(first posted 2/2/2014) It is cold outside. It has been extremely cold many days and nights this month. School and work has been cancelled and my wife and I have been trapped in our house with our children. Today, it warmed up enough to attempt a normal week day: 0 F.
Everyone is excited to leave the house, even if it means dressing as though we are going to Mars. I have been wearing layers of the thickest warmest clothes I can find that still allow me to bend my arms. I wrap my head in a scarf, secure it into place with a wool cap and ear muffs and have thanked god every day I have a full beard underneath it all. I look like the Michelin man as I make a sad attempt to work the little buttons on my key fob with my thick ski gloved fingers.
The Crown Vic awaits, crowned in January white. You cannot brush this snow away, it has to be blasted and scraped. I bang my fist over where I assume the driver door handle should be and knock the snow loose enough to find it and see if the door will open. Nope–frozen shut. Why is it that this kind of cold always makes you need to pee? I refuse to go back into the house, so I bear down and focus on blasting through the snow with my awesome ice blade tool. After a few seconds of scraping, it rips through to find ice beneath the encrusted snow. I hunker down harder. I bang around the door strategically to loosen it enough to pull open. Success!
Inside the Crown Vic’s white winter tomb is a black leather interior which looks warm and inviting. Snow loosened from my work gets sucked into the car, dusting the driver’s seat. I jump in and slam the door. Snow blocks all the windows and insulates the car so all I hear is my breathing and soon my breath vapor is hanging over the frozen dash, giving it a sheen. I pull off a glove and start digging into my front pocket but all the extra layers force me to arch my back to reach it. I slip the key into place and twist the icy cold switch. The V8 sounds for a moment as though it won’t turn, but then awakens with a thunderous shout. It lives! After a minute I discover that it is colder inside the car than outside, but I wait a few moments to steel myself for another venture out.
I carefully brush off the headlights and take a swipe across the grille. As the car runs, I amble around it like a Egyptian Plover scrambling around a hippo, checking for bugs. I knock snow off the heated mirrors, giving the defrosters time to do their work on the big windows. Although I gave myself extra time to prepare the Ford for my jaunt to work, I didn’t expect the snow to be so stubborn. By the time I am finished surveying my efforts, any exposed skin feels like it is being burned. My fingers are feeling cold through the ski gloves and I climb back into the car. I think it is warmer inside, but the automatic temp control is still not sending any heat out of the engine to me. The rear window defroster is enfeebled against this cold. But I can no longer wait and need to get to work.
I shift into reverse. I don’t have any peripheral vision with my face wrapped up, so I coast slowly. There is a huge exhaust cloud enveloping the rear of the car as I pull away from the driveway. The car feels rocky. The tires have flat spots on them. The transmission hunts for the next gear as I get up to speed, then lazily slides into it. Through the scarf across my face, through the cleaned swipes across the windshield, I see a blanket of frozen snow two inches thick covering the entire hood. The car feels heavy and plodding. The steering wheel feels colder than a 21 pound Butterball turkey that I just lifted from a store freezer. The wind is blowing, but the blanket of snow isn’t falling from the car.
After five miles, the auto temp starts to send some heat to the windshield. My breath has caused the inside of the window to begin frosting up, so I need it to work. My hands are still wearing my ski gloves, but they’re going numb and I pull my fingers into my palms to warm them. Within another five minutes, the auto defrost is at full capacity and melting two dinner plate-size spots on the windshield. The rear defroster is still struggling. The tires begin to lose their flat spots and the Crown Vic’s warmed up enough to feel like a car again. The headlights have been on long enough to have melted and cleared.
Everyone is moving slowly this morning. The exhaust clouds drift along traffic waiting at intersections. I am stuck behind a Budweiser truck, but I’m only moving as slowly as it does and don’t care. I feel bad leaving my car parked outside after it had just fought off the frigid cold, knowing that it will return to its earlier frozen state when I find it after work today. But that’s winter, right? I’ve spent years freezing on Chicago Metra platforms, and I’d rather deal with my Ford as together we give Mother Nature a finger. It is a miracle that our cars function as well as they do, isn’t it?
Ugh…This has indeed been a rough winter, and I always feel a pang of mechanical sympathy every time I set out in a car this time of year.
Mine sit outside so the oldies can have the garage, so I scrape mine and my wife’s every morning before I set off at 7 am. Brrrr!
Egyptian Plovers! Man, they be a bitch!
Whenever it got below 40F I would let my 95 Voyager idle for a few minutes especially since my road feeds onto a 55 MPH road with horrible sightlines. I could tell if I had to let her warm up some more if she would either really struggle to shift into second or not at all. The colder it got the longer I let her warm up and the swiss cheese exhaust system meant the exhaust would envelope the whole car like it was on fire. I usually got most of the snow off the roof, but I left some on there to deter the tailgaters that would build up since I did not want to push her above 45 for a mile or so and there was no safe place to pass or pull over. When the temperature was -21F in late January 2011 she started almost right up (August 2009 battery), but automatically revved high for about 5 minutes, calmed down for another 5, and a little bit later the temperature gauge started to move. I had to bungee cord the driver’s door shut until the latch warmed up and I then had to let her warm up some more since she would not shift. I also had to scrape ice off the inside of the windshield from my breath. Did you know the Chrysler door chime changes in tone when it gets below 15F? My current vehicle needs a new battery since the crappy, but one year old Wal*Mart battery it came with hates it when the mercury gets down to 10-20F. Has not left me stranded yet, but I would not drive into the boonies of Eastern Oregon without getting it replaced.
I’m reading this story as the A/C just kicked on here in Central Florida.
What a tour de force of misery.
On the really cold days we had (nothing topping yours, I’m in VA) my power steering felt like cement. It made the patented GM sound: YURRRRRK when I had to turn the wheel to get out of my parking space.
The hell with that groundhog.
There is no challenge to starting cars in cold weather now, which is emphasized by the current fad of “start” buttons. Urging an engine to life used to be an art form, a delicate balance of manual choke, cranking and well timed quirts from the accelerator pump as the starter strained against 20W40 oil turned to molasses.
My 85 Mazda GLC was the worst for the doors freezing shut. At least once, I crawled in through the hatch as that was the only door I could open. Had to double clutch the Renault as the synchos did not report for duty for the first mile.
Yup, it’s a wonder cars work as well as they do considering the conditions we expect them to endure.
Does silicone spray CRC spray help stop the doors stick in the cold?
KJ
My brother used Pam cooking oil spray on his, last week, in Gulf Shores, Alabama. No report on how well it worked.
I used to put Lithium grease on the door seals. I don’t seem to have any trouble now, not sure if the rubber is formulated different or something.
I remember carrying lock de-icer around with me at all times and putting isopropyl in the gas. With today’s Ethanol and remote locks I don’t need either anymore.
I also remember the art of starting a carburated car. I had a 2.3 Mustang that was almost impossible to start when it was below 0 unless I plugged in the “block” heater, which was a magnetic heater I’d stick on the engine block.
I don’t miss those days. Not one bit. My current vehicles don’t even have block heaters and have never needed them, although if I didn’t garage them they would.
VD, this is a beautifully evocative piece of writing. Thank you for reminding me of why I moved to SoCal from the midwest in my early 20’s.
I well remember one particularly nasty winter morning in the 50’s when my Dad was driving a 49 Ford as his commuter car. It was parked outside, with a flat tire. The trunk handle/lock was frozen shut (as were the door handles) and he used a tea kettle of boiling water to get the trunk open to get to the jack and spare tire. The blue language alone should have melted the ice on the car.
I remember driving old VWs to high school in that weather. The rear engine enabled them to handle quite well in the snow but the small trickles of heat emanating from the floor and windshield vents were so inadequate (who needs a blower motor, right?) that one had to scrape the windshield inside as well as outside!
No wonder my dad so loved his winter vacations in Florida!
I remember driving old VWs to high school in that weather. The rear engine enabled them to handle quite well in the snow but the small trickles of heat emanating from the floor and windshield vents were so inadequate (who needs a blower motor, right?) that one had to scrape the windshield inside as well as outside!
In the early 70s, when the imbedded wire rear window defrosters were new, there were aftermarket kits: wires with adhesive on them that could be applied to existing windows. I saw a beetle with one of these wire kits applied to the windshield.
Tall skinny tires with some weight on them do work in snow. I remember this VeeDub ad from when it was new…wasn’t shot in significatly cold weather though, the snow in the ad doesn’t have that high pitched squeak when it’s stepped on.
I had a ’95 Toyota Tercel that required double clutching into second for the first few miles at -10 or lower.
When the recent Polar Vortex sent temps that low in Vermont for the first time in a while (we’ve had a couple mild winters), the current ’08 Yaris got the same treatment for a while after simply forcing it into gear worked but not in a guilt-free manner. OTOH if gives me fast heat, particularly for a car that wasn’t blessed with a means of overriding the a/c coming on with the defroster.
winter bites. I did 40 yrs in WI before I escaped to AZ. it’s worse if you are a car guy. how about the sound of slushy salty snow battering your underbody, rusting it away. I remember driving off with my head out the open side window cause the ice wouldn’t leave the windshield and any further waiting would make you late. and we used to make big money at the Ford dealer circa 93 because when it got really cold you had one shot to start the injected cars otherwise the plugs got soaked and it was time for a tow and plug change. after a 10 below snap that’s what you did, all day.
It was 44 degrees in Adelaide yesterday. + Celsius! Ask me why I moved to the more moderate climes of Brisbane…. BTW almost every service station here that I go into sells ice scrapers, in a climate that never drops below about 5 degrees C.
I lived in Atlanta and Florida for the last 30 years. I’m so glad to be back north. Yeah winter sucks, but so does 9/90/90 (9 months, 90 degrees, 90% humidity)
Beautiful piece of writing vanilladude! The ice crust on everything, colder inside the car than out, the heavy steering, the flat spots on the tires…sigh.
It does make me miss winter, but maybe not quite enough to move back to it 🙂
Scene from my childhood, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, c.1964
Here’s how they used to do it… That’s my 1950 Ford 8N tractor – side-valve flathead four with 6v ignition. Ambient temp was -4°F. I started it at -14°F a couple weeks ago to plow snow. Took about twelve tries before it would stay running.
Can’t watch the video at the moment but I have seen a couple of guys start a Lanz Bulldog tractor (10 Litre single cylinder 2-stroke) which involved sticking a blowtorch under the sump for several minutes
It seems like we were in the single digits and negative temperatures for days. We had two days of 30 + degree days before today. Today I think it reached the mid 40’s. It feels like spring. However, here in Northeastern PA, we are headed back to snow, with 6″ forecast for tomorrow, and another storm on Wed. The temperatures are also headed back down. Thank God for a garage and an underground parking deck at work!
Typical winter day in Canada.
Yup. I went ice racing today. 🙂
True. It was a great surprise this morning when I found out that the dusting of snow on the car was just that, a dusting. The windshield only had a thin coat of frost too. It was like a morning in April! 🙂
I work in North Dakota, outside in the oilfields. My perspective on “cold” weather has completely changed since coming up here.
Spend an entire day working outside in -20 or -40 sometime. 0 degrees will feel positively tropical to you after -30 with a 10 MPH wind.
10 MPH, that all they get up there? I’m used to 35-45+ MPH winds on the regular. Awful!
Oh it gets a lot windier than that in ND, especially on the Eastern side where there are no hills or trees. But typically not when it’s really cold, thank goodness.
Anything above 0 does feel nice this time of year.
The “polar vortex” has resulted in an exceptionally long cold snap in southern Ontario this year, but Vanilla Dude’s description of the morning commute is a common occurrence here in the winter.
I learned to always turn defroster on when you first start engine. I thought it would warm up faster to leave heater off, then turn it on. Pop! Nice crack top to bottom in windshield right in driver’s line of sight.
I learned to always turn defroster on when you first start engine.
Doubly so in my old Renault. The defroster intake was in a plenum under a grill in the hood. The plenum would fill up with snow. If I waited until the engine was somewhat warm befor turning on the defroster, the snow in the plenum would be sucked through the heater core and evaporate, only to condense, and freeze, on the inside of the windwshield.
The solution was to immediately turn on the defroster and high speed fan to suck the snow through the system before the heater core was warm enough to evaporate it, to clean out the system. This resulted in a snowstorm eminating from the defroster vents for a minute or two, but then I didn’t have a frosted windshield when things did warm up.
That sounds like big fun. Another thing I learned is don’t set the parking brake unless you like spinning the front wheels going 2 miles an hours until Pop! the brake shoes unfreeze.
That sounds like big fun. Another thing I learned is don’t set the parking brake unless you like spinning the front wheels going 2 miles an hours until… Pop! The brake shoes break free. It’s even more fun when only one side releases.
Somebody mentioned winter and Volkswagen Beetles…..Ahhh, what fun memories!
We once had a winter storm up in Appalachia and the hollow we lived in saw 26-32 inches of snow, with drifts uf up to 4 feet D/T terrain and wind. We had moved there 2-3 years before and all of our neighbors had big, mid 70’s Ford 4WD pickups….Without fail, they all told my father he would HAVE TO have a 4WD of some sort to live where we were moving, because of snowstorms such as these and the challenging terrain….My father had a ’68 Beetle with an Autostick and my mother drove a later ’70’s Fairmont wagon.
We were snowed in on the hollow for about 10 days and on day 6 my father called all the neighbors to ask if anyone was going to try to venture out and get provisions (staples such as milk, bread, etc..) Everybody he called laughed and gave him some variation of “No way…We warned you about getting a 4WD…Besides, even WE can’t get out in this!”
On day 8, as our neighbors were digging their 4WD Fords out of the snow, my father and I slooowly crept down the hollow, past their driveways in our Volkswagen….One of our neighbors laughed and yelled to my father: “Jim, I’ll have my truck dug out by the time you get back and I’ll chain up and pull you back up to your house when you get stuck!” (our particular hollow was an ascending elevation for much of it’s 1 1/2 mile length and we lived only a couple of houses from the head of it.)
For the rest of my life, I’ll remember the blank, non-plussed look on our neighbors face when we passed him a couple of hours later…His big Ford was laying on it’s side in a gulley about half a mile from his house. He wasn’t hurt, but he didn’t have much to say as we squeezed him into our little Bug with my father and I and our groceries.
When we dropped him off at the mouth of his driveway a few minutes later, my dad patted him on the arm and said; “You know, you really need a Volkswagen if your gonna live up here.” We pulled on out and made it home and about halfway up our own driveway (also an ascending grade) before we finally got stuck by the snow piling up under the front of the bug
It was SO priceless! Almost as good as the Volkswagen commercial of the snow-plow driver.
From that moment on, I was a lifelong air-cooled VW fan. You flat froze your ass off in the winter, but that little car never let my father down for 20 years and 184,000 miles.
+1
I always got a hoot driving around Atlanta in my ’64 Beetle in ice storms, laughing my head off at the Jeeps and 4x4s spinning and sliding off in the ditches.
As a friend once said, “four wheel drive just means you need a longer tow rope.”
My dad always used to say “four wheel drive just gets you ten feet further into the snowbank”.
Of course, he eventually ended up buying a four wheel drive. Is it absolutely necessary? Usually not. Is it useful and nice to have? Yep.
It was quite a January, and I guess February is not looking too good either. So far, my old ’96 Grand Cherokee straight 6 has fired up, heated up quickly and the four-wheel drive means no sweats. She’s a good old girl! However — Come On, Spring!!!
I will say be careful cleaning off those cars. During one of the snows in January the day after there was also a wind chill warning. Well I came over to visit my folks to clean off their cars and since I still had to get to work I rushed it a bit on my old man’s 2003 Sable wagon. I got my brush/scraper combo tool too close to the plastic grill and wound up snapping off a few of the ribs of the grill. 2 days later with the wallet $38 lighter the Sable has a new grill.
Great description of winter. It brings back memories of my time in Alaska. I spent my first 22 years there, and have been in central Texas for over 30, with a few stops in between. We have had a colder than normal winter here, but nothing like other parts of the country. A couple of things I did not see mentioned; after starting a manual transmission equipped vehicle you would have to force the cold, stiff gearshift into neutral and slowly let out the clutch. If you let it out too fast, the cold transmission would kill the motor. While waiting at a stoplight, revving the motor to a fast idle on generator equipped (and early alternator) cars so the battery would keep charged. And old style nylon tires would stay square all winter, or at least it seemed that way.
Thanks for the memories, and I am glad they are memories.
Beautifully written! I’ve never experienced cold like that, but it felt like I was right there with you. I only ever had one car, a 1986 Ford Sierra Ghia, with heated rear view mirrors, still miss ’em. The later Mk 2 Sierra Ghia had a heated windscreen, heated by a layer of tiny wires embedded in it. An acquaintance bought one new, said it was a brilliant feature. In recent years, the coldest weather I’ve driven in froze the water in my old Toyota Hiace either as it came out of the windscreen squirters or as it landed on the glass. Good times…
People have gotten pretty wimpy, and I blame the sensationalistic media for that. Even here in Minnesota schools have been closed a couple times this year for pretty average winter weather. Why? Because the media plays up every weather event and seem to have forgotten where we live.
-60 wind chill was a good reason to cancel school recently. If a bus breaks down in a rural area with a load of kids…it can get dangerous pretty quickly (and yes, those buses break down). Kids standing at a bus stop is even dangerous. I think everyone involved would prefer to be safe than sorry, but yes it appears they’re canceling a lot quicker these days.
The governor canceled school for the entire state for a Monday that was not any colder than the Friday that proceeded it, at least not in my area. And he did it 3 days ahead of time. Our last day was canceled due to a blizzard that dumped an entire inch of snow on us. We are not Atlanta, we can deal with an inch of snow regardless of the wind speed. Businesses have not closed this year, I don’t know why schools seem to think they have to. I do know that I have a lot less respect for our school system than I used to, now that my kids are in school and I have to deal with the excessive amount of days off they seem to think they need.
What did me and the kids do on these days? Play outside of course.
Thing is, a bus breaking down at 20 degrees can be just as dangerous if the kids and/or their parents are too stupid to dress properly.
I believe that Monday he canceled was about -35 to -65 wind chills. That is not safe. I’m not saying other times shouldn’t have been called off or whatever, but it’s good to let parents know that it indeed would be called off so they could make arrangements for their children. I work with a bunch of people who all leave when their kids get out for bad weather. Ridiculous. So that gave them no excuse to leave early; they had warning! Yes, it does seem schools are getting more lax on snow days, but each year is a little different than the other; some years have 0 snow days. You aren’t the only one with less respect for the public school system in general today; it’s pathetic!
Its been exacerbated by the fact that they’ve been home since Thanksgiving for 17 days – then the snow days, MLK day, then the fact that they are totally nutty first graders, kindergarteners, pre-schooler and a big 3rd grader. The house can’t be big enough to escape them. Since late November, my kids have been home over 21 days.
Holy cow, we need a break! But we are going back into sub-zero weather this week, so I got a sick feeling…..
These comments make me glad I have a garage for our cars. It isn’t that cold here but we did have a few nights below zero (F), and have had several stretches where the temp has stayed below freezing for 5-6 days at a time. As several people have said above, it used to be much harder to get/keep cars running if they sat out in the cold. I had a ’63 Plymouth with a defective automatic choke and it would not start even on a cool morning without the choke. Fortunately one could pop the hood and then reach under the air cleaner to set the choke manually. It was almost as if Chrysler anticipated the need for this “feature”. Electronic ignition and fuel injection have done more to improve drivabililty than anything else, at least in my opinion.
It was 20 degrees in my attached garage this morning, before I turned the heater on to warm it up. As a matter of fact, it has been so cold this winter that the steel tracks have been twisting and misaligning the electric garage door beam so that the garage door needs to be closed manually. When the garage heat goes on, this problem is resolved.
My attached garage is not heated per se but the furnace and water heater are both there. The lowest temperature I’ve ever noticed in my garage (lived here for 14 years) is 35 degrees, this on a morning when the air temp outside was -18. This was on the thermometer that is on the back wall of the garage, which is an inside wall. It was likely a few degrees colder at the non-insulated garage door, which faces north.
You’ve summed up the sort of experience that made me move from PA to CA after 32 winters in the former. There is nothing in the world worth me experiencing that kind of misery again.
The deal with all the school closings (at least in Kentucky) with the recent “Polar Vortex” is not only the potential hazard for children waiting for buses, walking to school ettc. getting hypothermia/frostbite, it’s the fear/threat of LITIGATION due to children getting hypothermia/frostbite.
I’m all for protecting the welfare of children (especially my own), but there have been 2 or 3 occasions this winter where my wife and I have looked outside and then at each other and said “WTF?”
Sad what the world is coming to.
Ah yes!
Here it is!
That winter Frozen story!
Whew! It was finally above freezing on the weekend, I washed the cars just to get the grit and salt off them.
And put gas in them, because who wants to stand around at -25C? The salt crusties around the gas cap were rather gross.
It’s been a mild winter in nonetheless-central Alberta until a few days ago. Minus 30? Meh, just typical winter temps. Spring is 43 days away.
And here’s my tip if you have to park outside in the cold. Cover your vehicle’s windows with an old blanket or sheet. No need to waste time scraping.
I somehow missed this the first time around. A great summary of life in the frozen north this time of year.
Last week when the temperature plummeted after two days of rain my Sedona gave me a little trouble when both sliding doors froze shut. The problem was that my wife and another couple were trying to go home from a restaurant when it happened. I had to climb in through the hatch and then open them from the inside so that I could put my shoulder into pushing the door outward. I lubed up the seals when I got home.
Of course this is a pretty minor inconvenience compared to the troubles this kind of weather used to bring. About a year ago I wrote over on my blog about the trouble we used to have getting cars started in this weather.
https://jpcavanaugh.com/2018/01/05/starting-the-frozen-car/
The very first item that I trashed when I left the mid Hudson Valley for NOLA was the ice scrapper for my car. The snow shovel was right behind the scrapper.
I kept the ski Parker and thermo boots (have not worn either since I’be been home). The leather gloves and scarf have only been used twice in the last 5 years.
For the 8 years I lived in the valley, I didn’t find it winter all that bad. I had an AWD Escape which made all the difference. I knew folks in Albany who dreaded winter. I should have left them the scraper and shovel.
41° F this morning. Coldest day of the year here, I think. And significantly cooler just 1000-2000 feet higher up, so I went up in the hills where there was 1 or 2 inches of snow, and played. Even saw a few flakes drift out of the mostly blue skies. The local US Weather Service office posted a short video of snow falling outside their office this morning, in Monterey at 92 ft above sea level. This is big news here, maybe the most local snow since 1976.
We had a couple of days of minus 52 wind-chill. Both the old Taurus and older Avalon started well. The Avalon started like new. It is starting to get broken in at 254,000 miles. Now that hard wood/fake wood steering wheel is damn cold! One of the little lines of the rear defroster has gotten a little weak. Piece of crap!
Four days later it was 52 degrees out. Felt like 75. I wanted to wear shorts. The thermometer is going to get whiplash.