[Administrator]

For those that have to deal with Winter and prepare for the elements, what does your prep plan look like? Do you have a certain date that you swap out your tires? Do you just give up and store your car for the Winter (do you use a fuel stabilizer, empty out the E85)? Do you have an emergency kit that you have to get ready?

Let us know how you prepared for battle with Old Man Winter!

~MR

 

[artfd]

When I drive in cold foul weather I wear an Alaska-ready parka with integral hood & removable fake fur ruff, long pants (sometimes with fleece lining or long underwear), toque, gloves or mittens, thick/warm socks and hiking boots. I do not just assume I can stay indefinitely inside a heated car that continues to run, no matter what else might happen to me or to the vehicle on the way. I check the local weather predictions twice a day, and make sure the tank is full whenever threatening weather is on the horizon. My local stores never market a suitable parka for local conditions, so I order mine from a Colorado maker that used to supply parkas for the Alaska Highway Patrol.
Spare food, water, sleeping gear is another matter. Before I retired I had to drive over the northern half of my state in any and all weather conditions and times of day as part of my work.

 

[Phantasm22]

We tend to not drive the Carnival in inclement weather and take our Subaru instead. One Kia comes out with an AWD model, we’ll likely trade in for that.

 

[artfd]

We tend to not drive the Carnival in inclement weather and take our Subaru instead. One Kia comes out with an AWD model, we’ll likely trade in for that.

My other driver is a FWD Elantra. I drove both during our recent severe cold snap. The Elantra was much faster to warm up and to clear its windows, which is my #1 consideration for cold weather driving. I have never had an AWD vehicle, yet somehow managed to drive thousands of miles all over the northern counties of Ohio in some pretty bad weather without noting a need for AWD. However, I have seen many AWD vehicles which have apparently skidded off the pavement during the same weather I was driving in. Their problem was their driver, not their 2 wheel or 4 wheel drive status.