[Closed] Car breakdowns

A lot will be dead batteries. Cold weather will finally kill a poorly battery quicker than you can say Jack Frost.

Couple of points:

Cars that are running with marginal problems will have them exacerbated by the cold.
Metal-metal contacts could become worse due to metal shrinking.
Batteries are based on chemical reactions - in the cold they slow down a lot, causing massively reduced power output. Poorly charged batteries can freeze.
People forget to change/put in any coolant, snapping water pump shafts, timing belts, popping caps out of blocks, bursting hoses.
Handbrake cables freeze up.

15,000 is about 0.5% of the vehicular population of the UK.

Very large numbers of people call out the AA to change a tyre.

i had to call them out when i ran out of diesel! its not my fault, it was a new car, the old went for about 50 miles with the fuel warning on. it was quite embarrassing.

My van conked out after being driven for a couple of minutes this morning. The guy in the local car shop said it was probably due to the diesel waxing because of the cold. It was -10 here last night.
Managed to finally get it going this afternoon after much trying. Plus needed jump leads as battery quickly lost it's charge.

Neighbours car wouldn't start this morning due to flat battery, only been sitting there 2 days. My van struggled to turn over and the battery for that is only two years old and it was given a run the day before. My handbrake was also sticking on, though thankfully its a RWD so it pops off with a bit of welly, unlike a FWD car that would have dragged its arse down the road.

Edit: And saw a van outside my work that had stalled halfway down the road and he couldn't bump start it due to the ice.

Alternator problems show themselves pretty quickly in the cold too...

Definitely, stress it to the max in this sort of weather.

HoratioHufnagel - Member
i had to call them out when i ran out of diesel! its not my fault, it was a new car, the old went for about 50 miles with the fuel warning on. it was quite embarrassing.

Well it wasn't my bloody fault was it?

Own up, you're a muppet! 😉

Flat battery for me this morning, luckily I live on a hill so I managed a bump start.

Unluckily for me this was shortly followed by a pop, lots of steam and water and a 2" rupture in one of the hoses from the engine block.

I usually ride in so the cars been sat in the cold all week and hasn't moved...

Fire up the Quattro!

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[i]i had to call them out when i ran out of diesel! its not my fault, it was a new car, the old went for about 50 miles with the fuel warning on. it was quite embarrassing. [/i]

Also the kinda people who consider an MOT a service...

I usually ride in so the cars been sat in the cold all week and hasn't moved...

I was on the breakdown line at work today, and yesterday.
The RAC were taking up to an hour to answer the phone and had between 700-1500 calls queing most of the day, the AA were naswering within 5 minutes.
Most of the calls were either for non starters or people who knew there battery had gone, and a fair few knew the battery was on the way out for a while.
There was also a fair few clutch issues, and also driver shaft probems due to clipping kerbs etc in the snow/ice.
Diesel waxing was also fairly common, as were people who expected the breakdown companies to come out and pull them out of the car park or drive as they were snowed in 👿

The RAC were taking up to an hour to answer the phone and had between 700-1500 calls queing most of the day, the AA were naswering within 5 minutes.

Glad I chose the AA over RAC then

mondial were answering even quicker 😀

Check those coolant levels, it's easy to forget!

It froze last year after I'd forgotten to top up, took over a week to thaw out and has lost water ever since.

I've been topping up with regular water all year, added anti-freeze last week when I heard the temperatures were set to drop.

I would just stop using the car altogether during cold spells, it's far more fun on the bike but not always practical...

Chatting to the RAC guy who picked me up this evening (see this thread http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/ive-just-written-off-my-car- )
and he was saying that the majority of breakdowns he'd attended were just that - silly little things like running out of fuel, someone driving into something cos they'd not cleared the snow off their windscreen properly, batteries etc.

He said that just a few basic checks like making sure there was screenwash and antifreeze in there would make all the difference.

I would just stop using the car altogether during cold spells, it's far more fun on the bike but not always practical...

Yeah, not that practical riding 40k miles per year on a bike with a truck load of tools 😉