Who doesn't miss cars not starting in cold weather?

[Logical]

I remember when you could work on cars on your own. Change water pumps, etc. There was plenty of room under the hood.
Hell you could almost climb under the hood and close the hood!

But I also remember in cold weather trying to start the car. Spraying ether in the carb. Battery dying. Trying to warm the engine with lights or heaters.

I have to admit that cars now just start. No matter how cold.

I don't really miss the old days.

[Ptah]

1. Those were the days.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. my friend

[Ptah]

3. we thought they'd never end

[Kaleva]

10. She's still singing and putting out albums

[OriginalGeek]

4. I don't really miss it

But I do get a little nostalgic about it - from about 5th grade on my mom would "let" me go out in the cold, cold morning and start the car to get it warm. I thought I was such a big man! It didn't occur to me until much later in life that she was just getting out of freezing her butt off.

[Logical]

5. LOL, that is funny. n-t

[Paulie]

6. Reminds me why the hell did they think vinyl car seats were ever a good idea

Freezing cold in winter and blistering hot in summer.

Don't miss them except for the front bench seats.

[ConcernedCanuk]

7. Reminds me of an experience decades ago.

.
.
.

I was returning from California with a girl I met there to Northern Ontario in February 1980.

It was a lazy 4 day drive from SanDiego to 300 miles north of Toronto.

As we went up the secondary road approaching my brother's house she commented -

"Gee, I thought you Canadians were behind the USA"

I replied, "What do you mean?"

She replied "Well, LOOK AT ALL THOSE ELECTRIC CARS!!!"

I looked where she was pointing to all the neighbour's cars plugged in to an outside plug.

I couldn't help but laugh, and as she looked at me confused I explained;

"They are plugged in to heat the engine and/or battery - if they aren't plugged in at this temperature,

they most likely won't start."

In the North - block(engine) heaters and battery warmers are the norm.

Many of our employers even have electrical outlets just for that purpose in the parking lots.

-18C (1F) here this morning

That's cool (COLD is -40)

CC.

[Logical]

12. Good story! Thanks! Nt

[B Calm]

8. Are they really making better cars or better batteries?

[Mopar151]

11. Yes.

Anyone with a fondness for generators (vs. alternators) needs a swift kick in the slats with a Sorel boot. 6 volt enthusiasts won't last past the 2nd hour of the Dawn Patrol of the Jumper Cables. Electronic ignition, fuel injection with idle air control, multigrade oils, and gear reduction starters have collectively prevented more cases of frostbite than dry socks!
Batteries these days are none too shabby.... Volkswagen size (30 lb.) will crank over a high-compression big-block, no problem - back in "the day", a 55 lb. Group 27 battery would barely do.

[CBGLuthier]

16. fuel injectors perform better in cold than carburetors.

most cars use fuel injection now so that art of the equation has improved.

[Major Nikon]

23. Try starting a fuel injected airplane in the cold

The carbureted engine on my airplane kicks off before one turn of the prop every time while I see the guys with fuel injection having a heck of a time. When carbureted cars had priming systems they weren't that bad or at least no worse than fuel injection. When the prime mechanisms went away is when the trouble started as it takes a while for the carb to get fuel down to the cylinders and people tended to flood them by pumping the accelerator too much or not enough. It was also the cause of a lot of engine fires.

[Kaleva]

9. I can't recall the last time I had a flat tire.

[jakeXT]

20. And with new cars you can't change a tire, because there is none

A spare tire use to be standard equipment in a new car, an extra layer of safety distressed drivers could count on to get them out of a jam. But those days are over. Joan Freeman of Waltham, Mass., learned that the hard way after a blowout. She called AAA to have her flat fixed, only for the technician to find not a doughnut, but a repair kit for small leaks; totally useless with the damage to her tire.

"I never, ever would have bought that car without a donut," Freeman told CBS Boston. "What if this happens when I was alone, or it was at night, or my granddaughter was with me?"

AOL Autos told readers about this trend a few years ago, when automakers started ditching the donut to score better fuel economy. They're also abandoning spare tires for a number of reasons, including safety.

http://autos.aol.com/article/spare-tires-not-standard-new-cars/

[PasadenaTrudy]

13. I never had to deal with that

thankfully, living in SoCal. I remember rain getting in my old Bug's engine though

[Logical]

15. Unfair! :-) nt

[hedgehog]

14. But it led to such neighborliness -

in college, us commuters had a daily ritual of going out to the parking lot to start someone's car.

[RebelOne]

17. When I first moved to the Atlanta area from Miami,

I had a Cadillac Cimarron. That car did not like cold weather. It would start, but then it would sputter down the road until it got really warmed up. Now I have a Ford Taurus that starts and runs smooth no matter how cold the weather is

[CTyankee]

18. My husband is stuck in his 50s time warp...he tells me to warm up the car in the cold weather before

driving. It has just revisited him after several years when he didn't mention it at all...

[gvstn]

19. I still wonder about this.

I'm usually in too much a rush but letting the engine warm for two minutes so that the engine goes from high idle to normal idle still seems like a good idea. Not so much because it might stall but the cold engine oil gets a chance to warm up and lubricate parts before you really have to hit the gas to merge into traffic. On subzero or snowy days I usually do let it run for a few minutes before getting on my way.

[Major Nikon]

25. It's a good idea

Engines are built to better tolerances and oil and oil systems have improved which helps, but much of the engine wear happens between startup and oil warmup. If you live in an area that routinely gets below freezing in the winter, an engine heater option is not a bad idea. Oil pan heaters are pretty easy retrofits as well.

[gvstn]

26. Thanks.

Waiting two minutes for the "choke" to adjust was one of my grandfather's rules and he was always fanatical about having a well maintained car so I went with it. Of course, his cars were probably all carburetor except for possibly the last one.

The funny thing is that my first car was a used 280zx. It had a little window on the dash that would flash symbols as it checked things like tail lights, headlights, oil pressure etc. at startup. It always stopped at a symbol for water and some mention of cold. I didn't have a manual so I would let it warm up for 2-3 minutes and the light would go off. I was in college and would let my friends borrow my car but I had a rule that they had to let it warm up until the light went off. Which was fine but 18-22 year old guys hate waiting 2-3 minutes especially in summer but what the hell it was my car so they would do it. Anyway, after about two years, I am checking the fluids and the water looks a little low in the overflow tank so I add all of about 6 oz. Surprise the little light never stays on again. The whole time it was telling me the water was below the cold/min. line in the overflow tank (and I mean only mm. below but just enough to not reach the sensor). After that I got a little lazy about letting my car warm up.

Oh, and the time it just flashed STOP!...STOP!...STOP! was a bit of a panic, until I realized it was telling me I had a brake light out. Am I the only one that doesn't find internationally recognized symbols intuitive? If I were an alien finding the Voyager spacecraft and the gold disc describing our planet, I would never find Earth.

[politicat]

28. This gets covered every year on car talk.

Given a post 1990 car, I think their advice is sound.

1. Modern engines warm better under load rather than idling.
2. Idling for 2 minutes probably won't harm the car, but your wallet and our collective atmosphere talkies a hit.
3. Warming the engine but not everything else (idling) puts strain on all of the other components.
4. Warming under idle does weird things to the air-fuel mix that leads to the cylinders getting washed with significantly more gas, which dissolves the oil and may contribute to premature cylinder wear. In other words, an idle warm in a modern car may do exactly the sort of damage one is trying to prevent.

They suggest a 20-30 SECOND idle at below freezing, so basically scrape the windows, get in, start up, then do seatbelt, mirrors, fiddle with radio. Then drive gently for the first couple miles - soft acceleration, soft braking.

This is the procedure I've used with both of my modern cars; both had very long lives with minimal work needed.

[gvstn]

29. Good to know what Click and Clack have to say.

"Then drive gently for the first couple miles - soft acceleration, soft braking." This is generally how I drive but in snowy/icy weather always give the car a few minutes to warm up before heading out. I guess it goes back to my having driven hand me downs as a teenager that tended to stall or have other problems at times. It was safer to make sure they were ready before driving on possibly icy roads. Giving it less than a minute is where I am at now so I'm glad the Car Talk guys won't be berating me for excessive idling if I ever call with undue engine wear.

[politicat]

30. I drove a beater older than me for the first 10 years I drove.

It was built the autumn before I was born, and took considerable babying, so yes, she got the 2 minute warm-up, the kitty litter in the back, the full spare and cables, extra oil, extra every other fluid... It was a great car to learn how to care for a car, and cheap to run, and taught me good habits, but it was rear wheel drive, so required different procedures for the cold and wet.

I find that with ice now, I'm no longer worried that I'll stall, but that other drivers will have excessive faith in their 4WD, ABS and traction control. The first snow of the year is always an interesting day, as everyone re learns what they forgot over the summer.

[gvstn]

32. I hated the old American sedans.

My first few cars as a teenager were those old 70's boats that floated around on ice. Think Impalas that were as big as the old Cadillacs. Then I bought my first car which was a 280zx which I loved. It was great in snow up to 7" until it started to hit the frame. I felt very confident in Japanese cars since this one turned on a dime and hugged the road. Then I bought a 240sx as my first new car ( closest I could afford to something like the 300zx which was an actual equivalent to the 280z). It was terrible in snow. One inch and I was completely out of control. Its only saving grace was ABS which could stop you but the second you took your foot off the brake it slid sideways and I mean the whole car just slid sideways(horizontally) not gradually steered sideways. I'm still scared of snow because of that car.

Every front wheel drive car I have had since has felt so much safer. I don't fault people for feeling invincible in the snow because I used to feel relatively invincible in that old 280zx but when I was driving the 240z I had no control and couldn't explain to other drivers why I was driving 20mph when they could easily go 50mph. I had plenty of people jet around me because the roads weren't that bad but in my car they were terrible. AWD may still give you a false feeling of confidence but if you know you can drive 50mph in snow then more power to you. Just slow down when you know it is icy. Lots of drivers don't do that.

I loved this line in your post because I lived it for many years, "she got the 2 minute warm-up, the kitty litter in the back, the full spare and cables, extra oil, extra every other fluid...". I always feel helpless when I see someone in need of a jump start and realize that I don't have cables in my car. I hate that I know I have them but they end up everywhere else but in my trunk when I could use them.

[Blue_In_AK]

33. We plug ours in when it's really cold.

We're advised to plug in when it's 20 degrees or colder, but I don't usually do it unless it's zero. Even plugged in, when it's that cold, we let the car idle for five or 10 minutes just so it runs better and the heater is operative.

[trof]

21. And you always...ALWAYS...had a set of jumper cables in your trunk.

Either for yourself or some other poor guy.

[Tobin S.]

22. I still carry them, trof, even though I drive a very dependable 2010 Honda Civic

that will tell me everything about the car on the dash. If the pressure in one of my tires gets too low it will tell me that.

I got into the habit of keeping jumper cables in my car back when I started driving in the late 80s. The first truly reliable vehicle I owned was a 2002 Chevy S10 that I bought when it was three years old. I bought the Honda new.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

31. Me too.

And a fire extinguisher.

I've seen too many engine fires along side the road.

[madinmaryland]

24. I remember the smell of the exhaust from the old big blocks with carbuerators in the late 60's thru

the 70's. An exquiste smell when the engine was tuned perfectly!!

[Tobin S.]

27. You can still smell that odor here in the Indiana outback occasionally.

[davidpdx]

34. I've had some problems with batteries in the past few years

My car is LPG and it often sits for days without use, so I have to go out and warm it up. If I don't the damn thing won't start and then I have to get a jump from the car service and let it run an hour.