Cold weather preparedness.

Hi Doc.
Its possible that the position that you park the car can influence the degree of frost build up. Tonka is parked next to a tall hedge and that protects her to an extent. Also wind direction can have a strong effect.

Roger

Thanks Roger,

It's parked out in the street and when I defrost it in a morning the frost is pretty uniform over the front windscreen and bonnet, so I reckon, it's still the exhaust location and the fact that the washer tube is shorter to the passenger side.

I would prefer it if the drivers side jets defrosted first, but then I guess in left hand drive cars it does. Hopefully re-routing the tube will help, otherwise it is back to pulling over and using the hand spray bottle.

Robin

Thanks Doc.

I find that the defroster on the Gen.4 is fast and powerful. If I start Tonka and then start scrapping at the drivers side, the frost on the passenger side w/screen will be mushy by the time I get to it. Also the washer jets are clear by the time I drive off but I put that down to the 50-50 mix in the washer bottle.

Roger

I find threads like these start to build up with unnecessary gear. Similar to a person's EDC where they start carrying a bottle opener, a lighter [even though one doesn't smoke], a keychain knife, a pocket knife, a boxcutter, a pocket prybar, two pairs of sunglasses, miniflashlight, fullsize flashlight, a kubotan pen, and a multitool...omg.

My daily driver's (DD} winter EDC is:
-Shovel
-Blanket
-Thermal underwear (top and bottom)
-Winter work gloves
These get taken out come summer.

I don't see the point of granola bars or water. Extra phone batteries will die quickly unless on person or charged constantly. Water freezes unless kept near a heater. Granola bars...fine, they have a long shelf life.

Mind you, this is an EDC for a Daily Driver for a normal day. Week[end] warrior mode sees granola bars and bottles of water and themoses with hot tea. Definitely throw in some recovery boards, kinetic ropes., etc etc. A backup charged phone, sure.

A healthy car battery is good to have. But I've gone through -25 to -30C winters here in Eastern Europe with a suboptimal battery on a tender overnight. Nozzles frozen? Occasionally. But I find those days are so cold that the windshields need a cleaning much less often...because it's so cold that road spray is less of a problem. [be sure to fill up on winter washer fluid].

I do remember a winter many moons ago that was -36C for a few days...my diesel VW took a day or two off way back then.

I tried wrapping a flexible washer tube round the radiator pipe and it seems to work fine so bought a small length of copper pipe and wrapped this round the pipe, seems to work great, now all we need is some -5C temperature again.

Robin

winding the copper tube on a former (axle stand)
 

 In place and connected to the flexible pipe.