The other night, it hit me: the first scent of snow. The air’s been getting colder and colder here in New York, but that quick whiff of icy precipitation sealed it — snow is coming, and it’s not far away. Before that happens, there’s plenty to do: stock up on road salt for the driveway, make sure your snowblower actually starts, and — oh yeah — prep your car. Yesterday, we asked for your favorite cold-weather car mods, and today we’re combing through your answers. Let’s see what you said.
Winter tires are one thing, however, if you live in the land of potholes that could hide a basketball and 7 cats, you need to have a whole lot of sidewall between the wheel rim and the road.
My favorite mod is going down 2 inches in wheel diameter and up a couple notches in aspect ratio to give yourself enough sidewall to hopefully keep your wheels from looking like a Salvador Dali sketch.
Side note: It always amuses me when Car and Driver magazine does a 30,000 mile long term road test, bothers to put on awesome winter tires, then promptly bends the hell out of the wheels on Michigan potholes and then has to get new wheels for $4000.
Before you go downsizing your wheels too much, make sure that you won’t run into any issues with brake clearance. Especially if you have a performance car, where big brakes often fill the whole front wheel. Even without downsizing at all, a separate set of cheap winter wheels can keep your nice summers from falling victim to winter pavement.
Heated seats. I’m never going back to a vehicle without them. New ride has a heated steering wheel as well, it’s niiiiiice.
If your car doesn’t have factory heated seats, a heated cover is easy enough to add. Just make sure you turn it off when the car’s not running, because I’m willing to bet there’s no more efficient way to drain a battery.
I’m finding that the older I get, the more cold averse I become. I also get cheaper (ahem...”frugal”) every year, and inflation surely isn’t helping matters.
So, what to do in cold midwest winters when you have a base-model car that is always parked outside and the only cold weather mitigating option is a heater? I keep a small, warm blanket in the trunk at all times. Wrapping it around my legs and torso provides heat faster than any seat warmers I’ve ever had. Plus, once you get toasty, chances are the car interior is warm and you can just toss that thing in the back. Best, and most environmentally friendly, $10 I’ve ever spent.
The only issue with a blanket is that it still leaves your arms out in the cold. Luckily, the free market has already developed the perfect solution.
Block heater.
This probably isn’t an issue for most people, but a block heater can come in handy in those real cold climates. Alaskans, this is for you.
Back when I had my Fox body Capri, I would load two 50lb bags of sand in the hatch over the drive wheels. The extra weight helped with traction, and if I really got stuck, I could open one of the bags and throw sand under the tires.
Effective and cheap - I think sand was something like $3/bag back then.
Back when I had my FR-S, I was always told to throw a couple bags of sand in the trunk. I never did, and never had issues with traction, but I’m willing to bet that the Fox’s rear axle made things a bit more interesting.
Cold Weather Kit:
- Blanket
- Flashlight
- Batteries
- Matches
- Candles/sterno
- Food/water
- Flares
- Entrenching tool (shovel)
- Gloves
- Change of clothes
- First aid kit
- Set of basic tools
- Ice scraper
Commuted between NW Indiana —> Chicago west suburbs for almost 10 years, mostly in the Saab. Kept all of it in a big duffel bag once the snow hit the ground. Used everything in that kit at least once.
Gloves are an incredible help in cold weather. If you have a flat in the December cold, you’ll be thankful for an extra set of winter gloves shoved into your spare. They’re small, out of the way, and can keep your hands from freezing off on the side of the road.
Since we have an Outback on Blizzaks and the winter tires are “duh” obvious, we also carry a tow strap setup. It’s fun being the hero once in a while for an easy tug out of a tough spot. I’m basically repaying that favor from a farmer with a 4wd tractor with duals that dragged us a half mile thru deep drifts to the nearest main road when I was 17.
If you can help others out, it’s good to at least try. A Subie on Blizzaks is about as good as you can get in the snow without resorting to tank treads, so use that traction to help your fellow drivers out.
Tracks.
and maybe skis as well;
Or, you can try to beat that Subaru on traction. Screw it, throw treads on your car and let no amount of snow or ice stand in your way. To Grandmother’s house you go, come hell or high water.
Modify your thinking. You are your vehicle’s most important accessory.
When the weather gets cold and gross, plan for it. Leave earlier, drive like you should. “But everyone else is driving fast!” Well then they can wreck, leave your pride at home. Give your car time to heat up (if allowed), wear a damn coat and sensible shoes even if you have to put your work ones on in the parking garage. Keep a blanket, warm clothes and other supplies in your car. “But I only have one coat”, well then get an ugly-but-warm one from the VOA and leave it in your trunk.
Keep a scraper in your car, and also in your home/apartment so you don’t have to figure out how to get it out of your trunk when there’s 6 inches of snow on your vehicle. Use winter floormats, your carpets will thank you. Install high-quality wipers and fill up with winter-ready washer fluid. Keep them clean. Keep your whole car clean. Hose off that salt and grime.
If bad weather is coming, and you park outside, do yourself a favor a throw a tarp over your car. It’s bad enough you have to shovel the driveway to get out, but it’s soooo satisfying to just yank off the tarp and all the snow/ice with it. If you live in an area that’s prone to ice storms, this is a must.
It blows my mind how many people just...don’t do anything about the weather, and then act shocked when they have an accident or have things go wrong. But, I get it. Most people don’t really want to think about driving. They want to get in and go. They want to leave the house at the same time, drive at the same speed, etc. That’s why AWD is so popular - marketing says “you can drive in snow with confidence!”. But AWD can’t make up for every poor decision. Snow tires won’t save you if you still insist on driving 85mph on an icy freeway, or you only gave yourself enough time to defrost a porthole in your windshield. When winter comes, modify yourself.
I’ve talked at length about how AWD will only aid your poor decision making, rather than counteracting it. Don’t rely on it. Modify your thinking.
Remove your roof rack if you have one - Makes it way easier to clear snow.
Snow tires - Obviously, no explanation needed here.
Smaller wheels - Low profile snow tires will grip well, but I quickly learned that snow can easily build up inside of larger wheels, and throw of the wheel balance. I’ve been on the side of the road several times shoving my ice scraper into my wheels and around the brakes to clear out snow.
De-icing windshield washer fluid - Sounds so basic, but its a wise idea to put in washer fluid that wont freeze. Also makes quick work of frost.
Remote starter - I don’t have one, but I imagine this is a very nice feature to use in the winter.
Getting your roof rack out of the way helps you remove snow from your roof. Take this as your reminder to clear the snow off your roof. Yeah, I’m talking to you. Do it.
Since winter tires are, and should be, the obvious #1 answer, and pretty much every car has heated seats these days, I’m going to go with ‘heated steering wheel’. I thought this was a silly thing until I had a service loaner Audi A4 with such a wheel...it was a revelation. Instead of terrible bulky gloves, I could wear my regular thing driving gloves and still have warm hands! And it’s a safety feature, too...again, bulky gloves not as good for grip, but also cold leather tends to be slippery, so warming it up helps it stay grippy.
But for things that I ADD to the car for the winter...ever since I started driving, I’ve always had a fold-up shovel. My first was my dad’s old Army ‘entrenching device’ that he insisted we each keep in the car, but I have always had once since. All it takes is needing it once...and I did. It also was handy as a potential weapon when I broke down in the woods and there were black bear around (whether or not it would have been useful is besides the point, it made me FEEL better to have a ‘weapon’).
I also always have a blanket...but that’s a year-round thing, so I didn’t really count it (handy for an impromptu beach visit, picnic, etc.)...but it is also a good answer. I also have a couple of packs of hand-warmers in my toolkit, so that’s another idea (they have battery ones that also charge your phone, so not a bad idea there). On my bike, I always have spare gloves, but those would be useful in a car, too.
I cannot ethically endorse the use of a folding military shovel to fight off bears. I can, however, postulate that it’s probably more effective than trying to fist fight one. Your bare knuckles will be ineffective against their bear knuckles.
My wife’s from Maine. Northern Maine. As in, she shopped in Canada more than the US growing up, Maine.
The ultimate expression of how to get anywhere in the snow is a ramp for your pickup. The original Hybrid vehicle is a pick up with a snowmobile in the back. If you can’t get there with all that weight in (and hanging off the back) with the truck... you have a snowmobile. (Random Google search result below. This guy is going to get anywhere in the white stuff.
Look, this is Jalopnik. Did you think we weren’t going to tell you that the solution to your vehicle woes is to make more purchases? C’mon, just one more vehicle.
It’s going to depend on your local climate and activities. If you don’t get snow in town and don’t ski then you can get away with very little.
I live in an area where there’s lots of black ice and mandatory winter tires or chains in the mountains so I have studless tires, an annual Sno-Park pass, a good brush and scraper and an emergency kit with a shovel, food and water, extra clothes, a CB and a tow strap. This gets us up to the ski trails and over the passes in safety.
As anyone who watched Smokey and the Bandit at a formative age knows, CB radios are cool as hell. They’ll also allow you to contact emergency services if your phone is dead, or you’re stuck somewhere without signal. And you get to say “10-4" without looking like a total dweeb, which is worth something on its own.
Windshield snow cover.
My father was a volunteer firefighter, and winter posed a problem. When the alarm goes off, you’ve got to get in the car and go fast. Spending 10 minutes scraping snow and ice off the windshield just didn’t work. So he had a tarp that fit tightly against the windshield. He’d run outside, whip the tarp off, and his windshield would be clean and ready to roll in seconds.
There are products you can buy that do the same thing, but they’re way more expensive than a simply tarp.
The advantage to the tailor-made product is that it won’t come off in blizzard winds. The advantage to the tarp is that, when it does fly off, you can replace it quite a few times before you approach the cost of a store-bought cover.
A Garage. No scraping ice and brushing off snow, frozen wipers, waiting for warmup, slipping when getting in or out, etc.
The best way to prepare for cold? Stay out of it.