Caring for cold cars

Slick roads, frozen windshield wipers and dead batteries may be the reality for Boilermakers dependent on their vehicles until the weather begins to warm up in the next few weeks.
Before you run and call a mechanic though, there may be some things that you can do to keep your vehicle up and running while also saving some money on repairs.
Safe driving
According to the American Automobile Association Foundation for Traffic Safety, bad weather and poor road conditions are responsible for nearly half a million crashes and over 2,000 road deaths every winter.
When driving, the AAA recommends drivers go slowly and refrain from accelerating or decelerating too quickly in order to maintain traction and avoid skidding.
One of the best ways to avoid an accident is to stay home or if you have to go out, only leaving if absolutely necessary.
“Even if you can drive well in bad weather, it’s better to avoid taking unnecessary risks by venturing out,” the AAA said.
Windshield wipers
During inclement weather, windshield wipers may present another issue that drivers may run into as they can freeze to the windshield, restricting vision.
To prevent this, the National Automotive Parts Association offers up a solution to defrost both your windshield and the wipers. Using a combination of rubbing alcohol and room temperature water in a 12-ounce spray bottle, drivers can spray their windshield and loosen up the ice, allowing it to be scooped off.
“Don’t turn (windshield wipers) on until you’ve heated the car completely up,” Caleb Martin, general manager at Beck’s Auto Center, said. “Make sure you can pull the wiper blades off the windshield before you turn them on (otherwise) you can really hurt them. If you turn them on and they’re frozen, they could strip the gears in the wiper transmission.”
Flat/Dead battery
With colder weather, car batteries have to work harder to start a car. With an already low battery, the vehicle may not be going anywhere until the battery is charged.
If you start the vehicle and it doesn’t immediately turn on, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the battery is dead.
“It could have been, for a lack of a better term, ‘zapped by the cold’,” Martin said. “You can go ahead and start it and let it run and hopefully it comes back.”
If it doesn’t, the battery may need to be charged or replaced.
To charge a car battery, the car needs to be jump-started, which anyone can do with jumper cables and a separate battery.
According to Kelley Blue Book, attach the red jumper cable to the positive charge on the dead battery and the black cable to a grounding bolt or metal part of the car. At the other end of the cables, the red jumper cable will attach to the positive charge and the black cable to the negative charge of a sufficient battery.
To recharge the battery, the car with sufficient battery should be turned on first, which should prompt the dead vehicle’s battery to start.
If the car doesn’t start after getting jumped, the battery may be dead and will need to be replaced, which can be done at your local mechanic shop.
“We’ve been seeing a lot of the batteries dying,” Martin said. “If you just had an oil change or if you went somewhere and someone has told you that your battery is kind of borderline, this is the weather that will kill it.”
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