Hello,
I have never lived in a snowy place. Where I am now we usually get enough ice to make it slick and it shuts the region down. We live in the center of the country so depending where exactly we end up we probably won’t have an entire mountain to drive over…probably.
I am moving to be either in Denver area or Minneapolis area. What do I do with our cars?
I have a small 4WD SUV (I don’t know how to drive in areas that actually require 4WD). Our other car is a slightly larger SUV. Both have pretty low clearance.
We currently have all season tires. Do we need to get special tires or chains? How do I learn to drive with the chains? Also, does everyone just have 2 sets of tires laying around?
What about vehicle fluids? IIRC viscosity is different in different climates, is that just oil I’d need to worry about?
And are you supposed to heat your car or whatever? I know they do that in super cold places but not sure about Minneapolis.
The areas we are looking at are in and around the major cities, although if we end up in Minnesota there’s a chance we will be in a more rural area or in a place where we need to drive a long distance because housing is expensive.
If anyone knows how much longer we have to get there before the roads become treacherous this winter that would be helpful. I think we have til end of September to be safe, is that usually true?
Any other tips are much welcomed and appreciated. I don’t really have anyone I can ask and the internet is pretty full of AI BS now.
Try to wash your car once a week in winter to get the salt off. Might make it last longer. It will still rust out in the end though.
The advice about about antifreeze and windshield washer is on point though. I would also say that once I got winter tires, it’s been very hard to go back to all seasons in winter. Good winter tires like Bridgestone blizzack just have so much grip.
Make sure you have antifreeze, rather than pure water, in the cooling system. Pure water will crack the engine block and/or radiator when it freezes.
+1 to making sure your washer fluid can handle the cold and to making sure your tires handle snow/ice well. (There are definitely all-seasons that’ll do well or better than some winter tires. Unless you know that where you’re moving doesn’t plow down to pavement, I’d avoid studded tires.). Tirerack.com used to have a ton of data about tire performance on ice & snow, so you might look there, but they’ve been reducing the range of tires they carry and rate in the last few years so they may not have your tires.
Find a snow brush for your car that will let you reach & clear the snow off your car. I’ll also say I often am most disappointed by the ice scraper on a brush – meaning that’s the part that makes me regret the purchase of an individual brush.
I’ve always just refilled with low temp washer fluid if I’m running low and it’s getting close to winter. otherwise the other one does better with bugs and such in the other seasons. never had a problem with anything freezing, but I may go through it faster than others or smth
There are people in temporate states like CA that just put water in. That’s why I explicitly mentioned it.
Completely drain your windshield washer fluid before winter, it WILL freeze if you use a non-winterized solution.
Wash your car (undercarriage at minimum) regularly during winter or salt will eat your car.
Oil as I understand it only really changes significantly if you’re in an EXTREME cold climate, not midwest lake-effect cold.
Oh wow. Ok, I will have to look at how to do that. (It sounds easy enough but if I’d have to pull the car apart then definitely going to have to have someone else do it)
(Just remembered the time I was going to replace my friends battery only to discover it was housed in the wheel well)
Easiest way is to probably just to blast windshield wiper spray for several minutes 😅
I had family traveling not long ago who refilled it in Oklahoma and came back home… where it was a good deal colder than what they bought in Oklahoma was rated for!!
I think it’s highly depend not on how cold the climate is. Do you know the specific location? I see you’ve listed a few.
Anecdotally, I grew up in a suburban area southern Michigan where the winters could get brutally cold and there is a lot of lake effect snow. But I never needed to use an engine block heater or special tires. Read wheel drive vehicles were ill advised for winter months though from what people had told me living there. I had a small FWD crossover SUV for the bulk of my time living there and it was fine. If you have to drive in snow and icy conditions, go very very slow and bear in mind that you cannot stop, accelerate, or turn quickly at all.
The most essential think I needed was an ice scraper and remembering to warm up the car first.
Obviously ymmv depending on how cold your location is and whether or not you’re living out in a rural area. Also where I lived was likely a tad less cold than Denver. But cars were generally still able to start at -5F for reference.
Thank you! I think our other car is FWD so we may be in luck.
Unfortunately nothing is set in stone yet. We really want Denver area but our finances aren’t great so it could be somewhere else entirely.
I’m actually excited to buy a different ice scraper. The one I have is good but it’s one of those double sided made for snow removal as well and that part… isn’t great. It’s a rectangular piece of styrofoam which would be fine except there’s no way to lock it in place so it collapses when you use it.
