Winter is here. What to keep in vehicle ?

[Bufford]

You guys must not get very cold, I need lots of gas to either keep the car running while in the store, or an exstention cord to plug the car in. Winter here is cold enough to freeze and engine in not alot of time after shutting it off, were talking minutes.

We often have days that rarely rise better than -30 but that is no reason to have to keep the vehicle running. I shut my engine off every time I have to get out of the truck even for just a few seconds.

Once the engine is warm it stays warm unless parked overnight. When it has been parked overnight and temps are in the deep canadian deep freeze that we enjoy, I set the block heater timer for no more than 2 hours. If a vehicle needs more than that it needs a tune up or repair.

One thing that you may want to try is using synthetic motor oil. When I switched over to synthetic engine friction is reduced, and the engine starts up on cold morning starts like a warm day in july. And the nice thing is that the oil pressure gauge rises much faster than using regular oils.

Go easy on really cold starts, while a maintained engine is more than willing to go, the drive line and transmission are stiff and need to go easy for the first mile before friction in the driveline softens up the tranny and gear oils.

 

[chewbacca]

Great thread.

This kit in my wife's SUV is better than the one in my car, but here is what I carry:
Carhart Bibs
space blaket
blanket
jumper cables
extra boots
extra gloves
extra hat
Cold Steel Spade
first aid kit
flashlight
Mora 2000
duct tape
"extreme" tape (made from silicone rubber good to like 500°F and electrically non-conductive, stays flexible to -60°F)
550 (type) rope
safety vest
fix-a-flat
umbrella stroller...not a survival item, but I am sure I could use it for something!

After reading some of these I should definitely add a few items.

 

[jds1]

+1 on the candle idea. :thumbup: A long life candle in a coffee can will give off a lot more heat than you might believe. Candle lanterns ar great too.

Jeff

 

[Unsub]

Where I live you get a straight 6 or 7 weeks of -40 and wind plus a lot of the -5 to -18 for the rest of the winter like it is today. In the cood part a car or truck engine outside gets cold in about an hour and totally cold like in the morning in about 3 hours.
Having a car port or even a nonheated garage is a huge improvement though.

I have a heated garage but it is full of toys so my winter truck lives in the car port.
It gets a couple hours on the block heater or sometimes the whole night on cold days.
Once it is totally warmed up it is better to keep it warm for the whole day. You can
turn it on to run in somewhere once it is warm but don't leave it off for more than 45 minutes.

Smog do-dads usually make a car or truck harder to drive in cold weather because they reduce the amount of gas getting to the engine to a bare minimum. The exception being the old style crankcase vent back into the carb models. They actually heat up the incoming air and make the engine get up to temp quicker.
The Edelbroc and other performance carb cleaners usually do without them
but stock is often better for every day use.

I had a OLD civic with a manual choke that could start off a 9V in -70 after being in a snowbank for a week. I miss the simple old engines!