I'm Mikaela Lefrak today on Vermont Edition, local car experts share their best vehicle maintenance tips for the winter months.

I would say the most common unexpected issue, would be batteries.

Batteries, when it's cold out, the chemical reaction that happens in batteries that gives you power, slows down a lot.

So a battery that may not been have been acting up when the weather was warm.

As soon as it gets cold, it just doesn't have the power anymore to start the car.

So people have to get their towed, their cars towed in for that.

And what do you do when that happens?

We test the battery, make sure that it is bad.

Maybe sometimes it just needs to a long charge or something like that.

And if not we just have to replace it.

There's not a lot you can do with batteries.

Yeah.

Although.

Oh go ahead.

Sometimes they're they're really corroded and you can clean them off and and the get a better connection on the terminals and that takes care of it.

But it's usually you need to replace it.

Okay.

So corrosion is an issue.

We hear about a lot in the winter.

Steve, what exactly causes a battery or another part of a car to corrode or a chemical reaction between any two different metals would cause would cause corrosion, especially at the battery terminals.

You've got a lead based battery terminal and another metal covering that lead based terminals get the power to to the, the power distribution device.

So that that definitely causes corrosion.

It's the green build up you'll see around a battery on occasion.

it causes oxidation of the metal parts.

And that's what gives us the rust we have in so prevalent in our state in, in New England, actually anywhere in New England.

Also the fact that I think the state is using a slurry, a real liquid mix on the roads.

Now that doesn't help because it gets into every crevice and crack, in the car and helps to promote corrosion.

Yeah.

We posted about the show on Instagram today on Vermont Public Instagram.

We got so many questions for you guys.

One person asked, why is is Vermont using a brine mix instead of, say, sand?

It kills your car and road and creates icy conditions?

Is that is that true?

Is brine mix?

I think at a certain temperature it might, But I think the people at, at veterans have just figured that this is the best way to keep keep the roads as clear as they can, and they don't.

As far as I know, which doesn't doesn't promote totally clear roads.

They're not going to give us beautiful roads to ride on in a difficult time in the winter, but they're going to give us an adequate road so that we feel comfortable and safe.

Well we got a lot of questions today about salt and the effect on cars and what to do to protect your car.

Rick in Burlington asks what is the best way to salt proof a car.

I mean is that possible?

I don't think you can salt proof it, but you can, do damage control.

You can protect it as much as you can.

There are various different, undercoat, chemicals that you can have put on your car.

Some of them last longer than others, but most of them, they have to be reapplied every year.

Every year and a half.

Those are especially good if you get it done within, say, the first three years of the vehicle's life.

And then maintain it throughout the life of the vehicle.

It really it makes a huge difference.

And in Vermont, what kills a car is the rust.

It's not your engine going or your transmission.

It's rust eating away at the frame.

And the body of the car, the you can also put it on already rusted vehicles.

It will not stop the rust, but it will slow it down a little.

So if your car isn't at the end of its life, rust wise, it may still be worth doing.

if you keep your car as clean as possible that, that helps you.

On the way over, I saw a grosser Mercedes.

Yeah.

Big, big sedan.

Yeah.

500 series.

That was beautifully clean.

I mean, it looks like it just came out of the garage.

It was so clean.

And of course, that helps keep the salt off and helps for the rest.

I know that it takes ten days for, salt and water to turn into like hard rust on the frame of the vehicle.

So if you threw out the winter months get your car washed say every seven days, once a week.

That will also make a big difference, though.

If you do have an undercoating on your car, do not go through a car wash that does the undercarriage wash. You know you'll wash it right off.

Oh, okay.

Good to know.

Yeah, we got a lot of questions about how often you should be washing your car in the winter.

So you're saying about every I mean, days, once a week, the more the better.

But, yeah, once a week is safe.

Okay.

And somebody also asked us on Instagram, is is it ever too cold to go to the car wash?

I mean, I guess if you feel sympathy for the people doing the car wash, it freezes them cold.

But doors will freeze, the rubber seals will freeze.

Is a real risk of that happening.

You can get water.

Extremely cold.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

We got a lot of questions before today's show from listeners about snow tires.

One question is can you change your snow tires by yourself.

And if you do want to do that, is there anything particular you should know to?

Technically, you probably could.

It would be a real struggle, although with the lower profile tires nowadays, I don't know if you actually could.

We have machines, designed specifically to take the tires off of the rim.

That is the most difficult part of the job.

And it's not something that you can just do with strength.

It's taking a small circle off of a much larger circle.

It's just really, really hard to do by yourself.

So it would be really difficult to do it without a tire machine.

If you had two sets of rims and you could put a winter seven one set and a summer set on the other set, but then you run the risk of the car falling down off the jack when you attempt to use it with, with the scissor jack.

Not a way you want to go.

No, no, if you have, I mean, if you have a floor jack, a jack stands and you can support the vehicle while you do the job.

Then you're okay.

Yeah.

In your opinions, having driven in Vermont winters for many years now is January, perhaps January 15th too late for snow tires for all the procrastinators out there.

Never too late.

Yeah, never.

I mean, unless it's two days before it gets to be 70 degrees, it's never too late.

Yeah, always.

It's always better to have safer tires on, for sure.

We've still got a good 2 or 3 months before we're out of snow season.

Yeah we do.

I can remember being in a faculty assembly meeting right before graduation in May in Randolph Center, and we looked out the window and it was snowing like crazy.

Don't tell me that Karen G. This is the month we got an email from this from a listener named Andrew who says, unless you're going to wait till April, it's never too late to put on snow tires.

If you want to safely get anywhere.

The only people who drive without snow tires in Vermont, in Andrew's opinion, are the unlucky visitors who got a rental car with summer tires.

Folks who can't afford to buy them.

They are expensive, or think they can get away with all seasons because they live in the city and just don't drive when there's a storm.

I think that's all true.

Yeah.

Yeah definitely.

So Say somebody is trying to buy some snow tires second hand maybe off Front Porch Forum or Facebook Marketplace.

Do you have any tips for what to look out for to make sure you're still getting a good set of reliable tires?

Tread depth.

And I'm not so sure what the actual figure might be, but you definitely one of the functions of snow tires is to kick the snow out of the tire.

So if you've got a tire thats going to pack with snow it's not going to happen.

Yeah.

So a trick you can do is if you take a quarter and you stand it on its head.

So George Washington is standing on his head and you stick it between the treads.

If you can see the top of his head, the tire is no longer safe to use in the winter.

That doesn't tell you if there's enough tread.

It tells you when there's not enough tread.

Essentially.

the other thing you want to look for is cracking.

Over time.

You know how, when rubber bands get old, they they break a lot easily.

Yeah, a lot more easily.

Tires do exactly the same thing.

And you can see the cracking on the tires between the treads on the sidewall.

And it will often just be very, very minuscule cracks that are hard to see.

So you have to look closely.

But if you see any cracks in the rubber those tires are too old.

It's not worth investing money into.

If you want to go to the parts store, you can get a, tire tread depth.

Gauge for maybe $5.

And I would say you don't want to I if you get a tire with maybe six 30s on it, that'll be good for a good season.

One season for sure.

Maybe two seasons.

That's sort of the end of its life.

So you want more than six 30s on a set of snow tires.

Okay.

Good tips, good tips.

Krista in Guilford is calling in.

Krista, what's your question or your comment?

My question is this I got my snow tires on in, December and then headed home to Baltimore for a family trip.

And while we were driving, we heard this awful, awful sound.

We ended up pulling over in, Connecticut and found some other body shop that was open, and they said I had several lug nuts that were loose.

One had broken off and, one was missing.

And I was wondering, do lug nuts need to be tightened after you get your snow tires on and before you go on a long trip?

Yeah, it's not a bad idea to, have someone check your lug nuts.

They.

When a check puts a tire back on, they should tighten it in a star pattern so that it tightens evenly.

But even so, with the flexing of the metal, lug nut can you can think it's tightened.

And as the wheel settles into place, it can become a bit looser.

So it's not a bad idea when you have tire work done to go back, have them check the the, I talk the talk like that.

And you can, you can actually use your own lug wrench to do that, to make sure they're tight.

Yeah.

Because in a situation like that, I'm sure that they somebody left them loose.

And that was the end result.

Yeah, William in East Montpelier writes, I am not a fan of warming up a car before driving.

Is it recommended and why?

Is there harm besides the obvious environmental issues?

Steve.

Well, first of all, when a car is cold, then that's the time when it's going to suffer its maximum damage because it has the most, the largest amount of clearance within the engine.

And also if it's sitting there idling, it's not working very hard.

So if you take it out in the road and start working at right away, then that's going to help it warm up more quickly.

Any thoughts there Demeny?

Yeah.

Cars are not designed I think cars back in the 90s and before you really did want to let your car warm up before you started driving.

But they're not designed for that anymore.

They are designed to start driving right away.

It's better for your gas mileage.

It's better for emissions.

And like Steve said, driving them helps them warm up faster so there's less damage.

A lot of cars have two thermostats these days to, to retain more, more coolant in the engine so it warms up quicker.

My Hyundai is very rapid.

It's a 2020.

So it's five years old.

Well, speaking of heating your car, one person on Instagram asks, does using heat in my car use up the oil faster?

Should I check the oil more often in the winter?

I just connected at all.

No no no.

All right.

Instagram friend, you're good to go.

well, I'm so glad you too found this, passion that you both love and that you could teach us about it today.

Pallet of Burlington garage and Steve Billet SOS.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you.

It was really fun.