Must be a Saskatchewan thing – check out Gorsnak’s location: Saskaboom!
Northern Piper – check out magnetic plugs (there was a fellow from U. Sask. developing one a few years ago).
I once thought this was a relic from my childhood but even on the Sunshine Coast we have a vehicle at work that requires a block heater for the few days we go below freezing.
-DF
When it is very cold, it is difficult and sometimes not possible to start a car. Neither batteries nor engine oil work as well in the deep freeze. Even when a vehicle in a deep freeze does start, running very cold is hard on it.
The commonly used solution to the problem is to gently heat the engine block with a block heater – thus the problem of occasionally forgetting to unplug before driving off.
Assuming that the vehicle has been prepared for the winter with thinner engine oil and a battery in good condition with high cold cranking amps, options include combinations of:
Engine block heater (via plug to the house)
Battery blanket (via plug to the house)
Radiator heater (via plug to the house)
There are a couple of options that that do not require a plug to the house, but they are less than optimal:
Heated garage (expensive to heat)
Fire (Coleman etc.) under the oil pan (useful when off in the bush away from electric outlets and cell towers, but time consuming and obviously risks starting a car fire, not to mention destroying the paved driveway)
The other option is to buy a Wrangler (or some other vehicle that has enough extra space in the engine compartment to drop in either a couple of batteries or a huge battery) that will crank the engine easily even during a deep freeze, and then let the engine run for a couple of minutes before driving off (but note that this is harder on the engine than using a block heater). The downside with this is that 6 and 8 cylinder trucks are gasoline thirsty compared to small 4 cylinder cars.
Ah, the Magnoplug, which was a Kickstarter back in 2014. They have still not delivered. They had extremely optimistic views with regards to how easily they would pass UL certification testing. As chronicled in the 31 and counting Kickstarter updates (I was/am a backer), they first learned that UL wouldn’t even consider their device for testing since its exposed contacts put in in violation of the stated rules for mains connectors. They successfully lobbied for a change in that rule, and then proceeded to have their design fail safety testing (something about resistance to rain). They are currently undergoing a second round of tests with a redesigned product.
They also re-branded as VoltSafe - apparently someone in their group made off with the initial trademarking or something.
It wouldn’t shock me (no pun intended) if they never managed to get certification for the product, but they do have pre-orders enabled on their new VoltSafe website.
Well that sucks the big lebowski.
Aha! Thank you, that makes more sense.
I lived in a cold part of New Zealand through most of my life, and it was often difficult to start cars in the cold in the olden days, but I thought we had evolved past that with modern vehicle technology. I guess not, though. I suppose the cold can still wreak havoc.
Saskatchewan cold is a bit colder than New Zealand cold. It’s currently 26 below and dropping.
But yes, cold weather car starting technology has improved greatly.
I remember that happening on my old 323 in cold weather. I’d “pump” the hatch up and down to warm up the cylinders. Thought about replacing them but they were surprisingly pricey at the time.
Manual choke knobs were evil, whispering “pull my finger, pull my finger” in hopes of persuading you to flood and have to sit and wait, in the deep freeeeeeze.
Now that’s what I call understatement.
Call me a wimp but if I lived in a location where I had to plug my car in to get it started in the morning, I’d seriously reconsider my life choices that led me to live there. I mean – I lived in coastal Maine for a while which, while cold in the winter, didn’t require block heaters and I left there for a warmer clime as soon as the navy would let me.
Fahrenheit or Celsius? :eek:
Celsius. Don’t know off-hand what that is in Fahrenheit?
Just came back in from the Christmas morning backyard Nerf battle with the Cub.
Excellent. Have you tried Nerf battle with snow balls instead Nerf balls?
Cold + snow = skiing. That’s why god created Canada. Super-g alpine and gs telemark yesterday, cross-country today, more super-g and telemark tomorrow. Didn’t they teach all y’all about the cycle of life?
Vehicles, including their ignition systems, are designed for most people’s uses, but not all people’s uses. It is easy to design a car with a larger battery, but a larger battery would cost slightly more and increase vehicle size and weight which in turn would reduce fuel efficiency slightly. I expect that some bean counter somewhere figured out that they will make more profits by catering to the mass market rather than the cold winter market.
For folks living where it is cold, the trick is to identify which sizes of battery will fit in the vehicle, pick the one that has the highest rating for cold cranking amps (and secondarly, the most reserve capacity), and replace it every few years, while at the same time wearing the engine a little more from cold weather starts. Block heaters impropve the situation.
I remember asking my Dad, “What’s that for?”
His reply: “Never touch it!”