How to prepare your car for winter
Engaging in a spot of preventative maintenance on your Hiyacar rental car is vital all year round if it’s going to keep getting your drivers from A to B. But during the winter months, when the temperature drops and driving conditions become more hazardous, it’s particularly important to make sure your car is up to the task. With this in mind, we’ve come up with a quick guide to keeping your rental car running this winter.
Winter car care tips
Tyres, window wipers, batteries — these are areas that can sometimes cause unexpected issues, and usually they’re unveiled as you start your car on a winter’s morning. It’s inconvenient — we understand. But there are actually ways you can combat this before they begin to delay you from getting to your destination. Below are some of the top winter car care tips to consider, and we hope these help you keep your vehicle running smoothly over the winter months.
1) Check the condition of your tyres
Be sure to have a good look at your tyres regularly to ensure there are no signs of damage. Kwik Fit recommends checking your tyres every two weeks during the winter months. If you notice anything unusual, like bulges, cuts or debris such as a nail embedded in the tyre, it’s important that you get this checked out asap in case you need replacement tyres.
Make sure your tyres are correctly inflated (check your vehicle handbook for recommended pressures) and have sufficient tread for optimum performance. Adequate tread is critical to help tyres grip the road in cold, icy conditions. The legal limit for tyre tread depth in the UK is 1.6mm, but bear in mind that braking distance increases significantly as your tread wears down. It’s not just icy conditions in which braking distance will suffer, grip is severely affected on wet roads too if your tread is worn to below 3mm.
What to do
Checking your tread is easy. You can either use a tread depth gauge to accurately measure the remaining tread, or if you don’t have one of those, a simple 20p piece can help. Simply place the 20p coin into the tread groove If you can see the outer border on the coin it means your tread is significantly worn and the tyre probably needs changing.
2) Check your fluid levels and top up if necessary
During the winter months, the fluids in your car play an important role as they include antifreeze, which prevents water from expanding and turning to ice in the radiator and pipes, causing damage which is expensive to repair (and keeping you off the road).
What to do
Firstly, check your engine coolant levels. Coolant (often just referred to as antifreeze) provides a dual benefit for your car in that it helps to regulate the temperature of your engine in both hot and cold conditions. Coolant protects your engine during the cold winter months, preventing fluids from freezing, which could otherwise cause the engine block to crack.
At the same time, when the engine is running, it can become very hot. Therefore, the coolant helps to maintain the vehicle’s temperature by removing excessive heat from the engine, thanks to its high boiling point. Your vehicle handbook will tell you where to find the coolant reservoir, which will be marked with a min and max line so you don’t under or overfill.
Secondly, check that your windscreen washer bottle is filled up with screenwash. The screenwash mixture also contains antifreeze, which helps prevent your washer fluid from freezing. If you are using an undiluted screenwash to top up, make sure you use the correct amount of water to dilute, as a stronger mixture is required during the winter months.
3) Inspect your wiper blades for damage
Make sure your windscreen wipers are in good working order. Winter brings with it the worst driving conditions, and it can be difficult to view the road in driving rain or thick fog. If your windscreen wipers aren’t up to the task of keeping a clear view, it’s only going to make matters worse.
What to do
Start with a visual inspection of the wiper blades. If you can see visible cracks and splits in the rubber edging or ‘squeegee’, it’s time to replace it. Next, turn on the wipers and apply the windscreen washers to get the surface wet. Now look out for the 3 S’s — Streaking, Squeaking and Skipping — which could suggest a problem.
Streaking is when the wiper blades leave large smears on the windscreen. Squeaking is when the blades make a loud unpleasant screeching noise when running over the windscreen. Meanwhile, skipping is when the wiper blade does not make full contact with the glass. In each case, the wipers are probably doing a poor job of clearing the windscreen of dirt and water, so it’s best to get them looked at, as they may just need adjusting.
4) Get your battery checked out
Lots of things can go wrong with your car during the cold, winter months, but battery failure is the most common issue, with more breakdowns reported due to a flat battery than any other vehicle problem.
But why do car batteries die in winter so often? That’s because the battery is the one component that is most susceptible to the cold, and when the temperature drops below zero degrees Celsius, a fully-charged battery will only have around two-thirds of its power available. If that wasn’t enough, turning your heating fans on full blast to warm the car only puts more strain on your already struggling car battery.
Don’t wait until your engine won’t start in the morning; there are a number of things you can do to avoid battery failure.
What to do
Firstly, check for corrosion on the battery terminals and ensure these are fitted tightly. Corrosion on the contacts is caused when battery acid is able to escape due to a faulty connection. Clean the terminals to ensure a good connection.
Minimise the use of lights, heaters, blowers, chargers, sat nav and the radio when starting the car so that more power is directed from the alternator to the battery and essential electrical systems.
Lastly, like any rechargeable battery, car batteries will naturally lose their charging ability over time, and most batteries are designed with an expected lifetime of 5–10 years. If you can’t recall the last time you ever had a replacement battery and you have owned the car for more than 5 years, it might be time to replace it or at least get it checked out, before it one day lets you down.
5) Protect your windscreen from frost
We’ve all been there in the morning, right? Having to turn on the car heaters and wait for the windscreen to defrost before we can leave. As soon as the weather drops below zero, this can be a regular occurrence, and a really annoying one. If you’re finding you need to do this daily as the weather gets colder, there are a few things you might want to try to prevent it.
What to do
The first solution is to invest in a car cover. Maybe this is overkill to some people, and maybe some would love it as it protects your car from more than just frost. Ultimately, it’s one of the most effective ways to prevent your windows from getting frosty. It creates a physical, insulating barrier between the atmosphere and the glass, making it harder for moisture to settle on the windscreen and then freeze.
The entire cover also keeps the temperature underneath slightly higher than outside, which helps prevent ice from forming. The price of these can vary, starting from the likes of £15-£20 and going up to hundreds, depending on things like effectiveness, materials, and size.
Another option is to cover your windscreen only. Again, you can buy dedicated windscreen covers, or you could try using something like a piece of cardboard. These essentially do the same thing as a car cover by creating that physical barrier, which is the most important thing when looking to stop moisture from settling on the windscreen.
6) Check your lights
Chances are that during the winter, you’re going to need all of your lights functioning. This includes your fog lights, and if they haven’t been used for a while, then it’s best to double-check that they work before the time you actually need to use them. The last thing you want is to need your fog lights and then find out they’re faulty. But as well as these, it’s also important that all of your lights work.
What to do
Here’s a checklist for all the lights that you should run through to make sure they’re functioning correctly. If you find that any of them aren’t, then you’ll need to go to a garage and get the problem diagnosed. Often, it just requires a simple bulb change, but sometimes there might be a deeper issue.
- Side lights
- Dipped beams
- Main beam
- Fog lights
- Front indicators (both left and right)
- Rear indicators (both left and right)
- Brake lights
- Reversing lights
- Hazard lights
Rent a car today!
If you need to rent a car, whether it’s during the cold seasons or the hot, why not see the vehicles we have available at Hiyacar, listed by owners near you. We help people like you find people in their neighbourhood, up and down the country, in cities such as London, Manchester, Bristol and lots more.
Alternatively, if you’re using these winter car care tips to make sure your vehicle is in top condition before renting your car out, then why not list with us today? If you have any questions about our service, then you can contact us today.
