Richard Yarrow’s opinion for www.startrescue.co.uk, providing low cost car breakdown cover.
What has fascinated me over the last few days of news reports – and the media alerts from vehicle breakdown recovery operators such as www.startrescue.co.uk – is that we Brits aren’t very good at looking after our cars.
It’s an oft-quoted statistic that our cars are the second most expensive thing we ever buy, but what a spell of cold weather reveals is just how poor we are at actually maintaining them.
Many people had written off the back end of last week, and probably didn’t move their cars over the weekend either. Back to work yesterday, scrape the frost off the car and… oh, it won’t start. The entire breakdown industry was reporting unprecedented demand in the morning, with one organisation stating appeals for help topped out at a staggering 3,000 phone calls an hour. No wonder it was dubbed ‘Manic Monday’.
Battery problems were the number one fault – it’s no surprise they don’t like cold weather – but I get the feeling we often don’t help ourselves in this situation. We pay all this money for our cars then just assume they will work, without really thinking things through and applying a bit of common sense. Don’t turn the ignition key with every comfort feature switched on. Help the battery out by flicking them off. That includes the heater, lights and radio. Why? Because every volt is precious when it’s cold out. Once the car is running you can turn them on; they’re not going to kill the engine at that point. Also, don’t just turn the key right round immediately. Move it to the ‘on’ position first for two or three seconds to allow the electronics to get going before starting the engine. Follow this advice and it could be the difference between needing roadside breakdown assistance and not.
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