It's that time of year again, freezing temperatures, awful driving conditions and all this can take its toll on you and also your car! We still need to get to work and carry out day to day duties so here are a few tips to ensure your usual routine runs as smoothly as it can!
A few simple checks can make all the difference, just once a week (perhaps at the weekends) check the following on your car:
1) Make sure your windscreen washer bottle is topped up and with an appropriate additive. With melting salt and grit on the wet roads driving in winter is the most likely time you'll rely on being able to clean your windscreen! It takes less than 5 minutes to top up your windcreen washer bottle, pop the bonnet open and look for a white (usually square or retangular bottle, sometimes only the bottle neck is visible from the engine bay but these will all have either a blue or yellow plastic cap on them. The cap will have a small picture of a windcreen and usually a few dash's dipicting water being squirted onto the windscreen). Simply open this cap and top up to the maximum, it is a good idea to use 30% additive and 70% water. This will help stop freezing in cold temperatures and also clean the windscreen more efficiently. Do not be tempted to use washing up liquid as this can cause smearing and in some cases they contain chemicals that wont do your paintwork any favours. Most supermarkets sell these additives and places such as halfords sell ready mixed solutions at a very cheap price (couple of pound for large bottle approximately) Put the lid back on and job done!
2) Make sure your window wipers are in good condition, you can lift these up and clean any dirt off these with a wet sponge and you'd be surprised how much better they work! If any bits if rubber are split they will need replacing. On cold frosty morning or when snow has fallen do not be tempted to put you wipers on to clear the snow of frost. More often than not the rubber will be frozen to the windscreen and turning them on can split the fragile rubbers and in some cases ruin the wiper motor which can then be costly to replace. Use the car heaters set onto the inner windscreen and a scrapper to fully clear the windscreen before turning on your wipers! This may take a little longer but will prolong the life of your windscreen wipers. I've known people to fit brand new wiper blades and ruin them within a week by not following these intructions.
3) Check your tires regularly, the inside and outside edge are the most common areas to wear down and become smooth (Especially on cars with power steering which nowadays is almost all cars). This will give you very little grip and in wet or icy conditions be utterly useless! In some circumstances a little air can be let out of your tires to give extra grip (basically the more rubber in contact with the road surface the more grip). This is only a good idea in very servere snow or ice and you must remember to top the tire pressures back up when out of these conditions to improve tire wear and also give you better grip on roads that are not icy! Usually most standard car tires psi (pressure) is around about 30 psi, I would recommend in ivy conditions letting 5-10 psi out of each tire depending if you have a front or rear wheel drive car. You must be aware though that this is only to get you moving on icy roads, as soon as you are out on the ice and snow and on usual road conditions you'll need to set the tire pressures correctly as soon as possible!
4) Check your car has enough anti freeze in its coolant system (most cars use water cooling systems that keep their engine from overheating in summer by running water around the engine block, cooled by the fan in summer but in winter this water can freeze). When water freezes it expands and in small often rubber hoses these can split easily which will result in your coolant leaking out of the car and innevitably overheating and in some case very severe damage to your engine. Most cars should have 40-50% mix of anti freeze and water in the coolant system. Anti freeze is usually bright green or pink so more often than not you can tell if there is anti freeze in your cooling system by checking the header tank. Anti freeze is extremely poisonous if swallowed so I am not suggesting you do this but as a mechanic you can often check if anti freeze is in a cars cooling system by dipping your finger in the header tank and then licking it. If it tastes very sweet then there is anti freeze in it.
5) It is a good idea to make sure you have a few items in the boot as these can b invaluable if the weather gets below zero. Items such as: a shovel or a spade incase you need to dig yourself out of snow, some warm clothing incase you become stranded and do not habe enough guel to keep the heaters running, a reflective triangle to warn oncoming traffic that there is something stationary in the road up ahead, a high visability vest (this is also law in countries such as France if you plan to drive over there), some carpet or planks of wood can be handy to put under the driving wheels if you cannot get any traction in ice or snowy conditions. To be honest the list is endless but it is always a good idea to have something in your boot that can help you if you get stuck, I have even used clothing under the wheels before and it does make a difference trust me.
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