Welcome to Alaska – how’s your antifreeze?

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  • JBER PAO
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  Let's face it, to live here you have to gain a new understanding of reality. Suddenly there are temperatures that will do more than just make you sick and chilly. You now live in an area that has winters where you can step into a freezer to warm up.

Of course, you don't hang out in those temps voluntarily. You can come inside when necessary, maybe even have a cup of hot cocoa.

But your car, that poor quaking mass of metal and plastic in your driveway, is not so lucky.

If you would only clean out your garage, maybe it could have a nice warm place to stay, but you went fishing all summer and ignored the needs of your mechanical best friend. It's too late for the garage this time around ... maybe next year.

Even if your chariot spends all night in a comfortable heated garage, it will still end up in a parking lot hanging with the common autos. Whether you have a "beater with a heater" or a car payment that resembles a mortgage, the effect is the same.

Cold will kill. That is why you must winterize.

Winterization has three major ideas that everything centers on:

1. What the cold does to your car. This is what the following blah-blah is really all about.

2. What the cold does to the road. We won't explore this beyond telling you to get some ice-worthy tires with lots of sipes and/or studs. 

Sipes are the really fine cuts in the tread that act like the foot pads on a gecko (a wall climbing lizard that does NOT live in Alaska).

Winter tires have very soft rubber compounds, so you shouldn't run them in the summer.

3. What the cold does to you. This is crucial. No car is perfect, and all are very capable of disappointing you at very dangerous moments. Look at your car with the suspicion that it will let you down when it chills to minus 30.

To avoid boring you with preaching, let's just explore what freezing engine coolant does - it breaks very expensive parts. Nuff said.

Ever freeze soda in the freezer? That can is your engine block ($1,000 part) and engine heads ($500-1,000 parts). Sure you have freeze plugs that relieve the pressure ... most of the time.

There is an upper limit to effective antifreeze concentration; more is NOT always better. Check it with a hydrometer at the Auto Skills center.

Now for engine oil - it ceases to lubricate very expensive parts (there's a theme here). Sludge doesn't pump very well. If the pump can't pick up the oil to lube the engine, the engine is running on metal-to-metal contact.

Shaving a few thousand miles of wear each time you start it below zero is not smart.

There are aftermarket oil additives and PTFE products that may be able to help mitigate this, but our in-garage testing laboratory was taken over for fishing research over the summer. Priorities, you know.

Battery - it gives less power the colder it gets and could freeze under the wrong conditions.

Cold engines are VERY difficult to crank. Your starter is series wound - this means it draws uber-juice (a technical term for oo-gobs of electricity) when the engine is stubbornly slow to turn over.

Understand, "turning over" is NOT starting, but is instead "cranking." The wah-wuh-wuuuuhhhh-clickity-clickity-nothing sound is "turning over" or "cranking" until the battery runs out of the required uber-juice.

This kind of vehicular condition in 20 below temps has been known to cause profuse cussing and tears (which rapidly freeze to your face) followed by shivering and a dead cell phone.

That last scenario is why you check everything. That includes belts/hoses, spare tire (and check to make sure your jack and tire-iron are still in the car), front end, engine coolant, wipers (change yours to winter blades so ice doesn't build up inside the wiper's frame), battery and charging system and check your owner's manual for the recommended oil viscosity for sub-zero weather and change your oil to that viscosity going into winter.

There is one more thing to think about - an emergency kit for your car. It should at least contain the basics.

1. Visibility. Road flares, triangles and reflective vests are a must in case of breakdown. On icy roads, other drivers need all the stopping distance they can get; increased visibility of your situation is key.

2. Warmth. NEVER leave your house in clothing that could not keep you warm for several hours. Keep emergency blankets in the car, but don't rely on them alone to keep you warm.

3. Food and supplies. Keep cans of Sterno fuel for melting snow, and store them in a coffee can (that you would use to melt the snow) along with waterproof matches and a decent flashlight (LED would work nicely since they use less power).

Keep some dry foods in the car so your body has some fuel to stay warm. Also, make sure you have a first aid kit in case you cut a finger or something from shivering while opening the Sterno can.

To check your car out and change your oil, all you need to do is go to your Auto Skills center on the Elmendorf or Richardson side. For more helpful information regarding the emergency kits, go to the base safety office for a complete list of things to consider.

(Editor's note: Hart is a former ASE and Ford-certified automotive technician. He also holds an FAA Airframe and Powerplant mechanic's license which is collecting dust in his closet. If you have questions or topics you'd like to submit for future articles, please send them to james.hart@elmendorf.af.mil.)