Morning JNCers! In Tokyo, we are hitting single digits, in the US there are huge snow flurries and downright tough weather all around. In high school I used to scrape my windows each day before heading to school in my AE82 Corolla DX. That all changed when i learned to drape a towel over the windows and saved myself scrape time and increased visibility. We ask you all:
Tell us your tip for battling the winter weather with a JNC!
Your answer can be based on a new school or old school tip and hopefully helps everyone reading this to keep their JNCs on the road.
The most entertaining comment by next Monday will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s What JNC would best represent the New England Patriots?
Last week’s QotW my have rubbed salt in the wound depending on your American Football (gotta say it this way for our friends over the pond) team, but there is no denying a great player that continues to deliver. With that in mind, I think Fifty5engineering said it best.:
The Miata has been relevant since its 1989 introduction 25+ years ago. It’s still a winning racer/autocrosser, has maintained a cult following, and almost anyone can afford one. What a great car.
The Miatas have been a car that never got it’s due in the beginning as it was seen as a small whimpy convertible that could never hold up. As years past, people began to give them a shot at autocross and small grassroots events. Year after year, even the NAs reigned in on their nimble cornerings along side the newer generations until now; we have an era where all hail Miata, the little engine that could and one of the very few nameplates being built new today with enthusiasts at heart.
Omedetou, your comment has earned you a set of decals from the JNC Shop!
Living in a building with a underground parking space is most helpful !
Move to a warmer climate!!
When I was in college, I owned a 240Z. It had a starter acting up so I bought a new one but hadn’t installed it yet. When I went to start it to go to my graveyard shift job, it was dead. And it was now snowing. I had the tools. I had a light. I went over to a dumpster and behold, a beautiful, big discarded cardboard box to slide around on!
About thirty years ago when my TE27 Corolla SR5 was my main car, my starter was very wonky, so I would always park my car on an incline so I could easily push start it. Yeah, it really wore down the clutch, but didn’t have the cash to replace the starter at the time…
A heated garage………. seriously there are things one can do to make winter driving less of a chore.
1. Buy the best all season or dedicated snow tires you can afford.
2. Change your your oil to 0-20w for easier start ups, synthetic is even better.
3. Fill your window washer bottle with a blend of water & antifreeze product like Wurth additive.
4. Double check your radiator fluid age and condition.
5. If you have electricity handy, consider a battery tender to maintain the battery, especially in cold weather. You can also add a freeze plug with an electrical plug to keep your engine oil warm, again this will help with start up. They also make magnetic versions of the above heat plug.
6. Treat your glass, including mirrors to Rain-X, this will help keep ice from forming on the glass, especially helpful against freezing fog/drizzle.
7. Lastly, if you do a lot of winter driving make up a survival kit. Some tools, energy bars, water, a survival blanket and some flares would be helpful.
In Montana I fitted a 300 watt external tank heater to my 411. Remove the engine block drain and flush bolt. Add a half inch nipple. Run half inch hose to bottom intake of heater. Mount heater below the battery to use waste heat to help the battery crank over since it will be warmer. Install half inch angled fitting in intake hose to car heater. Hook up the tank heater output to the heater hose fitting. Don’t forget to plug it in before going to bed. Result pre-warmed car heater and easy starting.
I don’t drive my Daihatsu during winter. I’m letting Him hide in Hin lair around November and wake Him up late April/ early May. I do it since i own Him – about 10 years. That’s why He’s the proabobly best kept example in Poland, that means He’s not eaten by rust. The roads here are highly salted and most cars, esspecailly older japanese and italian ones suffer from galloping corrosion.
In the winter of 2005 I was driving a 1989 Corolla GT-S. I got stuck in my girlfriends driveway due to the snow and needed to get out for work. She lived in the country so naturally her dad had a pickup and offered to pull me out. The road had been cleared so all he had to do was pull me to the road. Unknown to me as I was steering the car, he had put the tow rope on the lower suspension instead of the tie down hook.
Once my car reached the road the car was pulled sideways and bent the lower suspension and the mounts were damaged.
I ended up scrapping it as my girlfriend (later to become wife) said it would be better for kids if I had a four door.
Miss the car, which is more I can say for my ex lol
When driving in slippery conditions, it’s important to adopt the right attitude. While braking into the corner, downshift, steer away from the corner then swing the car back into it. A quick yank on the handbrake to get those nice sharp rear drums to bite, then let the clutch in and floor it to drift through the apex and away up the road.
Demo reel courtesy of Fuji Heavy Industries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IH_yiauYWU
Move to California.
Step 1: complain
Step 2: Find indoor hobby like D&D or a tabletop game like X-Wing or Settlers of Catan
Step 3: Become VERY well acquainted with your local craft breweries
Keep it inside a garage, and not live somewhere that snows.
I went car shopping last year, when I knew I was going to be moving from Tennessee to Cleveland, Ohio, and I figured my Z31 300ZX would no longer be a reasonable all-season daily driver. So after much hemming and protesting my wife’s admittedly reasonable stance against importing an Alto Works RS-R (“But it’s 4WD!”) I settled on a 2016 Subaru WRX. A more reasonable variant of the AWD + fun equation, modern Rexes look like respectable sedans to your in-laws but can still tear up some mountain roads while you blast Yellow Magic Orchestra. Win-win.
So I was prepared for the Great North’s infamous winters and lake-effect snow. The thing I wasn’t prepared for at all was what complete garbage the roads are up here. For the uninitiated, the quality of your average Cleveland street is somewhere between a construction zone and Fallujah in the spring of 2004. As such, the hard suspension, low stance and bolstered seats in my WRX are absolutely murderous. Every trip to the store, once a joy on the glassy byways of the Neverwinter South, has now become something akin to that Namco F-1 arcade game from the ’70s, except instead of dodging Ferraris and Lotuses, you’re constantly swerving to avoid dodgy asphalt patchwork, compressed mounds of diamond-hard ice that never melts, massive sharp edged steel plates in the road and Sarlacc-Pit-scale pot holes.
And so, ironically enough I find myself leaving the AWD winter specialist in the garage and cruising town in my old RWD Z31. The aging, floaty stock suspension and tired seats used to be near the top of my project list, but up here they’re assets! Besides, a large part of the fun of nostalgic-era vehicles is how accessible their limits are, and that’s doubly true in a couple inches of fresh snow.
For car-based questions, the answer is always Miata! Except for when it snows. Winter adversaries are quelled with this answer, Subaru! Just maybe not necessarily a 360…
Part of me wants to try to rustproof every square inch of one of my 510s and see if I could keep it solid while still using it in the winter. I’m sure i could protect it, but the trick would be to not get lazy. I’d have to get underneath it every season, spraying treatment into every void and removing and greasing any fastener that is vulnerable… yeah, I probably couldn’t do it. I’m too lazy.
But prices on 13″ snow tires are so darn cheap….