Winter preparation

[Bren]

What do you do to prepare your chod for the winter months?

 

I remember in the past I have resorted to undersealing and waxoyling, can't be bothered any more just keep it clean and make sure the antifreeze / screen wash is topped up.

[eddyramrod]

I buy a Volvo!

[willswitchengage]

Driving the car... more! The warmer months are for two wheels.

 

I also sold my 4x4 last month. That was a dick move.

 

We have a stubby driveway, the ultimate WIN is on a frosty day put a fan heater on an extension cord in the back of your car as you eat your breakfast. Five minutes later: warm and ready to drive 

[mercrocker]

I used to laboriously scrape and paint and waxoyl the old stuff before the onset of winter but I have got lazy with that particularly after the Minor dropped its arse all over the drive like a prolapsed granny in a cloud of flaky biscuit.   I wax the seams on the T25 and throw a tin of de-icer in each car but thats about it now.   Each passing birthday increases the chance of this stuff out-living me so I think WTF?     If I have something stored away (this year its the Oxford) I get it out on a dry day and run it up to temperature, through all the gears and exercise the voltery but that is more about not buggering me about than it is about preservation....I usually turn out one of those 1960s Practical Motorist mags with a Winter Preparation feature round about September 8th, read it avidly, write a plan of action and do absolutely FA about it.    I am a keen advocate of blankets and bottled water in the car ICOE but they stay in there all year so thats not really winter prep, either....

[fordperv]

i make sure my car is well polished, serviced and keep an eye on fluid levels

[Mr Lobster]

Toledo gets winter tyres thrown on and screenwash topped up and the occasional jet wash but thats as far as it goes. R4 goes into 'winter lay up' in the garage and might get dragged out on a warmish, dry day just to get everything moving.

[Station]

Will be getting the rust removed and waxoyling the Justy before winter. I also have a Volvo.

Not driving MR2 in winter as it was terrifying. My driving has improved 10 fold thanks to that in the wet/ice/snow but my nerves have gone.

[seacow]

I was pondering this earlier - all the trains were fucked today so drove the Montego into Edinburgh, through floods and over the windy bridge (which shut shortly afterwards!!)  never missed a beat.  I dont wash it as often as I should now we are in salt season and it has many short trips.  I keep thinking I should take her off the road so it doesnt melt and buy a winter ride - which is basically an excuse for one more car.  But fuck it theres room on the drive Mrs Seacow honest!!  I have been drooling over a white Merc W124 E230 near me that its giving me the eye just now....

[Junkman]

I always buy a WBoD - Winter Beater of Distinction.

Something ultra-cheap that will be more or less driven into the ground until April, then either sold on, or bridged, depends.

Last year I had the BX, the year before a tatty Dolomite, and in my long Autoshite history a track record of rotten yank shite.

I have lost this year's race to the WBoD so far, no really suitable car came my way yet.

This cannot be said about a friend of mine, who would fit right in here, but for some odd reason hasn't joined yet.

Looking for something completely unsuitable, i.e. a small car with not much power, narrow wheels and girl-wheel-drive to master the impeding OMGSNOKAOS, sanity finally persisted and his shopping spree yielded a Mazda RX7 roadster.

 

Bravo!

 

This is going to be hard to beat.

[purplebargeken]

 

 

Toledo gets winter tyres thrown on and screenwash topped up and the occasional jet wash but thats as far as it goes. 

Please tell me that is a Triumph Toledo not the SEAT one!

[Junkman]

My WBoDs of the past few years:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[skattrd]

Whatever is most used for work gets a set winter tyres. Anything else just gets a dose Lidl screen-wash.

[Split_Pin]

I had all the welding done last year so this autumn I had the garage derust the last few bits and underseal them, together with all 4 arches. I used Dinitrol for the first time this year and is infinitely easeier to work with than Waxoyl. I also polished and waxed it, giving the wheels a coat too followed by a further 3 coats of wheel sealant. Winter wheels are for pansies. The coolant and radiator were new last year so they'll do.

 

I rinse the underside and wheelarches every day and scrub the whole chassis and arches with a brush every week. Otherwise the salt will kill it!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I do nowt apart from maybe putting my long johns on.

[wackywacerwill]

Haven't read the rest of the thread yet but winter prep here goes like this.

 

.Find proper bike trousers. These were gifted to me and are like wearing a duvet on each leg. You fuckers will get more cold chiseling the ice of your screen than my legs in these ripped and reparied cast offs.

.Look at the transit and try to imagine how much more eroded it will be come the spring. Be glad that I've done a number on the underside and regret that I got bored before patching and proofing the sills/arches/everywhere else.

.Open garage and see Cortina under pile of shit. Wonder if the garage is leaking as bad as the other one next door and how this may effect the interior which is removed and stuffed up the back after long neglected floor/sill/chassis leg weldage has been put on the back burner. Be glad that at least it ain't seeing the road salt this year (again) and that I left the handbrake off when I last moved it (by hand). Poor old girl will be waiting for me to retire at this rate.

.Ignore EML, oil light and water light on the Leon, as to be frank they may as well be speaking German or Spanish for all the sense they make.

. Have a wank. 

.

[mrcitroen]

Alfa has winter wheels & tyres. Don't want the nice fragile wheels getting wrecked. Gets hosed underneath weekly if possible. Before winter started I gave it a bloody good waxing.

 

The BX is locked up in my garage. After the shit load of work I done on it last year, I don't want to run it over the bad weather. Given the amount of cavity wax & new under seal it most likely would be ok. Shame really as it is a far better winter car than the Alfa.

[srad34]

Urm, turn the heater up to max and hope for the best.....not a great help, sorry.

[HillmanImp]

I start with good intentions of getting the car prepped for winter but get drunk, feel too rough to do owt, forget about it, remember but its too cold now, chance it, get away with it, say I will do better next year, don't.

[Sloth in a bowl]

I put the snow socks (and a big screwdriver) in the boot (if they aren't in there already as I couldn't be arsed to take them out in the spring).

Only used them once in anger, but they worked a treat.

 

I also find my tile adhesive scraper thing to clean ice of the windscreen and put it in the door junk bin thing.

 

Lastly is getting a fresh pack of butter mintos to keep my mouth happy on a cold winters day.

[rml2345]

Try to wash it once a week. Had mega plans about underseal again this year but haven't bothered so I'm hoping there's still floors and sills next spring.

Have a cup of tea.

[Asimo]

Check that it says Subaru on the boot lid before driving.

Make sure the handbrake isn't set on everything else and moan about having to tax and insure cars that won't move from the garden for months.

[Vince70]

All I do is whack a bit of neat screen wash in the bottle and if my car did need topping up I would just top up with a bit of neat antifreeze.

And if the car has trouble getting up the road in the snow I just let some air out the tyres and I make sure I keep in my wallet a decent credit/debit card for scraping the windscreen as I can never find a scraper till the summer months as it's normally lodged under the passenger seat somewhere or has been half eaten by the dog.

 

But when I did the oil change this year I went for a 5/30 rather than a 10/40 to help with a bit of protection during the Woolley hat wearing months and I do make sure if I do wash the car that I also clean under the sills and wheel arches plus I normally leave a layer of wax there also..

 

Plus the heater is permanently switched to hot on the windscreen setting.

[ruffgeezer]

Sell all cars approaching the worst of the winter weather and be left with a down-at-heel Frontera... I'll let you know how that pans out...

[Lukas]

Most important: Store the old ones in a dry garage until April! And drive a new one where salt does not matter.