. Another sneaky trick that can sometimes work is dipping the clutch slightly as you turn the ignition.
This actually reduces the amount of work the battery has to do, and gives the engine a fighting chance of starting up, even in a cold car. Locate your car battery under the bonnet and take a close look at the cables. When you replace the cables, always connect the negative one last to avoid electric shock. As it gets colder, oil gets thicker.
At about 20 degrees below zero, by Grant's estimate, oil gets so thick that the engine's oil pump struggles even to pick it up and circulate it. Solution: The Car Care Council recommends switching to low-viscosity oil in the winter.
Don't forget to read your owner's manual, as the manufacturer may specify an oil weight for cold-weather operation. Synthetics can provide better startup performance and flow at temperatures down to Fahrenheit. Unless you live somewhere where the temperature gets down to degrees below zero, the gasoline in your car will not freeze.
However, water moisture in the gas lines can become icy. Solution: Keep the tank at least half full, the Car Care Council says. If your car has liquid crystal display LCD screens, such as for infotainment, you may notice that they become a bit sluggish when the car has been sitting in extreme cold.
That's because, just like the engine's oil and the battery's electrolyte, molecules in liquid crystals slow down when the temperatures drop. Solution: In vehicles where this is an issue, there is not much you can do beyond waiting for the car to warm up. Installing an engine-block heater will help speed things along.
Sub-freezing temperatures can cause the rubber on windshield wiper blades to become brittle, which means it could tear or crack.
Also, some washer fluid may not work as well in colder months. Solution: The Car Care Council said you could consider buying winter wiper blades made for harsher climates, but you could also just make sure the ones you have are not too old and worn. The council recommends replacing them every six months, but surely few people are that zealous with their windshield wiper blades. If your car's defrost function isn't working properly, that can be a serious safety issue.
The engine continues to run rich in this way until it heats up to about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. You're not off the hook if your vehicle runs on diesel, either. As the World Health Organization notes, diesel is sometimes used as a solvent to clean engines, tanks, and refinery equipment.
As with gasoline, you don't want to pump in too much of it for so long that it starts cleaning the inside of your engine. The life of components like piston rings and cylinder liners can be significantly reduced by fuel washing away the lubricating oil, which happens with the extra fuel used while the engine runs rich. Less oil means more friction, which can wear out, and eventually destroy, vital components of your car's engine.
Remember that worse fuel economy we mentioned earlier from the engine running richer while it idles? According to the Washington Post , National Resources Canada ran an experiment where they idled modern, non-carbureted cars before setting off at degrees Celsius, which is just under 0 degrees F.
Worse yet, idling is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions and particulate matter in the air. Researchers with the U. Department of Energy estimate that not only does personal vehicle idling waste 3 billion extra gallons of fuel, but it also releases 30 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air. That figure includes idling elsewhere as well, such as in drive-thru lines and stop-and-go traffic, but it demonstrates the magnitude of the idling scourge.
Perhaps one idling car sounds like a relatively minor drop in the bucket within the bigger picture, but as with a rainstorm, those drops add up, especially since needing to warm up your car is such a common misconception.
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