Saturday, January 10, 2009

Winter Vehicle Maintenance

Winter is here, we just got blasted for two weeks with snow and ice and now flooding.
The ice on your windshield can shred your windshield wipers.
If you have not changed your wiper blades in a while, now would be an excellent time to do so.
Get GOOD ones. Cheap wiper blades are a waste of time to change.

Check the protection level of your antifreeze. You can't believe what can happen to an engine block that freezes with water in it.
I have seen it a few times and it is ugly. The block literally splits wide open.
I actually drove a truck one time about a mile round trip that had frozen and I did not realize it until I parked almost exactly in the same spot when I got back.
I noticed a bunch of little metal disks laying on the ground, they were the freeze plugs that had been pushed out of the engine when the ice expanded.
I opened the hood and could not believe that that thing had even run!
The intake manifold had split, the heads had split and the block had split down both sides!

Yeah, check your antifreeze.

Top off the washer fluid, check the oil, belts and hoses.
Check all of your lights and just how soon are you going to be needing new tires?

Now is the time to get on top of the maintenance of your vehicle so it doesn't unexpectedly strand you in the middle of a snowstorm, at night.

Also make sure you have a blanket, some food and water just for emergencies.
A flashlight is a must have also.

A little preventive maintenance goes a long way.

7 comments:

  1. Wow Busted no rant! But dam good advise for anyone who's a car.If you don't take care of it it won't take care of you when you most need it.

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  2. hey busted!

    thanks for the reminder!

    did I mention that I had a tire adventure when I went first to visit my potential cat?

    I was driving the vehicle, and something seemed not quite right. But, I kept driving. Thankfully, I was paying attention- so I was only driving 55 in the slow lane on the interstate- I tend to speed, ordinarily. And, I had my hands in the 10-2 position.

    And then, kathunk, unstable clunk clunk. Left front tire flat- well, not just flat, but tread totally separated and spewed out on the road. And, some car cosmetic damage.

    Thankfully, my triple a AAA membership was up to date! Plus "Premium" so the long tow to find a tire place was not a concern.

    So, I would add, AAA is worth every penny!

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  3. I concur with VG in re: AAA!

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  4. Good advice Busted, and I second that blanket. If you got kids make sure you can keep 'em warm at all costs.

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  5. Oh honey, if I could send you this damn hot Santa Ana wind I would. It's so dry that even people with oily skin notice it. It tears my skin up.

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  6. Damn good advice Busted. I once laid underneath an old Chevy truck in the freezin' ass cold on a cat piss soaked rug, tryin' to jerk a 327 out of it to stuff into my '64 Chevy II, just to find both sides of the block cracked from the South Texas freeze of '89. It ran like a top when started up, but after seein' that, I dropped it in the bed of that old truck, and left. Pissed on, and pissed off!

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  7. You HAD to mention new tires . . . .

    I could have done without that reference, but thanks for the warning.

    And thanks for the rest of the fiendish comments on the end-of-Bush times.

    You ARE the MAN!

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