How are your locks?

[jtbo]

It is still warm time to do some lock servicing for winter.

I did read that winter will not be easy one:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/ ... BW20110613
http://www.exactaweather.com/UK_Long_Ra ... ecast.html

So maybe it would be good to do little preparing, just in case, some care for rubber door seals and locks would help to get in and out of car, coolant antifreeze checkup and checking battery (very old will not work on cold, also good to check water level in battery if it just has those caps to open) + fuse box connections, that should help.

Thermostat needs also changing at the times, it is not lasting forever and will cause motor not to get enough warm quickly, causing excessive petrol usage.

Don't forget wiper fluid, freezing water will break the pump and sometimes even the tank, so better have some stuff in there that does not freeze.

Choke adjustment is also much easier to do at warm summer afternoon than sub zero temperatures or when it is pissing slush and water down.

Winter is not a challenge when one is prepared to it

[Chris_C]

I'm my gun oil at the ready bud

Never found that silicon stuff you said to rub into door seals though, fully intend to do that this year. A Finn's car guide to surviving the winter would be an interesting read though, I remember you've posted lots on it before but can't find the post now :s

[jtbo]

Try if there would be any good stuff:
http://www.volvo300mania.com/forum-uk/v ... ilit=latch

[MCHUDD]

Hi jtbo.
A couple of years ago i thought i had enough antifreeze in the 360. I did not.
It was parked up in the garage at the time as i was driving na na the bannana {the yellow one}.
In the deep freeze, the car popped out a core plug, wrecked the water pump
and wrecked the thermostat. Big mistake. I will not do it again.
Cheers Mark.

[Speedy88]

Yep, through these recent harsh winters it's showing up how we've lost the ability to prepare our cars for winter over here. I've got antifreeze at the ready. Never had an issue with locks, they freeze up but I just stick a hot kettle on them and it seems to work. I know the passenger side lock is still in brand new condition so I'll at least have that as a failsafe

[jtbo]

Just thank your parents that you did not born into Alaska:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-GSrrk_ATM

I just wonder if such cold will come here too, we have been near of it.

So, kettle will not help if it is that cold, but gun oil will still operate, I think it was -50C that gun oil still worked fine

We here use 50:50 mixture of coolant and water. It may still freeze if really really cold, but it will not freeze solid, just to slush so it will not make damage.

About silicone, rubber strip conditioner probably has that, if you happen to find such thing at there.

[Hell Driver]

Interesting weather forecast for this winter, better stock up on firewood now!!

[Speedy88]

They say this EVERY YEAR. Some bullshit about why it's going to be TEH COLDEST WINTAR EVAR. I don't know why everyone gets sucked up so much into it. Yes, winter is cold. Well done meterologists

[jtbo]

Some say every year, it is like here they will say every year that winter will be milder than average and soon Helsinki will be not getting snow at all, however our Met office is more like political tool than real weather forecasting unit, their monitoring stations are always hugely off during nights, sometimes there has been 20C differences to reality.

Anyway, what I have found is that those that account more than typical weather models seem to be hitting forecasts right at higher percentage than traditional warm winter model based forecasters.

Statistically yet another very cold winter would be quite something, there can be one or two colder winters, but having yet one more would push it already to something else.

At least in south america winter has been very difficult again.

[Speedy88]

I like the cold tbh, the chaos that snow causes and the challenge of just going to the shops in the ice. Nothing like a brisk morning to wake you up too. The only thing I don't like is the winter rain but usually I'm under a roof. I don't get paid if it snows and I can't make it into work. But that doesn't worry me, I always make it in

[jtbo]

In Chile they got 6 feet of snow at once, that kind of snow might have some challenges to deal with

Snow and winter has own advantages, but it is no fun to make anything to done to car when it is really cold, +10C is not too bad yet, but it is often colder than -10C which is not too great.

However I just love driving trough worst winter storms, preferrably at small roads that nobody else does not even try to drive on those worst conditions, snow so deep that car will not have power to go faster than 30mph, that is great