rev up your engines, today I'm going to talk about 5 things that
you shouldn't do to you car in the coming cold weather,
and the first thing is this, if your windshield is all frozen up with ice, don't do this,
do not heat up a pot with hot boiling water and pour it on the windshield, because guess
what, that hot water can crack your windshield, windshields are not cheap, in this case it's
a good idea to have patience just start your car, put it in defrost full blast with the
heat on as high as it goes, then walk away, wait for the car to warm up,
the heat will melt the ice, then you can pick pieces of the ice off, but don't pour boiling
water on it, you can shatter your windshield, now the next thing not to do when it get really
cold is, if your windshield wipers are frozen to the
glass, don't turn the windshield wipers on to try to clear it off, it can rip the windshield
blades right off which is kind of pain, but more importantly, doing so can burn out your
windshield wiper motor, it's hidden inside here, it's a big enough pain to take it all
apart and replace it, but brand new windshield wiper motors can cost a small fortune, they
could cost $500-600 or more, it's not something you want to ruin because
your in a hurry and your going to turn the wipers on that are frozen to the glass, here
again you want to have some patience, now if you want and you have one of those
nice plastic scrappers, you can scrap all around the blade and if you can break it loose,
turn the heater on and let it melt at least a little bit and once their broken loose and
theirs a little heat going, then you can turn them on a little and every once in a while
they'll wipe, push pieces of the ice away as the defroster melts it and eventually it
will push them all away, but don't just rush into your car and slam those wipers on full
speed because you can do a lot of destruction, I remember one Christmas vacation we took
the kids to Lake Tahoe in California where it's real high altitude and it snows they
had like 380 inches of snow that year, all these cars were parked with their windshield
wipers stuck up in the air and I thought, what are they doing, well the locals just
explained, hey our wipers they freeze to the glass, if we pick them up in the air hey it
makes cleaning the windshield with a scrapper pretty easy then we can just put them back
down and drive away, hey that wasn't a bad idea really and of course
if you don't have a place you can park where there's shelter that's even better, then you
don't have to clean anything off, now the next thing not to do is, not to touch
your tires at all, leave them alone and don't do anything, you got to check the pressure,
because when it gets cold outside it's simple physics, the colder it is outside, the tire
pressure goes down because the cold air has less pressure than the hot air,
so always check your tires when the car is cold first thing in the morning because when
you drive down the road they heat up and the pressure goes up, your suppose to check them
cold, now this is an extremely example but it happened,
a customer of mine moved to Alaska, and they didn't check the tire pressure in their tires
and it got so cold outside that when he started up the car, and drove it a few feet, all 4
tires went flat, because it was so cold there, the pressure
had gone way down and tires are made out of rubber, when they get really cold like 40
or 50 below he was dealing with, their not that pliable anymore, and with low air pressure
and not pliable, as soon as they moved the bead on the tire where it sits on the rim
just flexed off and they all went flat, now odds are that isn't going to happen to
you but realize that really low pressure the car is not going to handle right, it's not
going to break right and the lower the pressure in the tires, the more chance you have of
getting a puncture because it's softer theirs less pressure,
nails can get in easier, you just want to check them once in a while when their cold,
the next thing is, don't forget about your car's battery, sure it's hiding under the
hood and you don't look at it much, but it's very important for starting your car, now
the colder it is outside the harder your battery has to work to start the car,
they have what are called cold cranking amps rating,
in this case it's 700 amps of cold cranking amps, now that's a lot of amps for this little
1.8 liter toyota engine, it originally came with a 450 cca battery
but they just put in smaller batteries because it's cheaper to make them that way,
my advice, get the highest cold cranking amps you can that fits in your car, the alternators
can charge them up they just put in lower ratings because it's cheaper to make the car
that way, and with cold weather hey have a mechanic
or auto parts store to check them for free, check it out before it gets really cold, it's
a simple test, just put negative on negative and positive
on positive, it's that easy it shows that it's got 100% state of health but it's a little
bit low and that because I don't drive this car all this much it's just a work car,
plus that battery is 6 years old it's on it's last legs, if I lived up north where it's
really cold I'd replace it now but here I just put the charger on it once a month to
recharge it and it works perfectly fine and it gets me through the next summer, one winter
when it doesn't start I'll just replace it, now the 5th and last thing not to do is don't
forget to check your antifreeze in your cooling system, sure it's a sealed system and nobody
ever thinks about it but you got to test it before the winter,
it's a very simple test you just suck into this tester and in this case it says it's
good to -35 F, now since it rarely even gets to plus 35 F here in Houston, I don't have
any worries about my engine freezing up, but even here in Texas,
I've seen guys ruin their engine, they'll do something like they put a water pump on
their car in the summer and their in a hurry and they just pour water in and their driving
the thing around and then a cold freeze does come in,
and if you know anything about water, when it freezes it expands so if your engine block
and radiator and everything else has too much water and not enough antifreeze when it gets
cold it will expand and it destroys things, it can crack the block in your engine, it
can destroy your radiator, it can do a lot of damage, instead of just going out and buying
a $13 gallon of antifreeze and putting it in,
and while your at it, kind of look at it, if it's all dirty it probably needs to be
flushed out, check with your antifreeze, some are good for 3 years or 90,000 miles, some
are good for 7 years or 150,000 miles, you don't have to change the stuff all that often
but eventually it does wear out, so now you know the 5 things not to do to your car this
winter, so you'll have smooth driving, it might be a little slick but at least you'll
be prepared, and since this is the thursday segment where
I answer a viewer's question, place your own question on the YouTube comments below and
I'll pick the best ones to make a single video to answer your question, and where else can
you find a guy with 50 years experience of fixing cars to answer your own question with
a video, so if you never want to miss another one of
my new car repair videos, remember to ring that bell!