Trying to start your car was a lot harder than usual in late December and early January in Prince Albert. (File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Rob Mahon

Cold Swamps Car Shops

Cold spell causes deluge of calls for car shops

Jan 28, 2022 | 12:00 PM

Most people don’t love arctic temperatures, and their vehicles definitely don’t. As such, during a string of on-again-off-again cold snaps, cases of car troubles jumped up.

From battery problems to hoses breaking, companies like CAA and those involved in automotive repair get a lot busier when the temperature drops. One shop in Prince Albert got practically overrun with requests for service in the early days of the cold snap.

“We saw a major increase in the beginning,” said Sean Corrigan, owner and manager of 2^nd Ave. Tire and Automotive in Prince Albert. “Batteries, hoses, blower motors, anything that could have fluids going through it, which would be hoses cracking, heating issues and no heat, stalling, stuff like that.”

While Corrigan said it’s common for calls to pick up in the winter and during cold snaps, this year his staff were “running off their feet” trying to keep up with the number of people having car troubles. The most common of these was no heat.

“Coolant issues, plugged heater cores, blower motors not working,” Corrigan said. “Vehicles need flushes at times, and heater cores and stuff like that need to be flushed or replaced. Then you get snapped hoses. When it gets that cold, fluids and liquids, some fluids aren’t made for that and some hoses on vehicles aren’t strong enough so they’ll crack.”

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Corrigan also issued problems with power steering as a major issue. Another problem a lot of drivers faced, and one that CAA reported a lot of calls for around Christmas, was battery failure.

“When you’ve got cold weather like this, what it does is it tests the strength of a battery,” Corrigan said. “In the summertime, you can run a week battery and get away with it. When the cold weather comes in, it tests them, and the weak ones get found out really quickly.”

Fluctuating temperatures in the back half of January have made things a little more complicated as well. Your car might not need repairs as much as it needs to wait for the temperature to rise.

“Some people, we’ll tell them, this issue is just because of the cold,” Corrigan said. “Wait a few days. When it warms up, that issue will go away. Rather than replace something that doesn’t need to be replaced, we would tell some customers to just wait until it warms up a bit.”

Corrigan added it’s too early in the season to worry about damage from potholes yet, as the snow fills the cracks in the pavement, but people spinning or sliding on icy roads and crashing into ditches or snow banks has caused some damage they’ve had to repair.

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rob.mahon@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @RobMahonPxP