You know it's REAL cold when...

[Peakster]

Your accelerator is frozen on full throttle!

I've tried kicking the pedal, jiggling the cable, and yet nothing! I had to borrow another guy's car here in the dorms to go get myself food .

Check out the Temps:
http://maps.wunderground.com/data/64...cn_st_anim.gif

Have other people had major setbacks (other than poor FE) due to the cold weather?

[SVOboy]

It's likes to kill my car battery, but that's about it,

Did you try holding the throttle wheel and yanking it?

[Peakster]

No, I haven't tried that yet. There's no under-hood light, so I might check that out tomorrow. But yeah, that's the first time an accelerator stuck on me before in any of my cars.

On the upside, I got to drive a 1990s Sunfire... and wow! That car was much less worn out than my Geo . I felt like I was driving a luxury car .

[tasdrouille]

-20 F this morning here. The TDI started unplugged but is was borderline. It ran so rough I should have recorded it! The clutch felt like it was soaked in molasse for a good 10 minutes of driving.

[Gone4]

It beats walking when it's -13 and serious windchill

[Peakster]

It's warmer in Greenland right now than South Dakota!

My gas pedal magically became unstuck overnight somehow. It's pretty amazing that a gas powered car would even work in this weather. I can't imagine an EV that could survive these temperatures.

[AndrewJ]

My old Dodge Omni couldn't hack it under -5
Either the battery would die, or the engine would have to have a serious dose of starting ether sprayed down the intake manifold.

Ether works wonders

[RH77]

Cold soak with -5F as the low for about 6 consecutive days at the lot -- covered in ice, went to start it during a +3F warmup (2 HOT summers, EOC-ing over that time, and about 4-5 years on the batt). Cleared the ice/snow first (my personal coolant is on "C" now). Really slow cranks, 4-seconds later, and it fires! Acura stock replacement... worked well so far. Still waiting for that day to call AAA.

High idle at about 2000 RPM, "D" selected -- 2 seconds to engage, very slow to shift to 2nd (forced manual). The fluids have to be thick. Meanwhile, I'm frozen! After about 5-10 minutes on the highway and it's warm (gotta hand it to the rad-block -- simply a cookie sheet modified to block the frontal area of the rad area). Crummy mileage on that tank, tho -- despite the tune up.

More cold on the way, not quite the Dakotas or the Canadian Plains, but still windy and cold.

RH77

[bennelson]

I was working at a warehouse on Friday.

There are only a few parking spaces in back there, the rest is overhead doors for semi's. All the spaces were taken, so I just had to park out in the open, my car not sheltered by the others the way penguins huddle together.

Could not get the car to start to save my life. The battery was OK, it turned over, just wouldn't catch.

We put it in neutral and pushed it into the warehouse overnight to warm up.

I came back the next day and put some HEET (alcohol) in the tank. Started right up after that.

Does anyone know if a little E-85 would do the same thing? HEET is just isopropyl alcohol. The "85" in E-85 is Ethanol alcohol.

Would adding just a little E-85 help keep my fuel lines from freezing up?

Hmmm - come to think of it, gasoline in my area already has up to 10% ethanol in it.

Maybe I should start a new thread about this....

[RH77]

Just polling, what is the most common reason for the failure of vehicles to start in extreme cold? Fuel-line freeze up, coolant frozen-up, battery shot, etc?

The coldest I've had to start a car was -20F in Minnesota with a year-old Taurus a while back. Only problem was a slightly sticky throttle, but no big deal -- it started and went. The most problems that I've had was was with a junk carb in a '77 Olds that needed to idle for 15-minutes in anything colder than 35F or it would stall-out cold. Good-old Quadrajet (grumble)...

RH77