Author: Jeremy Nutt

Being a gearhead in a cold and wintery environment is the absolute worst!  Without some kind of heat source in your garage, you won’t even know that half of your knuckles are missing. You say you don’t have a garage at all? I know that lifestyle all too well. In that case, you might as well forget that the outdoors even exists until March 11th. That’s when the 2018 daylight savings finally rescues us from never ending darkness and unproductive evenings.  Now, I’m not trying to be Debbie Downer here. I’m just writing what every single sub-30-degree-living car enthusiast is thinking. Being a Massachu…setts…ite(?) and hardcore wrench spinner for my entire life, I’ve learned a few things that may (or may not) help you survive another depressing winter.

Here is my top 10 list of things that all gearheads need to survive winter:

#1 Carhartt Jacket

I don’t know how people survived before these existed. I prefer the heaviest one that they make, with the hood, and all black in color. That way you can go straight from the junkyard to the class reunion and nobody will have a clue (other than the smell) that you’re covered in oil stains and gasoline. Most importantly though, these jackets keep the wind and cold out. In late January, when everybody else around me is crying about the cold temperatures, my jacket allows me to feel like I am on a beautiful Caribbean island.

#2 Carhartt Overalls

No, I am not getting paid to brag about this stuff, I promise you. Same deal as above, but I do recommend trying these on in a local store before buying them. You want a size that will slide over your jeans easily, and not bunch up, and not show off your ankles to old man winter.  Obviously, I also prefer a dark color for its filth-hiding properties. Combined with the jacket, these basically make you unstoppable in a winter environment.

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If you look at the Environmental Protection Agency’s fuel mileage estimates for the 1994 Honda Civic and the 2014 Civic, you’ll see very little improvement.  To make sure we’re comparing apples to apples, let’s look at base-level sedans with a four-speed automatic.  You’ll see that when the 1994 was released, it tested at 29 miles per gallon in city driving, 36 mpg in highway driving, and 32 mpg combined.  The 2014 tested at 29 mpg city, 38 mpg highway, and 33 mpg combined.  With 20 years of technological innovation and rising gas prices, the Civic only gets one more mile per gallon of gas.  How can that be?

Certainly the car has gotten heavier over the years, and more technology has been added which can mean more drain on the fuel.  But actually, if we dig in a bit deeper, we’ll discover that the Civic has made a bigger improvement than you might think at first.  The problem is that in the above comparison, we weren’t really comparing apples to apples, because in 2008, the EPA changed the way fuel mileage is calculated.  The Civic has gotten better, but the test has gotten harder.

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Cold weather can take a real toll on your gas mileage.  As I pointed out in an earlier post about winter gas prices, gas companies sell a different fuel blend in the winter, which produces less power.  That’s not the whole story, though.  There are a number of other reasons why you have to gas up more once it gets cold out.

The Impact of Frigid Temperature on Your Auto

The first is that your engine has to work harder in the cold.  First of all, the oil that lubricates your engine gets thicker when it’s cold, which means there’s more friction on the moving engine parts.  You also probably use more electric accessories during the winter.  Think of your heating fan, lights, defrosters, windshield wipers, and all the other parts that draw on the battery.  You run a lot of these more often in the winter.  That drains the battery (which already drains more easily in cold conditions) and means the alternator has to work harder.

The grip of your tires also contributes to your fuel use.  As tires roll, they actually flex a bit to make a contact patch with the road.  That helps you get more grip.  Rubber gets stiffer in the cold, so it doesn’t flex as well.  That means they’ll have a smaller contact patch on the road and less grip.  That means you have to use more power just to get going.  If your wheels slip, then you’re really wasting power.  The engine’s pushing but you aren’t getting anywhere.

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Imagine this. It’s the coldest day all year.  You go out to start your car so it can warm up.  When you turn the key, maybe the starter runs for a couple seconds and quits.  Maybe it doesn’t even try at all.  If you live in a cold climate, this has probably happened to you.  Why do batteries go dead in cold weather?  Is it just bad luck?  Is the electricity frozen?  What’s going on?

As it turns out there are a number of factors that make winter especially tough on your car battery.  Batteries don’t discharge as well in cold weather, they don’t charge as well in the cold, and you probably put more demand on the battery in the winter.

The Science Behind Batteries Dying in the Cold

A car battery works through a chemical reaction.  There are plates of lead dioxide and plates of lead, immersed in sulphuric acid that’s diluted with water.  The sulphuric acid breaks up into hydrogen, with a positive charge (basically, it’s short an electron), and sulfate with a negative charge (it has extra electrons).  The hydrogen reacts with the lead dioxide and more sulphuric acid to form lead sulfate and water.  In that process it has to take on an electron to make up for the one the hydrogen was short of.

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