Getting Your Car Ready for Winter — A Pre-Season Checklist
Winter has a way of ruthlessly exposing everything your car got away with over summer. Checking a few things now, before it gets properly cold, will save you nerves (and money) in January.
1. Tires
This is item number one — the 7°C rule says it all: once temperatures start regularly dropping below that threshold, the summer compound loses grip. Also check tread depth — the legal minimum is 1.6 mm, but for winter conditions you’ll drive comfortably and safely only with tread above 4 mm.
2. Battery
Frost is a battery’s biggest enemy — low temperatures can cut its output by dozens of percent, and it’s exactly in winter that the engine needs more current to start. If your battery is getting on in years, or the car’s recently been “struggling” to start, get it checked before the first frost, not during it.
3. Air conditioning and heating
The AC works in winter the same way it does in summer — it’s what clears your windows quickly. If your windows fog up excessively or take a long time to clear, that’s a sign the system needs a check. More on what an AC service involves on our workshop services page.
4. Fluids
- Windshield washer fluid — winter-grade, with the right freeze point (not the same one you used in summer).
- Coolant — check the level and glycol concentration so it doesn’t freeze in a hard frost.
- Engine oil — if a change is coming up, better to do it before the season than in the middle of winter.
5. Lighting
Shorter days mean more driving after dark. Check that all your lights work and are correctly aimed — misaligned headlights blind other drivers and light the road worse.
6. General diagnostics
If your car’s been flagging minor issues for a while, autumn is a good time for a computer diagnostic check — it’s easier to fix something now than once the problem shows up mid-frost on the road.
Don’t want to check all of this yourself? Book a pre-winter check-up at our workshop — we’ll go through the whole list for you.