Expert advice: prepare car for -30°C frost
To prevent engine damage, it«s important to follow expert advice on cold-weather car care.
Ivan Krivolutsky, owner of the SGMaster auto center in Krasnoyarsk, told NGS24.RU how to prepare your car for the upcoming frosts that will hit the city on the last weekend of November — temperatures will drop to -30°C (-22°F).
First of all, the auto expert says, you need to drain the water from the windshield washer and fill it with antifreeze fluid. Next, check the battery — for this, you can go to a specialized service.
Also, Ivan Krivolutsky advises taking these additional steps:
place a special fireproof blanket on the engine;
change the oil to seasonal oil if someone used thicker oil in the summer;
set up preheating on the alarm system, but do not leave the car warming up for more than two days, otherwise the exhaust pipe could freeze from condensation.
If the car does freeze, the auto center owner says, it«s better to call for a thawing service or a tow truck so that «recovery» is handled by specially trained people.
«Do-it-yourself manipulations can lead to expensive repairs — it can squeeze out seals and gaskets and so on», — noted the auto expert.
Some motorists take the battery home in the cold — supposedly this will help start the car in the morning. However, according to Ivan Krivolutsky, this «in no way saves the engine from any damage if its start is unsuccessful».
«The battery loses its density and capacity in the cold, and if you take the battery home and start it in the morning, the chances that the engine will start increase by about 25%», — he explained.
This especially won»t work on cars that have been standing in the cold for a long time. As they, according to the auto expert, are more susceptible to any damage.
«Even if the car starts, the engine starts, the engine might still lack oil for some time until it warms up and turns into a normal liquid. Accordingly, roughly speaking, part of the engine will starve, and this can lead to scuffing (damage to the cylinder surface, manifesting as scratches and grooves — Ed. Note)», — he explained.
Earlier, NGS24.RU published a weather forecast for the last weekend of November — Krasnoyarsk residents will be quite frozen. And if on Friday the temperature is still tolerable, then on Sunday it«s worth dressing warmer.
We also learned how to protect your car from reagents that are sprinkled on the roads of Krasnoyarsk.
