GREENSBURG, Pa. — With the coldest temperatures of the season so far in forecast overnight — bottoming out in the single digits early Friday morning — many people might wake up to their car not being able to start. It’s the most common problem many auto repair shops deal with.
“A lot of no-starts and freeze ups, batteries go bad or they’re weak and over the winter with the cold weather, it just kills the batteries,” said Jim Serlo with Greensburg Collission Center at Sendell Motors.
Sendell said there are ways to avoid that — including remote starting your car periodically.
“That helps pre-warm the motors up and get the oil lubrication going through the motor, and you don’t have any sluggish problems,” Serlo said.
Greensburg Fire Chief Tom Bell said if you do that, make sure you don’t leave your car running inside your garage.
“The next thing you know your carbon monoxide detector is going off, you don’t know why, your car shuts off, you forget about it, things like that,” Bell said.
Carbon monoxide poisoning from heating homes is one of the most common dangers Bell said he sees in the winter. He also warns - make sure there’s no snow in your car’s exhaust so carbon monoxide doesn’t come back inside the car.
Aside from carbon monoxide, firefighters say they deal with a lot of frozen pipes.
The best way to prevent that is opening cabinets by your sink, and letting your faucet drip overnight.
“It doesn’t have to be a steady stream, just a little bit of a drip to keep that water pushing through there so it doesn’t freeze in the pipes,” Bell said.
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