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Cold prepping your car

Winter weather brings unsafe roads and potential vehicle malfunctions. with colder temperatures due for East Texas, make sure you are checking key components on your vehicle.

TYLER, Texas — The winter weather can spell disaster for your car, frozen roads, failing batteries, and many other issues can throw up road blocks between you and your destination.


There are some steps you can take to ensure a smooth ride when the temperatures drop, the first of which is to simply bring your car in to be serviced and checked over by an expert.

 Glenn Huff, owner of European Automotive in Tyler, says checking your fluids is the first step.

“Make sure you got antifreeze and stuff in it. Check the oil, you’re supposed to check coolant and oil regularly anyway, but no one ever does.” Huff said.

When it gets cold, he says he always double checks the antifreeze levels.

“I’ll go through and check every car on my lot when I know cold weather is coming."

Huff says batteries tend to fail in extreme temperatures, so if your battery has a few years on it, it may be time for a new one.

“Batteries are good for about four to five years in this climate…It seems like the cold weather, the extreme cold just kills the battery.”

Making sure your tires aren't too worn down is important as well.

“Check your tread depth and your tire pressures and stuff and you know, rotate them if they need rotating and stuff, and that's real important in the cold weather. It don't take more than a 16th of an inch to hydroplane on,” Huff said.

And at the end of the day, you can't see everything going on with your vehicle, so Huff says to have it regularly checked.

He said, “It's good to have it checked over once or twice a year you know, every time the seasons change…you got to take care of your car or it's gonna take care of you."

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