The importance of changing your car’s fluids
How the weather in Alaska will affect how often you need to change your car’s fluids
Advice for automotive fluid changes in Alaska
Final word
The importance of changing your car’s fluids
Getting your car’s fluids changed regularly is quite important to the health of your car’s engine. This includes the oil, wiper fluid, radiator fluid, transmission fluid, power steering fluid, brake fluid, and air conditioning coolant.
If you do not check the levels and conditions of these fluids, you could risk your car not running properly or even at all.
How the weather in Alaska will affect how often you need to change your car’s fluids
The cold weather in Alaska can affect how often you need to change some of these fluids. For example, your oil will need to work harder in colder conditions. You also likely drive places more often because walking somewhere in that sort of weather is never ideal.
When there are significant drops in the temperature the fluids in your engine such as the oil will have changes in their viscosity. This means the fluid will get thicker and will work a bit less efficiently. Other fluids such as transmission fluid will also thicken, consider getting a fluid like this changed to a full synthetic in order to help avoid any possible issues.
Advice for automotive fluid changes in Alaska
- Get any and all fluid changes taken care of before the cold weather hits – In the future, you should get your fluids checked and changed, if necessary, in October or November in Alaska. If you wait longer than that, you could be risking performance issues with your vehicle.
- Go synthetic whenever you can – Getting a synthetic version of whatever fluids you have the option to is a great way to maximize performance during the winter. This is because synthetic fluids tend to be more resistant to being slowed down by low-temperatures.
- Make sure your oil is not dirty – Going into the winter is not a good idea. This is due to the fact that dirty oil is much more susceptible to temperature changes. Thus, getting new oil put into your car with a new oil filter is a great way to maintain the oil’s performance during the winter.
- Drive slower for at least the first few miles – Driving more slowly for at least the first few miles of your drive will help the engine and fluids warm up to a point where performance will improve significantly.
- Skip the idling – We know this might sound counter-intuitive but, believe it or not, when many cars idle, they do not lubricate internal parts of the engine. So, you can possibly have a bunch of internal movement going on with no lubrication. This obviously causes damage to internal engine parts after a while.
Final word
The fluids in your car always need to be paid attention to. However, that is even more important when you have your car in Alaska. That is because the cold weather can cause the viscosity of the fluids that are in the engine such as the oil and the transmission fluid. If this happens, your engine and car will not perform nearly as well as it had been.
If you need your car shipped to or from Alaska, you can get in touch with us today to ask any questions that you might have or to get a free quote. You can also call anytime at (907) 331-3100.
