Seasonal Road Safety Tips

Meriel Bradley: As the seasons change, so do the needs of your vehicle. To help you stay safe, your vehicle must be mechanically sound and properly tuned to ensure that it performs in the extremes of cold winters and hot summers. Cathie Clark is with us today to take us through auto part seasonal road safety checklist. A well maintained vehicle is a safe one. You are watching Daily Web TV. We all need to make sure we follow a safety checklist for our vehicle and with us today is Cathie to help us understand what we should do when. So help us out here Cathie. Cathie Clark: Well Meriel, the first thing I want to talk about is the extremes that we deal with here in Ontario. We have extreme cold with a lot of precipitation, and a lot of snow, a lot of hail. We have extreme heat and we really need to make sure that our vehicles are equipped well with the - you know there are two separate winter and summer wardrobes so to speak. Meriel Bradley: Right. So - yeah they are very far apart in terms what you need. Cathie Clark: Absolutely and something as simple as tyres, an all season tyre performs very differently than a winter tyre. Meriel Bradley: Why is that? Cathie Clark: Well winter tyre is equipped with the soft, more pliable trait. It's meant to grip the road and actually it will help you with stopping and keeping you on the road on those icy snowy conditions. Meriel Bradley: So maintenance really equals safety? Cathie Clark: Absolutely. You know what, having two sets of tyres may seem like more money at the offset, but you are going to get longer lifespan out of both sets of tyres where you have one year around and you also have a better chance of staying on the road during the winter with the right tyres. Meriel Bradley: And we all definitely want that and you guarantee that we are going to get snowing ice. You can't say, well maybe won't. We definitely will. What else should we do in the winter? Cathie Clark: You want to look at things like your battery. Is your battery getting a bit persnickety, do you have to boost it? If you are noticing that in the Fall, you may want to consider having your battery replaced. Meriel Bradley: Right. Is the winter harder on the battery than the summer? Cathie Clark: It is. When we have those extreme cold temperatures, extreme cold does some damage to the fluid and the friction and combustion parts in your vehicle. So your battery is definitely impacted by that. Meriel Bradley: Right and we don't want to be stuck on the side of the road with a car that just doesn't want to start. Cathie Clark: I don't. Meriel Bradley: And you go, I wish I changed it when I knew. So we can eliminate that by again, preventative maintenance. Cathie Clark: It's preventative maintenance and it's little things like you wash your fluid. You will notice in about September that pretty pink washer fluid at the gas station is on sale and you can stock up at Costco, that's summer washing fluid. It has the bug deflector in it. Meriel Bradley: Bug deflector? Cathie Clark: Yeah bug deflector. It helps to scrap the little bug bodies off your windshield when you are doing those road trips in summer. Meriel Bradley: So there is, okay I just thought it was just pink or whatever for summer and then you just put the winter one in it? Cathie Clark: There is different additive in it - it's just to get the bug bodies off. Meriel Bradley: Wow! I didn't - okay. Bug body windshield fluid. Cathie Clark: The bug body remover. Converse to that, the winter one has the increased additive in it so it's going to keep fluid to I believe it's -40. So you are going to actually get a spraying onto your windshield and not freezing on contact. So that your wiper blades can then do their job and in fact, there is even specially coated wiper blades now that are going to help keep the entire blade in contact with your windshield so you are not faced with that little tiny oval from the one spot on your wiper blade and its contact. Meriel Bradley: And it's always in that eye vision too. Cathie Clark: Or it's little bit too low. Meriel Bradley: So okay, you know, I didn't even know that those were in existence. So that's fabulous. So we are looking at wiper blades, fluid, battery, tyres and then I guess the general all round maintenance. Cathie Clark: The general all round maintenance and then when you are getting into the spring season when you notice the snow stopping, you may be want to get those winter tyres off as soon as possible. Meriel Bradley: Okay. So why is that? Cathie Clark: That pliable trait we talked about, dry roads can rip it to shreds and you want your winter tyres to last you for several winters. So you want to get them off as soon as possible and preserve that tyre life. Meriel Bradley: Right. Now what should you do a balancing thing when you change them? Cathie Clark: It's very cost effective way to prolong the life of your tyres. Every other wheel change, have your tyres rotate it in balance, you are going to get far longer wear out of your tyres that way. Meriel Bradley: Right, I didn't realize that it prolongs the life. Cathie Clark: It even outs the trait wear, so... Meriel Bradley: Okay. So you definitely want to do that. Yeah for sure. Anything else for the summer that we should think about. Cathie Clark: The all important AC is always a factor. Meriel Bradley: We can't be without our AC? Cathie Clark: We can't be without our AC. Now with these extreme heat waves that we have and just for a own personal comfort, the AC is an issue. You want to have it tested and make sure that you are not loosing fluid. Meriel Bradley: Okay and that would then just decrease the efficiency of your air conditioning? Cathie Clark: It can and it can also decrease its ability to blow cold and all -- Meriel Bradley: Okay. So you need obviously AC equals cold. Cathie Clark: You have to fill it that. Meriel Bradley: Well, that's amazing information. Is there any where people can go to get a list of what they should do? Cathie Clark: Our website is a great place to start, www.autopark.ca, we have a suggested maintenance schedule. Also we have service shuttle and we have Starbucks coffee here which is fantastic. Our service advisors are really friendly. Come in and talk to them. They would love to meet you and meet your vehicle and talk about their tyre, their winter wardrobe and summer wardrobe. Meriel Bradley: So get your vehicle well maintained with great friendly - such as yourself. Thank you so much Cathie, great information and as Cathie said, if you want more information, you can go to www.autopark.ca. I am Meriel Bradley and you have been watching Daily Web TV.