My friends & me are planning to do lots of mountain driving for snowboarding this season, mostly in my car because a lot of trunk space for our gear. Any advice for winter driving?

PS: how often do you guys refill your tires w/air? and what is the general gas company of choice?

 

One tip is make sure you have a emergency kit on hand. The emergency kit should contain jumper cables, tow straps, a first aid kit, some tools, working flashlight, and always make sure you have a cell phone on hand

You should check your air pressure regulary. just make sure each tire has the correct PSI most Taurus tires call for 35 PSI but some Tauruses are different....check your tires for the recomended PSI or check the doors on your car

 

arite bro, thanks a lot :]

 

Chains [sm=goodidea.gif]


Also,, I always bring (and keep on hand) some extra blankets, flares,and a good size tote with some 'non spoiling' food and of coarse water.. As well as the prior suggestions... Reason being,, was that we were caught in a major snow dropincluding the temps!! after a ski trip and my radiator unknowingly froze.. Truck started though and made or started our way partially down the mountain.. Overheated, and took the only exit there was.. NOT a sole around at all (before cell phones) and ran the batt dead trying a restart or two and to run the heater/blower what there was left.. We had to get all our ski gear back on, and sat for the most part very cold getting ready for the worst part of the night and storm.. Luckly a Cal Trans snow removal wagon came by (hours later) and towed us to their yard (we were blocking his job and they used a heated tap of thawing water to get us unstuck, and a healty jump to get us on are way.. Guess there's always options,,, including the truck as a 'final source' of heat but you can easily get caught off guard, including mechanical problems, freezing, (plenty of anti freeze well protected below what your expecting) and may need only yourselves to rely on for hours.. Have fun, think for the possibilities, and be safe.....

 

WOW, that's a crazy experience to have gone through. Even w/cell phones, service would've probably been horrible :/ But ya, thanks a lot man, this is definetly gonna be useful.

Also...what do you think the problem is if front defrosters aren't working,recently, as well as they have a month ago...kind of scary considering we're using my car for this weather.

 

You say the defroster doesn't work. Why not? Need more details. Is the air just not hot anywhere, or does the hot air not blow on the windshield?

If the air blows everywhere else but not the windshield, maybe the flow doors inside the dash are broken. This would be if the air is hot, but not on windshield. Need to fix flow doors to make sure air blows where controller says it should.

If air blows on windshield but just isn't hot, I suspect it isn't hot anywhere else either, like the heater (air blows down by feet on floor) is also cold. If that's the case, could be several things. First, check coolant level. If antifreeze/water mix is low, then the heater won't work right, no hot air. Sounds silly, I know, but it is oh so true. And, this is the most common problem and easily fixed. If coolant level is good, maybe the heater core is clogged. Heater core is like a little mini radiator under the dash, and the flow doors let air flow over the "radiator"-like heater core to heat up the air. If the heater core is plugged up, then water won't go there from engine, poor coolant circulation. Could also be a bad thermostat, which means coolant won't circulate when it needs to if the thermostat is broken. If coolant level is good, heater core is not plugged up, thermostat is good, then maybe the flow door for temp is not working. Flow doors are electrical, run by motors (used to be run by vacuum) and flow doors control both the direction air is flowing (defroster, heater, vent, bi-level is both) AND control air flow over either the heater core for hot air or over the AC evaporator for cold.

Could be other things as well...but these would get you started. Check coolant level first, it's an easy check and an easy fix if that does it.

Mark in LA