Left the F150 at the storage garage while I fired up the convertible to charge its battery and stretch its legs. Upon return, the 'vert wouldn't climb the whopping 2° icy rise back into the garage because the summer tires have zero grip on ice or snow. So the Jag is safe at home for now, and the storage garage sits empty.

 

Time for a CTEK!

 

Storage garage has no juice, it will never have juice...... it's a rental. Battery registered at 12.8 when I fired it up, which was encouraging as it's been 3 weeks since the last adventure.

 

Even winter tires would have struggled i bet!

 

Tire chains or cables.

 

I'd get a shovel, rock salt, and sand and deflate the tires to 25 lbs. I'd never use chains on my XKR.

 

 

One of the few times to break out the towing eye from the otherwise useless Jaguar toolkit.

I can see why you are occasionally starting the vehicle but in the situation of no power in the storage facilty and snow/ice on the ground, I'd restrict it to thoroughly warming the engine and not bother with even a short drive. For me, the benefit of keeping the vehicle dry outweighs any advantage of cycling the transmission and working tyres and brakes.

Graham

 

The tires need to have the flat-spots worked out. Also, getting it up to temperature then opening it up a bit flushes all the unwanted water vapor. Since I've only done this when the pavement is dry, I get to tool around wintery Western Pennsylvania in a Jaguar convertible (top up) while people look at me wondering WTF is wrong with him?

 

A tire cozy!!! My wife is a County Fair Blue-Ribbon winning quilter, maybe I can present this as her next project?

 

That was my thinking, too. Looking at the forecast, if I wait a week, Mother Nature will take care of it for me. My Audi, which now has to sit outside at night, was none too happy.

 

You can avoid flat spots by overinflating the tires.

 

Not this winter, at least not here. With the last two weeks being sub zero temps, (todays morning temp -20 Fahrenheit, -29 celsius) the air will contract. Of course it will expand again as temps return to normal but the duration of this cold blast will leave flat spots I think. Of course like everyone else, the first drive in the spring will resolve any flat spot issues.

 

Lesson learned: Better to have flat spots than to not be able to drive back into the garage.

Or to drive down your street! This was yesterday in Franklin, Tennesse, a suburb of Nashville. Yikes!

 

They are over inflated, and still flat spot. Over inflating will reduce the flat spotting to some degree, but it is not eliminated.

 

Mine flat-spot in a week, but a mile or two and they are fine.

 

Quite the predicament. Here in Fort Worth, we're dealing with quite a predicament ourselves right now too. Temperature in the single digits, hundred car pile-ups, rolling blackouts. Not worried about flat spots right now, just pipes. No tire cozy, but I'm in my own house wrapped up like the Michelin Man. Y'all need to keep this winter stuff up north where it belongs.

 

Awww, and here I thought we were being nice, and ‘sharing’ with our friends down south...

 

I remember living in Fort Worth in the early 90's. One winter, my mighty Lincoln Mark VII with that nice 5.0 V8 and rear wheel drive was rendered positively USELESS when a tiny bit of ice coated the road. Once in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Chisolm Trail Parkway (I30) heading into downtown a pickup had to boost me up a tiny little hill. It was embarrassing!

 

Yup, my ‘92 Lincoln Mark VII, which I bought new, with traction-lock, was freakin scary that first winter. With both wheels breaking loose at the same time, I couldn’t get up any incline. Had to change my route to work and back if there was any snow. The next fall I bought a used Cadillac STS to use as my winter car. That front wheel drive baby could punch through the snow drifts, while Jeeps were in the ditch.