Is my truck going to start tomorrow? It never gets this cold in Detroit. We had 12" of snow yesterday. I parked my truck with the bed facing the wind so it will bear the brunt of the cold tonight. Don't know if that will help the battery or not in the morning. Aside from parking it indoors, or getting a block heater, any other tips to help it start tomorrow?

 

If possible, take the battery inside with you tonight. It's -17 with a w/c of -44 here, I feel your pain. Block heaters, oil pan heaters, and battery heaters all work to some effect. Oil heaters are preferred since that's what causes the most resistance when cranking.

 

It is always best to plug in but I have started mine at -40 without being plugged in, mind you it made a bunch of weird noises but it fired right up! Defiantly got to let it warm up a bit. You can throw the transfer case in netural and put the trany in gear to warm the transmission and transfer case up.

 

That's a good idea. Seems obvious, but I never thought about that. Actually, your idea gave me another idea - maybe I should invest in one of those booster jump starter things. That would alleviate me from having to disconnect and reconnect the battery in the morning and probably give me enough boost not to have to worry about it.

 

One thing to add unless you have a heat source (such as a block heater) it does not matter what the wind chill is. If it is -17 and with wind chill it is minus eleventy billion your truck will never get colder than -17.

This is what you want:
ZeroStart™ Tank/Circulation Engine Heater | Canadian Tire

 

It was almost that cold here this morning and this evening. It took a little longer than normal, but it still started right up.

 

Wind chill affects everything that's warmer than the air by cooling it down to air temp faster. With a minus eleventy billion wind chill your truck will cool off REALLY fast. But yes, once it gets down to -17 your truck won't get any colder.

Same is true for people. Wind chill doesn't affect us after we reach air temp either. But then again, by the time you're at -17 you've been dead for quite a while. So it's best to figure that wind chill always affects people.

It was -26 this morning here. My truck was outside and hadn't been touched since Saturday evening. It started right up. I was happy. Cold, but happy.

 

Really? I did not know that. So I think the air temp got down to like -10 last night. I'm assuming that sitting out there for 12 hours in the cold, everything on the truck was -10 this morning. You're saying that no matter what the wind chill is, it won't get colder than -10?

 

BTW, the truck did start this morning. But it was close. It usually starts after the first or second revolution. I turned the key and after 2 revolutions it had not started yet, I knew it had maybe one or two left in her before she would die. On the last one, she leaped to life!!

 

As long as your battery is good,shouldn't be a problem starting. I had to drive my truck a couple days this week because of bad drifts. It was -14 here,and the truck hadn't been started in a week. started and ran without a problem.

 

This makes sense, but my question is what affects the hard starting on a cold morning more: the cold engine, or the cold battery. To me, getting something like this makes more sense as I could use it on other vehicles:

 

It was -25C (-13F) here this morning and although it took longer than normal, the old beast lurched to life. She wasn't happy she had to start today, but did so anyways.

I'm not sure why everyone is so upset about the cold weather. My beer gets to the perfect temp in record time

 

Yeah, I'm thinking a new battery would help. I just bought the truck about 6 months ago, so I have no idea how old the battery is. plus, it's not a name brand battery, and I've had to jump it a few times becasue I left the lights on. It starts great in weather above 20 degrees, and it did start today, although a bit harder.

 

you could buy the best battery in the world and it still would turn harder when its colder, oil is thicker and batteries have less amps when its cold

 

About -12 this morning, took about 30 seconds of slow cranking until it fired. I run full synthetic 5w-30 which I like to think helps.
Luckily i had wired up a battery maintainer under the hood and poked the plug out the grill. I left it charging all night, not really sure it would have started without that! I might get an oil pan heater and plug that in as well.