# Trick for starting car in the winter. Fact or fiction?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trick-for-starting-car-in-the-winter-fact-or-fiction/437054>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 10, 2008, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trick-for-starting-car-in-the-winter-fact-or-fiction/437054 "2008-02-10T18:48:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2008, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trick-for-starting-car-in-the-winter-fact-or-fiction/437054/21 "2008-02-11T22:34:19Z")

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[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]  
How does wind chill affect a battery inside an engine compartment?  
[/QUOTE]

Well, the engine compartment isn’t airtight, but it’s true that windchill will be greatly decreased inside. I just brought it up because the heat dissipation of even moderate windchills in extreme cold is 3 orders of magnitude higher than a couple watts of heating. Even with no windchill whatsoever, I expect that the equilibrium temperature of a battery heating itself with ~5 watts is only a couple degrees above ambient when we’re talking -30 to -40 sorts of ranges. That’s just not going to help you much.

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