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Winter Ready Your Vehicle

On behalf of Ward Tirecraft, we want to help ensure your vehicle is winter ready.

Winter.. what.. oh no, too soon! Let’s be honest; thinking about that frozen white stuff, and arctic temperatures is something most of us would prefer to avoid this time of the year. In reality, this is the best time to do it regarding your safety and the care of your vehicle. There are a few different reasons for that. For those of us working in the industry, we are acutely aware of the first reason: October and November are the two busiest months of the year. Getting your vehicle into a shop for a proper pre-season check-up can be frustrating. A pre-season checkup is worth it because there are things that are a good idea to check, and the vast majority of people do not own the proper tools or equipment to do so correctly. The best example is a battery tester making sure your battery fully uses all those important Cold Cranking Amps (CCA’s) you see advertised everywhere. This rating is the ability of your battery to send the most power to the vehicle to get the engine to turn over when all your fluids are thick and molasses-like.

Obviously, getting your fluids checked and possibly changing to the right type for the season is also a good idea. Many people are unaware that some fluids in your vehicle are seasonal. The main offender is washer fluid. It is formulated to help deal with bug guts in the summer but has a much lower threshold before freezing. If your washer fluid freezes and expands, it can lead to cracked, leaky parts and further costly repairs. In some higher-performance vehicles, the viscosity of your oil may also be different based on the temperature outside.

The second reason is that there are a few winter essentials that everyone should have in their car that maybe are not the easiest to find at the moment, but purchasing them now can save you a decent amount of cash. Things like your snow brush and ice scraper are victims of terrible markups at the beginning of the season. A snow brush that costs $39.99 at the beginning of winter can often be purchased for $9.99 or less in the warmer months.

Also, at this stage, it should be no secret that the pandemic has made getting supplies for just about everything more difficult the same is true for winter tires. The early bird may very well get the worm this year. As I always say, a cheap winter tire will ALWAYS outperform an all-season.

The biggest reason, of course, for all this, is the hope that we can help you from becoming stranded on the side of the road amid a blizzard.

We love our customers and the cities and provinces we operate in, but even if you don’t shop with us, make sure you shop local. Thank you.