Meteorologist Dave Epstein gives tips to keep your auto warm.
By Kevin Slane @kslane
To help Bostonians with all of their winter weather needs, we asked meteorologist and Boston.com contributor Dave Epstein to give us advice on everything you need to know to prepare for both the snow and the cold.Question: What are some tips on how to keep your car running during extreme cold?Answer:
“Always keep your gas tank full so you don’t get condensation in there. In really cold weather, if you have a tank that’s almost empty, you can get condensation inside the gas tank, which can freeze and block the flow of fuel to the engine.
“Parking in a garage is always helpful, even if it’s not a heated a garage, because the difference of 10 degrees makes a huge difference.
“If you have a car that won’t start in incredibly cold weather, you can put a blanket over the hood. A moving blanket—one of those thick, heavy blankets—will keep the engine a little bit warmer when the temperature gets down near zero. Keeping your engine five to seven degrees warmer might be the difference between your car starting or not starting in the morning.
“If you’re really nervous, one of the things you can do in super cold weather is set an alarm to get up in the middle of the night. First, start your car before you go to bed, and set an alarm for four hours later. Then wake up, start the car again, let it warm up, and turn the heat on. Four hours without your engine being turned on versus eight hours can make all the difference. We used to do that at Lyndon State, where I went to college for meteorology. We would take turns waking each other up to go start the car because it would get to be -10 or -20.’’
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For more up-to-date weather news, check out Dave’s Weather Wisdom blog or follow him on Twitter @growingwisdom.
