Start Preparing Your Car for Winter Now

Your car is more likely to breakdown in the winter than at any other time, so ensuring your car is prepped now for the winter months is important. We’ve listed some of the most important checks to carry out on your vehicle now to ensure it’s ready for the colder months.

Check your tyre tread

It’s important to ensure your tyre tread is within legal limits all year round, but with slippery roads and reduced traction, this is especially important in the winter. Measure each tyre’s tread, and replace them if it is too low. Also check the air pressure is correct, and top this up if it is wrong – changes in temperature can affect air pressure in tyres, so it is useful to check this frequently throughout the colder months.

Antifreeze

Check your coolant is topped up, and refill with a mixture of the correct antifreeze, not just water. This will prevent the coolant from freezing – something that can seriously damage the engine.

Brakes Check

With reduced traction on the roads, you’ll want to be confident that your brakes are functioning at their fullest on any icy roads. Get your brake pads checked now to ensure you can be safe on the roads.

Lights

You’ll be relying on your lights even more in the winter with it getting dark so much earlier, so make sure they are all in working order. Clean the reflectors and make sure there are no blown bulbs – not forgetting to check full beams and fog lights too.

Battery

Battery failure is the biggest cause of breakdowns in winter, so check yours over now to ensure you don’t get caught out. Increased output and reliance on devices such as lights and heating can take a strain on the battery, so if you haven’t used your car for a while, bear in mind that the battery may need charging – you can buy chargers from many motor shops. Car batteries have an average lifetime of 5 years, so be mindful that if yours if towards the end of its life, you may be more likely to experience difficulties in the cold.

Ice scraper

Ice scrapers are cheap and easy to find in many DIY and car shops, and will save you a lot of time this winter. Keep the ice scraper in your car for those mornings when you car’s windows are frozen over – the scraper is also far more economical to use than blasting your car’s heaters.

Locks and door seals

For older cars especially, it’s useful to prepare your car door seals and locks now to prevent them freezing over in the cold. Apply a coat of polish or vaseline on the rubber seals of your doors to keep them lubricated. For locks, squeezing some WD-40 into them will help prevent freezing, as will coating the key in antifreeze before inserting it into the lock.

Here at Auto Exhaust and Tyres, your car’s safety is paramount to us. Our mechanics are fully qualified in a range of services to ensure your car is in full working order and ready for the roads this winter. Contact us today for more information, and we’ll be happy to help.