Tyre pressure checks, anti-freeze tips, winter-ready care, and everything else you need to know to make sure that you get your car ready for the autumn & winter months.

Should I Be Worried About My Car in the Cold?

As it gets colder and darker in the UK, and the weather gets more extreme, there are more breakdowns and accidents. It’s therefore vitally important to make sure that you set yourself up for success, and prepare for the changing seasons as best you can. After all, having a breakdown in the dark or on an icy road can put you – and any passengers or road users – in danger.

Keeping on top of your car maintenance is often the best way to prepare for the cold; don’t be tempted to wait until after there is a problem to get it fixed. But more specifically, you should be mindful of your vehicle’s tyres, engine, anti-freeze, and lights.

Looking After Your Tyres & the 20p Trick

Have you ever tried walking on an icy pavement in shoes with no grip? In winter especially, it is necessary for your safety that your tyres have enough tread on them to keep your car road-safe, because driving around on icy roads with worn out tyres can result in far worse than a bump on the head.

The legal minimum tread level for tyres is 1.6mm, but we advise you to keep a tread level of 3mm to give you a sufficient and safe level of grip that you really need on icy and snowy roads. A quick way to check tyre tread is with the 20p trick; the border of your 20p coin is 2mm, so if you place a 20p into the groove of your tyres and you can still see the line around the border, then you know that your tread is less than 2mm and probably not road legal. You can also have your mechanic check this for you using a tyre tread depth gauge, they will be able to tell you the current tread on your tyres and advise you if you need these changed.

It is extremely important that the tread depth is checked across the whole width of the tyre, sometimes tyres can wear unevenly due to incorrect tracking. It may seem like tread if sufficient at the outer edge but the inner edge may be completely different.

You should also regularly perform visual inspections on your tyres to make sure that they’re free of any damage, cuts or bulges, as well as checking tyre pressure regularly, particularly before long journeys. Under-inflated tyres can seriously affect your stopping time which, if you’re driving on a slippery road or in the dark, could be life-threatening. Your vehicle’s driver manual will have instructions on checking tyre pressure, as well as the levels that are required for your specific vehicle, as this can vary. Many modern vehicles have automatic tyre pressure sensors which will flag up on your dashboard when your pressures are incorrect.

Check Your Fluids – Oil, Coolant, & Windscreen Washer

With the days getting darker earlier and earlier, and more extreme weather expected in winter, you don’t want to get caught short and waiting for a breakdown crew to come and find you on the side of the road. On your list of things to check should always be your engine oil, which you should do regularly to make sure that you’re safely above the minimum level and therefore not susceptible to unnecessary breakdowns.

Coolant, or anti-freeze, stops your vehicle’s cooling system from freezing over whilst your car isn’t running. You should check this regularly, and only do this when your engine has cooled completely. Most modern vehicles will have a sealed cooling system that doesn’t need topping up, and a dashboard warning light, but it’s still always best to check this yourself so that you know if you’re running low on coolant or if there’s a leak.

Finally, the third fluid that you should be checking is your windscreen washer fluid. It seems silly, because this isn’t vital to your car running, but there is more debris on the road in autumn and winter from fallen leaves, mud and grit, and snow and ice and you need to make sure your vehicle is equipped to clear your windscreen at a moments’ notice. A good quality screen wash shouldn’t freeze up in low temperatures, so make sure that you do your own research and don’t settle for the cheapest you can find.

Maintaining Visibility – Wipers & Lights

We’ve all had the experience of running out of the house in a coat and slippers to heat up the car and scrape all the frost off the windscreen, and maybe you’ve also had the unpleasant experience of discovering that your windscreen wipers have frozen onto the glass. This should be part of your regular inspection before you head out onto the road, because the last thing you want to do is switch on the windscreen wipers and damage them because they were stuck to your windscreen. Damaged windscreen wipers are no good to anyone, and can make the already worse visibility of winter even more of a challenge, because you won’t be able to clear off all the muck, rain, or even snow that might accumulate on your windscreen.

Now that it’s getting darker, you will find yourself using your lights more and more often, and you need to make sure that these are also operating at their best. The best way to check that your lights are working is before you start driving. Turn on your lights and walk around your vehicle to make sure that they are all on. This is also a good time to give them a quick wipe to make sure that none of them are caked in mud or have anything stuck to them. It’s a quick thing to check, and rather you find out that your high-beams don’t work now, than when you’re driving down a country road in the dark. To check brake lights park against a reflective surface such as a window or ask a friend to help.

All of these tips have been designed with your safety in mind, so that there is less for you to worry about now that the weather is getting more bleak. But it’s up to you to make sure that your car is road safe and winter-ready, so if you think your car would benefit from a check-up before the frost sets in or your not sure how to get your car ready for the autumn & winter months, please come and visit and we will be more than happy to help you.