Get Your Car Started Even If You Are Going Nowhere.
27 Feb 2019
Dear LPG,
I am not sure that you will remember this time last year in any detail, but February 27th 2018 was the day that Lewisham woke up to the threat of that wonderful, white blanket of snow that looks so beautiful when you are looking at it through the window of your nice warm bedroom, as long as you don’t have to go out. We called it the ‘Beast from the East’ at the time and all the newscasts the day before warned us that it was on its way.
Being a retired driver I did not have to go out and I did myself the service of observing the advice of those in the know, I did not go out at all that day. I did not need to go out the day after either, which was a good thing because it was colder and whiter than the day before, but it did occur to me that I needed to get to my car and start the engine in order to let it idle for ten minutes or so.
I am no mechanic and have absolutely no idea what goes on in the engine of a car, but I have always been told that letting your car run for a short while, at least once every other day, is a really good idea if you want to keep it warm and in driving order. If nothing else, you will know if your car is in starting order or not.
As you can tell I wrote this a while ago in the hope that LPG will post it exactly a year after our first 2018 encounter with the white stuff. It may be a bit late, or 2019 might be a year when it does not get cold enough to snow, or indeed it gets too cold, but either way it is worth remembering that starting the car every couple of days, even though you plan to go nowhere, will help it to start when you really need it to.
TS, Dulwich
LPG has found some information on this subject, albeit from parts of the world where winter is usually much more severe than in Lewisham, and while we appreciate that most of our readers are, like TS, likely to be completely ignorant of what lays behind the bonnet of their car, we hope it will inspire our website visitors to take a look at what we need to do in order to best protect them from the cold.
Please note that LPG advises readers to get the appropriate help before attempting any advised tasks; forewarned is forearmed.
