Some of these Wrenching Wednesdays will be a chance for us, the writers of this fine site, to share our infinite wisdom with you. Other times, we’ll just have open threads to hear your problems and see if we can assist as a community. Today, I’m quite curious to hear what everyone here does to get their cars ready for winter and why.
Growing up in Texas meant that winterizing a car mostly consisted of remembering not to pour hot water on a windshield on the rare occasions (about once every 36 months) we’d get a light freeze. It wasn’t uncommon to watch people discover the thermal limits of safety glass in real time.
Now I live in New York and the winters are extremely random. A few years ago, it felt like it snowed every Thursday and all the surfaces were covered with salt, grime, and dirty snow. Last year it only snowed heavily enough to sled one time and even that melted off by the afternoon.
[Editor’s Note: When I first moved from LA to NC, I seem to have forgotten a lot about the concept of “winter.” I had my big old RV, and neglected to “winterize” it, which in the RV world has to do more with plumbing for biological needs than mechanical automotive needs. As a result, the freezing water blew out my pipes, and I had to spend like $4,500 to fix it, which we thought was worth it, because we liked using the RV so much.
Then, like the second trip out with it. it stopped running. I tried to get it going for a few weeks, and now it’s sitting in my driveway, long immobile, Turning into more of a disused guest house than anything that could actually, you know, move. I’m an idiot. – JT]
For my Subaru, I’ve recently replaced the tires with newer CrossClimate 2s and I’ll give those a fresh rotation soon. I’ve also cleaned the car and given it a new coat of wax to help resist some salt, though I’ll surely have to do that again. The car is almost due for an oil change so I’ll take it to my mechanic to get everything updated. Finally, I’ll toss on some new wipers as the ones I have are a little mediocre.
The BMW? I’m not sure yet. It’s sitting on extremely worn all-seasons. It’s a Texas/California car so I’m hoping to not drive it as much. Also, I’ve got to fix the heater or I’m not going to survive.
Where do you live and what are you planning?
Sacramento here. I need new tires. The car’s been on summer tires since I got it a couple of years ago. Not sure if I’ll go all seasons or summers (it virtually never hits 20 degrees here). New wiper blades. And replacing the open diff with a limited slip version (which has nothing to do with winter and everything to do with fun)!
Maryland here. We’re a ways off from snow, but I have some prepping to do.
Already did washer fluid, wiper blades, air filters, cabin and pre-filter, oil, transaxle fluid, coolant, accessory belt, spark plugs, and cleaned out drainage channels. Plus replaced the battery last year. I also just put a new set of Michelin Pilot Sport 4 Ss on it.
Oh, probably should do glass sealant/Rain-X again. Then wax and Leatherique. Outside of holidays, won’t really be driven. Wax helps keep it shiny the few times it might.
After holidays, it’ll get Sta-bil and a bit of octane boost before I fill up at the last fuel stop, then it’ll be put on its Flatstopper ramps, tires set to 38psi, battery tender and that’s it.
Every 6 weeks it’ll be run at low load (get oil temps up) for an hour to circulate fluids.
For the R53, I need to burn thru more of the gas in the tank before adding fuel stabilizer, filling the tank, running her thru the car wash and returning her to the garage and attaching the battery tender.
For the Outback (daily), I’m kind of excited to get the new Michelin winter rubber on bronze Sparco Assetto Gara rims installed. I absolutely did not want full rally aesthetic, but the car’s grey, Minnesota winters are grey, most other rims were grey or silver (or black, ugh) and I decided I wanted a little understated color for the winter half of the next several years!
Time to Fluid Film both cars before it gets too cold, fix any lingering maintenance issues and get replacement snow tires on order for my daily. I run the -20*F washer fluid year round so that’s good. Otherwise swap to snow tires when the mercury doesn’t consist get above 45*F and enjoy the season.
full detail, inspection, fix broken stuff, fill tank, add fuel stabilizer, trickle charger, cover.
My Daily: Switch battery management to “winter” mode. Replace wiper blades. Top up washer fluid. Replace shitty OEM tires that lasted only 25k miles with something less shitty but still all-season (because I can park it if it snows and drive the next car on the list)
Wife’s not-much-of-a-Daily anymore: Replace wiper blades. Top up washer fluid. Calculate how much longer until next oil change. Verify 3-peak tires still have good tread and are properly inflated.
16 yo Son’s Daily: Replace wiper blades and top up fluid. Verify the washer system hasn’t developed yet another leak. Verify he’s still up to date on maintenance (he does it all himself). Verify that he hasn’t somehow destroyed the 3000 mile old tires. Procrastinate on buying chains until about February 12th.
Fun Summer Car: Fill up tank + add fuel stabilizer. Park in garage. Plug in battery tender. Febreeze the interior.
Well had a blowout on Monday and my spare is one of my winter tires. So today went by my favorite Automobile repair place and had the other 3 mounted. Saved on all season for a spare tossed the other two.
Tip for those who run 2 sets of tires don’t buy the tires that get 60,000 miles. They dry rot before you get the miles.
Getting close to putting mouse repellent in my summer cars and then putting the best one under a tarp for winter. So I can have the garage to work on the winter cars if needed.
Winter beaters I fire up every now and then in the summer to mow around them. So I know they’ll run.
i have active ultrasonic and spray that work.
In the Suburban it’s mostly make sure I have the big ice scraper in place and chains and tow strap stuff in the back. It’s already running KO2s year-round.
Other than that, since I live in San Diego – absolutely nothing. (California is jacked up in many ways but the weather makes up for an awful lot of faults)
Winter prep?
The DD Tacoma I *may* throw a bag or two of sand in the bed but I’ll probably just suffer bad traction all year.
CUCV? I need to thrash to finish the brakes so my giant unstoppable 4×4 is finally dirveable for a winter…
Outback, I will just ignore as I always do until it breaks.
Oh, you know, the usual. I take it down to the filling station and change out the summer air for winter air in the tires. Top up the headlight and blinker fluid and get a fresh tube of elbow grease in case I need to do any real work on it…
I’m looking at getting an undercoating for my Maverick. I first thought of going to Krown based on David’s experience. But the more I look into it, I’m thinking of going with Fluid Film. Repair Geek put out this comparison video a few years ago that shows how rust develops over time after pressure washing a section of metal. Seems like there’s a pretty big give-and-take. A rubberized spray might be bulletproof against water but do you really want to try and hack through it while doing maintenance down the road?
As for my 97′ Mustang GT convertible, it’s going into a storage unit for winter. Going to do a deep clean, air up the tires, and add fuel stabilizer to the gas tank. The battery is also disconnected but I’m wondering if I should just yank it out and put it in a more temperature-controlled environment? If anyone has any suggestions for storing seasonal cars, I’m all ears!
I just hook my summer car up to a trickle charger add some fuel stabilizer and call it good.
Add on top of that a re-Febreezing because the previous owner was a smoker…
Oh I forgot about the dryer sheets in stuffed in the vents and under seats air box etc to try and keep mice from deciding to take up residence.
I do FF on my two cars. It’s not too bad to apply with the dedicated pneumatic sprayer. I splurged years ago for the nice sprayer with the wands and a 5 gallon pail of FF along with a decent compressor to run the sprayer. Totally worth it. Wear old clothes and at least an N95 respirator.
My first application took a few hours per car since all the plastic wheel well liners and other underbody shields were removed and sprayed behind as well as any plastic body plug that could be removed. Now it doesn’t take too long since the stuff under the shields hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s the areas that get blasted by water that need it.
For fuel stabilizer go with the Stabil 360 Marine. It works better at keeping moisture at bay and has a cleaner in it. All my small engines use it and start right up.
I live in Texas, thus I am making sure that my windows still roll down so I can enjoy the fresh air and temperatures that don’t melt tar.
2005 Grand Cherokee with the NAG1 that has some intermittent transmission issues (loses track of what gear its in and gets stuck in gear – turning it off and on resets the system and transmission seems to work, until it happens again). Instead of dealing with it in the spring I just parked it and drove my 2003 Infiniti G35 coupe all summer. So now I have to replace the speed sensor/lead frame and change the fluid in the Jeep before winter. Going to replace the bushing/wiring connector as well as I suspect it could be a leak/short kind of situation.
I fired up the rig after sitting all summer and was pleasantly surprised that it fired right up. She sounds a little raspy in motion due to the dust shield rust blooming into the back of the rotors. Dusted her off, used a broom to get the leaves off the wiper valance and drove down to the gas station to air up the tires and get the Transmission fluid warm and moving.
Luckily it’s supposed to be in the 60s next week in MN so I am going to take a day off to climb under the rig and do the thing.
I might ultimately need to replace the transmission or ditch the thing entirely but for 89 bucks the speed sensor lead frame is just to cheap to not try and see if it fixes the problem.
I live in the Finger Lakes region of NY. I try to run my motorcycle out of fuel and replace with non-ethanol gas, add a little fuel stabilizer and bring it inside the garage. If I remember I plug the battery tender in. My truck is on good all seasons, so it doesn’t need anything other than a wash and a coat of fluid film underneath. I will end up putting the snow tires on my mom’s Jetta TDI, which turns it from terrible in snow to absolute tractor.
Annual Krown rust spray is booked for this Friday on the good car that doesn’t see much winter. Oil change is due on the family hauler, may take it in between the ski swap and taking my kids to a movie on Saturday. Yes, I go to quick change places. I can’t be bothered to deal with waste oil and guaranteed mess and spillage. Snow tires will go on when its colder. I really should take my family car for under spray at some point, but it is also 11 and looks amazingly clean underneath for having lived in southern Ontario all its life. Getting to be time for new wipers but I’ll wait until Canadian Tire has a sale.
Most of the cars I have are riding on all-seasons; the ones on summers get changed to winters, and that’s done. That’s pretty much it. Oh, the Boxster will get its hard top put on shortly.
Gotta pop the cap on that antifreeze reservoir and make sure it’s still anti-freezing in there I guess.
Maybe I should care more, but I usually don’t do much more than an oil change and a wash for my MGB before putting it away for the winter. It’s also the one time of the year I put the top up… just in case there’s a nice day enough day to take it out for a drive with the top up. If I don’t put the top up on a warm day, it shrinks so much that it’s very hard to install. I have a battery tender I hook it up too as well. That’s about it.
The camper needs to be winterized soon, so that always takes a bit of time. It should get a wash and wax before winter, but I’m not sure if that will happen. I need to do a good wash and wax of the other cars too.
I’ve used a lot of different oil change schemes over time with different cars: every 3k miles (cheap insurance!), every 5k miles (easy to track on the odometer), or every X miles exactly as recommended in the owners manual for that particular car (usually something like 7500 miles). Now I live in snow country, and both family cars get designated snow tires, so I just incorporate oil changes into my winterizing routine: swap tires and oil on Halloween and Easter every year, and ignore the mileage altogether.
First is a proper detail on all the vehicles. Refill windshield washer fluid. I am looking to replace my OEM tires with proper all weather tires. (Thing one step below snow tires as central MD has been above normal temperature wise in the winters) . I’ve already done my oil changes.
I thought about my snow tires this morning. I wait until it’s in the 40’s before I put them on.
I am fully expecting my wife’s BMW to catch up to my lack of maintenance once the temperatures are below freezing.
The oil change and the tire rotation were done a few weeks ago. I do need to get the snow and ice brush out of the basement and put it in the cargo area, just in case.
I also want to replace the windshield washer fluid with the de-icer type. The car has a heated windshield so the ice-melting properties aren’t really necessary, but I don’t want the contents of the reservoir to freeze if I have to park outside in a cold snap.
Finally, I’ll check the battery in the portable tire inflator that also lives in the cargo area.
Coloradan here. Winter prep is the same set of simple steps every year:
Similar here (also in Colorado), although now that I live in the plains, I just swapped my summer Michelins out for Nokian WRG4s on my Polestar2, which are good enough for anything short of really deep snow. The 500e runs Vredestein Quatracs year-round because they’re a great all-around tire and solid on light snow. When they wear out, I may switch to the WRG4s for it or maybe some Bridgestone Weatherpeaks. Oh, and I’ll be refilling with low-temp washer fluid soon. With EVs, that’s the only winter prep needed.
P.S. – The WRG4s and Quatracs are the best all-weather tires I’ve ever used and are even reasonably decent on ice. Obviously not quite like the Michelin X-Ice I used when I lived in the mountains, but good enough for my purposes.
Sierra Nevada resident here. Just swapped the summer wheels/tires on my namesake vehicle for the three-peak winters. Replaced a very problematic EGR valve on same. Washed and waxed everything. Oil changes completed or pending on all vehicles whether needed or not.
Dar Khorse mentioned Michelin X-Ice. Use these on Mrs. OverlandingSprinter’s Legacy, and they are quite grippy in snow and ice. Where we live, the Legacy’s low ground clearance is a limiting factor. Hence, snow tires on the TJ and van when we need to drive during a snowstorm, which last winter was every week.
You mentioned California drivers. Any flatlander driving in the mountains is a menace until they gain experience and buy a second set of wheels dedicated to snow tires.
(rant) Even more of a menace are marketers of crappy “all season” tires that by design, perform poorly in cold temperatures. Proper snow tires use a soft compound that sticks to pavement in cold temperatures. All-season tires compromise hot dry, wet, and sub-freezing performance. Can’t have all three until someone invents a magic tire compound that performs well at 110+ degrees F and 10 F. A tough materials problem to solve. (/rant)