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How do you avoid winters starting system failures.
Winter is on the way, which means any weak point in the starting system can be a startup failure waiting to happen. I hope to head off problems before they occur, testing your battery, cleaning and tightening connections thru-out the system is also a good idea. I my case I have an older high mileage car that has done a great job for 270,000 miles and 40,000 plus starts over the last 20 plus years.
When you consider all that time and all those starts I have been lucky. I also realized an important part in the starting chain on my car is located in a place which isn't very easy to get to and has never been looked at since the car was bought new. The part which I am referring to is the starter relay.
Out of sight out of mind is how the saying goes and after thinking about this relay I pulled it out of the recesses of the dashboard for a closer inspection. Charging system and battery voltages were good, no signs of trouble this is a part that had worked hard for a lot of years and needed to be looked at. The pictures are worth a thousand words, this relay was very close to failing and replacing it was a important maintenance procedure to continue it's journey to 300,000 miles.
Here's a trick for making a hard relay replacement job an easy one. I had to pull the coin draw out and above it, the switch/dimmer/coin pocket combo enclosure that controls the ceiling light out as a unit. Now there is enough room for a light and you hand to reach in to both pull out and reinstall the relay. Note the external tab on only one side of the relay (on my car tab was part of the locking device which was located on the back side of the relay as you look at the relay while reinstalling.. (the relay only goes in one way note how it come out)
See some close up pictures of almost failed starter relay contacts that are rarely caught before they bring about great expense and serious inconvenience.
Excellent, sometimes overlooked but a very important part of the starting-circuit, the
lowly starter-relay.
I will throw in my suggestion......if your battery tests good but seems a little weak, consider
removing it for the weekend to apply a conditioning-charge. First, check/repair all the basics like
clean-connections, damage, electrolyte-level, leakage, etc. Then use either a programmed-charger that has a built-in conditioning-charge-mode, or use a dummy-charger set to trickle-charge, leave it the whole weekend.
After experiencing the pure joy of replacing a car battery that died on a lonely Colorado road due to a super cold day I decided to change my behavior.
My experience is that batteries can fail as soon as 36 months and few make it to 5 years. I therefore pre-emptively replace them when they reach about 54 months.
Here in California I could probably stretch it out but I hate dealing with it.
Think about giving your battery a conditioning-charge before winter sets in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tickyul
Excellent, sometimes overlooked but a very important part of the starting-circuit, the
lowly starter-relay.
I will throw in my suggestion......if your battery tests good but seems a little weak, consider
removing it for the weekend to apply a conditioning-charge. First, check/repair all the basics like
clean-connections, damage, electrolyte-level, leakage, etc. Then use either a programmed-charger that has a built-in conditioning-charge-mode, or use a dummy-charger set to trickle-charge, leave it the whole weekend.
Think about giving your battery a conditioning-charge before winter sets in as well as doing a starter relay inspection.
Thanks for the conditioning-charge suggestion, it's a lot more important than most folks realize.
As the cool weather approaches it should be a regular maintenance event this time of year. That kind of maintenance also increases battery longevity as well, turning a 4 year battery into a five year battery.
I've got a 22 year old Mountaineer that I just cold started at -9F the other day. It has a block heater but the wiring is shorted and I need to fix it so it wasn't plugged in. A bit grumpy but it fired up.
Get "grumpy" a new heater and start like a summer day.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Northrick
What are you calling winter?
I've got a 22 year old Mountaineer that I just cold started at -9F the other day. It has a block heater but the wiring is shorted and I need to fix it so it wasn't plugged in. A bit grumpy but it fired up.
You qualify for being a member of the cold weather club. Oil today can take a lot of the credit for helping "grumpy" get fired up at 9 below.
If you use synthetic oil that helps all the more. Here's a link below to the city-data thread about engine heaters, block heaters, etc. I had up for the cold weather club for the past couple years. I don't sell them just been under too many semi's in cold country in a former life. Get "grumpy" a new heater and start like a summer day.
I've got a 22 year old Mountaineer that I just cold started at -9F the other day. It has a block heater but the wiring is shorted and I need to fix it so it wasn't plugged in. A bit grumpy but it fired up.
Two nights ago I was taking photos of the Auroras near Eielson Air Base and the truck's thermometer was indicating -9 degrees F. But then, -9 is nothing compared to the -20 and -30 we will experience soon enough. In past years we have had some Hallowing celebrations taking place in -20 degree and colder temperatures. It hasn't been too cold so far this winter, but I heard that Anchorage got a whole bunch of snow. I plug the vehicles for a period of 2-3 hours before starting that engines when the temperatures reach -15 degrees or so. If warmer than that I don't plug them to the outlets outside. However, if not driving the vehicles (unplugged) I still start them with the remotes and let them run from 15-25 minutes twice per day (one time in the early morning, and another late in the evening).
What you don't want to do is to let the battery discharge, specially if your truck doesn't have a block heater. My 2013 Tundra does not have a block heater, just oil pan heater, and a trickle charger. It starts at -20- degrees, but before it gets that cold I just plug it in to keep the battery fully charged. A discharged battery freezes in a short period of time, and it also voids its warranty. When the electrolyte freezes, it makes the battery walls bulge.
You qualify for being a member of the cold weather club. Oil today can take a lot of the credit for helping "grumpy" get fired up at 9 below.
If you use synthetic oil that helps all the more. Here's a link below to the city-data thread about engine heaters, block heaters, etc. I had up for the cold weather club for the past couple years. I don't sell them just been under too many semi's in cold country in a former life. Get "grumpy" a new heater and start like a summer day.
I've been operating all kinds of vehicles in Alaska for 30 years. I don't need a tutorial on heaters or oil. The point of my post was that modern cars are rather remarkable on starting up in the cold.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RayinAK
Two nights ago I was taking photos of the Auroras near Eielson Air Base and the truck's thermometer was indicating -9 degrees F. But then, -9 is nothing compared to the -20 and -30 we will experience soon enough. In past years we have had some Hallowing celebrations taking place in -20 degree and colder temperatures. It hasn't been too cold so far this winter, but I heard that Anchorage got a whole bunch of snow. I plug the vehicles for a period of 2-3 hours before starting that engines when the temperatures reach -15 degrees or so. If warmer than that I don't plug them to the outlets outside. However, if not driving the vehicles (unplugged) I still start them with the remotes and let them run from 15-25 minutes twice per day (one time in the early morning, and another late in the evening).
We got hammered with snow here in Anchorage. Several sub-zero mornings but temps have come up a lot - into the mid 30s - and things are an icy mess right now. But we'll manage.
I've been operating all kinds of vehicles in Alaska for 30 years. I don't need a tutorial on heaters or oil. The point of my post was that modern cars are rather remarkable on starting up in the cold.
We got hammered with snow here in Anchorage. Several sub-zero mornings but temps have come up a lot - into the mid 30s - and things are an icy mess right now. But we'll manage.
It has been the same in Fairbanks for the past two days. Slightly warmer yesterday, and in the teens today (Friday 24), and a little colder ay night. It's supposed to stay about the same, and I see temperatures in the 20's through part of next week. But we don't have a lot of snow on the ground.
By the way, what I dislike the most is the salty mess (salt brine) the DOT is spraying on the roads. In the late '70s, before most vehicles didn't have ABS and traction control systems, only crushed gravel was spread on the roads for traction, and most people gained a lot of experience about driving on sleek ice and snow packs. No salt was used and we did just fine, plus vehicular rust was not as prevalent as it is today.
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Think about giving your battery a conditioning-charge before winter sets in.
