How to Winterize a Car

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If water seeps between your door and weather stripping and freezes, you could be frozen out of your car or truck. To prevent the water from freezing you out, coat both the weather stripping and the mating door surfaces with spray silicone. To avoid spraying silcone into your car's interior, spray it directly onto a clean rag. Then wipe the silicone lube onto your door and trunk weatherstripping. Repeat the procedure on door mating surfaces and the truck lid.

You probably don't use your door and trunk locks very much if you have remote keyless entry, but that's no reason to ignore them. In fact, if you don't keep the lock cylinders lubricated they'll corrode, making it impossible for you to use your key. If your key fob battery ever dies, you'll be locked out and have to call a locksmith. Lubricating door and truck lock cylinders is easy. Puffing graphite lock lubricant into the keyway works well, as long as you don't overdo it. Dry Teflon spray lube is another option. Shake the spray can to distribute the Tefllon and shoot the liquid into the lock cylinder. The solvent will dissolve any sticky parts. Once the solvent evaporates, the internal lock parts will be coated in Teflon particles, allowing the lock to operate smoothly. Learn how to lubricate all the parts of your car here.

The last thing you want to deal with when you've got a dead battery is a sticking hood latch. Since the latch mechanism sits right behind your grille, they corrode and seize from all the salt spray that gets kicked up by the cars in front of you. You can prevent that corrosion by lubricating the latch mechanism before the snow flies. Just pop the hood and soak the latch with spray lithium grease. Open and close the hood a few times to work the lube into the latch and spring mechanism. Then close the hood and forget about it for the rest of the winter. It'll pop open without any problems when you need to get under the hood.

Engine coolant does more than protect your engine from freezing and cracking. Coolant also contains anti-corrosive additives and water pump lubricants to keep your entire cooling system in tip-top shape. Test the level of your coolant's freeze protection using an inexpensive tester. Suck in some coolant from the coolant reservoir and read the results on the scale printed on the tester. But don't stop there. Just because coolant tests ok on the freeze protection doesn't mean the additives are in good shape. To check that, you'll need a digital multimeter. Begin with a cold engine. Remove the radiator cap and start the engine. Set your digital multimeter to DC volts at 20 volts or less. When the engine reaches operating temperature, insert the positive probe directly into the coolant. Rev the engine to 2,000 rpm and place the negative probe on the negative battery terminal. If the digital meter reads .4 volts or less, your coolant is in good condition. If it's greater than .4 volts, the additives are exhausted, and you may be in the market for a new radiator, a water pump or a heater core in the future. All of those are far more expensive than a simple coolant change. Learn more about how to test coolant here.

Ordinary wiper blades get packed with snow, causing the blade to streak or miss large swaths of your windshield. Winter wiper blades eliminate that problem. The entire blade is wrapped in a rubber boot that prevents ice and snow from sticking or packing. They make for much better visibility and safer winter driving. Find winter wiper blades at any auto parts store for around $12-ea. Remove your old wiper blades and store for use again next spring. Then snap on the winter wiper blades and see clearly all winter.

If the gas lift cylinders that keep your hood open are weak when it's warm outside, they'll quit working completely when temperatures dip below freezing. Hood and rear hatch lifts are available at any auto parts store for about $25-ea. Since both the left and the right lifts receive the same amount of wear, you should always replace them in pairs. Right- and left-side lifts often differ in subtle ways, so ask the store clerk to label them for you. Get a friend to hold the hood open while you replace the lift. Propping the hood with a piece of wood is a recipe for a head injury. The lifts attach to the hood and fender with bolts or a ball and socket arrangement. The bolt styles are easy to identify. Just remove the bolts and replace the lift. The ball and socket styles have a 'C'-shaped clip that prevents the socket from popping off the ball. To remove the ends from the ball studs, just insert a small flat blade screwdriver into the center of the clip to pry it out. That'll allow you to disengage the ball and socket. Use the screwdriver to pry out the C-clip on the replacement lift and snap the end onto the ball. Learn more about replacing hood lifts here.

Cabin air filters are one of the most neglected maintenance items on late model cars and trucks. You may think its unimportant, but a clogged cabin air filter can dramatically reduce airflow through your car's heater, stressing the blower motor and over heating the blower motor resistor. Blower motor replacement on some cars can cost as much as $400, so it really pays to replace you cabin air filter before heating and cooling season. Buy a replacement filter at any auto parts store for less than $20 and refer to the installation instructions shown in your owner's manual. See what's involved in a typical installation here.

Nobody plans to get stranded. But if you do, you'll want these critical items to keep you warm and allow you to perform some basic repairs. Since most drivers never check the air pressure in their spare tire, your emergency kit should include an inexpensive tire inflator that plugs into your power port. Use it to bring the spare back up to the recommended pressure. Plus, keep a can of Fix a Flat in your car in case you're unable to safely remove the flat tire and install the spare. Next, add a warm winter cap with ear flaps and work gloves?nothing can chill you faster than handling an ice cold steel jack and lug nuts with your bare hands. Add a fold-up shovel, an LED flashlight fitted with lithium batteries (alkaline batteries freeze in winter), jumper cables, an extra car cell phone charger, a notepad and pencil, and extra bottle of motor oil.