Understanding the Importance of Checking Under the Hood of Your Car During Winter Months

When it is cold outside the last thing we typically want to do is pop the hood of our car to check and see that things are working okay under there. Granted you will not see me under the hood when the wind is blowing fifty miles per hour, and the mercury is well below the level which is required to support life on many planets in our galaxy, but there are times you simply cannot avoid doing this job.

Checking your oil used to be a routine thing that everyone did with each fill up, now some people cannot seem to find the hood release mechanism on their own car. The importance of keeping the fluids up in your car cannot be overstressed. It is just not worth the expense of a major repair because "the leak did not seem that bad to me." Even a small loss of critical fluids can lead to a condition which may severely damage your car. Think about the fact that you also run the risk of being stranded somewhere in the cold!

Obvious to some the most important fluid in the winter is your coolant and if this is weak or leaking then you are certainly headed for trouble. There are some reliable yet inexpensive leak stopping radiator additives which can buy you some time until your next paycheck comes in. Worst case you can try and push your luck until you can find the new parts required to fix your leak, but these are not meant as a permanent solution to any radiator leak. That being said however I have successfully used these to get through a particularly cold stretch until the car could be taken apart and repaired in warmer weather.

It is never fun to have a catastrophic problem with your car when it is cold out, but some of the strangest brake failures I have ever seen have been in the coldest months of the year. One was a problem with the master cylinder where a seal inside the unit was leaking, but only internally, so that the brake fluid would disappear as the car was driven with no signs of a leak under the car. The only indication was that the exhaust was funny color and smelled obnoxiously bad. It was an older car so the smoke seemed normal to the owner. It seems that while the weather was warmer this car did not have the same symptoms. About $175 later the master cylinder was replaced and no more brake fluid was lost! The point is the cold weather can cause some strange problems to arise that would have never been an issue in a warmer climate.

Another important thing to be aware of is your tires need to be maintained at their correct and required pressure. If they are too low than the car can handle erratically, and if they are too full then you could end up losing traction even in mildly inclement weather conditions. I have seen a car with low tire pressure actually lose the entire tire going around a corner because it peeled right off the rim!

Keep your fluids and other mechanical items up to par and you will make it through winter without incident. Seems illogical to some but I have seen that a clean car will run smoother on the highway, and probably cannot hurt your fuel economy either. Maybe this is wishful thinking on my part, but it really does help in the event you do have to work on it! once the road salt and dirt is on the car it can get all over you when it is time to crawl under her to drain the oil or check the brakes.

So give her a bath even if it is the do it yourself quarter car wash. It may extend the life of your older car as well as making your handyman happy with you.

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