What Extreme Cold Can Do to Your Car

“Wipers should be replaced every six to 12 months. If they're smearing gunk all over the windshield, they're worn out,” Preston says. Make sure to check both front and rear blades.

Wipers get sticky. Precipitation combined with cold weather can cause your wipers to stick to the windshield, so Preston recommends lifting the arms off the windshield if you know foul weather is coming. “I always do that if it's going to snow and I know about it, because they will freeze to the windshield if there's moisture on there. And scraping them off isn't good for their rubber. That could wear out your wipers more quickly.”

Frozen wipers and nozzles. To help prevent your wipers and washer nozzles from freezing, and to keep your windshield clear of ice in the cold, Preston also recommends keeping your windshield washer reservoir full. For the season, he suggests a winter-grade washer fluid, which has a lower freezing point. It’s typically a different color — yellow, orange, purple — but don’t be afraid to combine it with your usual fluid. “You can totally mix it with the blue stuff,” he says.

Batteries with no charge

EV batteries without as much power. EV batteries are like humans: They operate optimally at temperatures of around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. In the cold, their capabilities diminish, as was seen recently during an arctic spell in Chicago. 

“The chemical process slows down, so their capacity can reduce,” Preston says. “In testing, we found that—in cold weather, driving at 70 mph — EVs lose about 25% of their charge capacity.”

It’s not just slower chemical processes that have an impact. “It's actually all the things that you're running to keep warm inside the car while you're driving, all the heaters and seat warmers,” Preston says. “They take a lot of voltage.”

EV drivers should attend closely to the range indicator in cold weather and adjust their charging stops as needed. Charging can take more time in winter as well, so keep that in mind.

Starters that won’t start. All cars, gas and electrified, have a separate battery used to start the car. Winter weather has an outsize impact on this cell because it diminishes capacity, and because fluids in a vehicle’s systems become thick and viscous, requiring more energy to crank through. 

“It's a good idea to get the battery load tested if you think it's pretty old or might not have much life left,” Preston says. “You can have it done at a shop, or an auto parts store.” Bennett, and AAA, recommend replacing your battery every three to five years.

Carrying a mini-jump starter — a portable, rechargeable battery pack, with attachable alligator clips for self-jumping a dead or weak battery — is also advisable, according to Bennett and Preston. Make sure it’s charged.

Salt that corrodes your car

Salt gets into the undercarriage. While this is not something the extreme cold does to your car, it’s something that definitely affects it, as salt is potentially corrosive to metal and other components. According to Preston, every state except Hawaii uses salt to melt road ice.

“It gets really deeply into the nooks and crannies of the car's undercarriage, all over its brake and fuel lines, and all those sensitive parts, and can really do a lot of damage,” says Preston. To prevent this, he recommends visiting “a touchless car wash at least once a month.”

One thing not to worry about: Your fuel lines

Fuel lines that don’t freeze. You may have heard about water in your tank or gas lines freezing. But that is one thing about which you don’t need to be concerned. “Every car has fuel injection with like 50 psi of fuel pressure. I don't think anybody's fuel lines are freezing anymore,” Preston says.

But, Preston says, you should always be using Top Tier gasoline, year-round, as “it has better additives” that clean your car’s fuel system, prevent buildup of impurities, and increase efficiency and performance.

It’s also important to keep your car’s fuel reserves — gasoline or battery — above the one-quarter level mark in the winter. But the reason isn’t about what the cold does to your car, but more about basic safety, Bennett says: “If you got in an accident, or if there was an accident on the road, or if the road shut down, you don't know how long you're going to be there. You want to make sure that you have enough gas to start the car, turn on the heat, take the chill out of the air.”