By Brittany Carlson
Special to the Belvoir Eagle
Thursday, November 15, 2012

When I walked into the Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Auto Skill Center on Fort Belvoir Nov. 8, I had one goal in mind: learn how to winterize my car.

“Winterizing” is just another word for making your car ready to withstand winter weather, and now is the time to do it.

Isaac Boateng, a mechanic at the Auto Skills Center, walked me through the process.

First, he told me to check my tires to make sure the tread is deep enough. The easiest way to check, he told me, is to put a penny inside the tread, right side up. “If you see Lincoln’s head, that means that the tire is bald,” he said.

This is also the time to exchange summer tires for snow tires or all-season tires, he added, and check tire pressure.

When the temperature changes, so does tire pressure — tires lose pressure in the cold. Boateng’s advice was to check tire pressure in the morning, before using the car, and then again after it warms up. The ideal tire pressure is written on a sticker inside the driver’s side door.

Next, he showed me how to check my coolant, or antifreeze, level by opening the antifreeze reservoir under the hood.

Never open the coolant reservoir when the car is still hot, Boateng said. “If you check it when it’s hot, coolant is like hot water, so it will bubble up, and it could burn you,” he said.

He showed me how to take the coolant cap off slowly, making sure to release the pressure bit by bit. If the reservoir is not full, now is the time to top it off, he said.

Also, most coolants come ready mixed, but it is important to make sure that you have a 50-50 mix of coolant and water, he said.

I also learned that like any other car fluid, coolant can get old and stop working properly. It should be completely flushed out with water and replaced every four to five years, or as indicated by your owner’s manual.

The change of seasons is also a good time to get regular maintenance done, Boateng said, which includes an oil change, and checking the brake fluid and windshield wiper fluid. New windshield wipers are recommended, since wipers take a lot of strain in the winter to wipe off snow, ice and sleet.

“A lot of people don’t change (wipers) and they always wait until the last minute, and then it starts snowing and it’s starts raining and then it’s like, ‘Oh man, I need to go get it,’” Boateng said. “Make sure your windshield wipers are brand new for the winter.”

For people like me who haven’t done a lot of preventive maintenance on their vehicles the Auto Skills Center can help. I found out that you can rent out a bay (starting at $3.50 an hour) to work on your car, but mechanics are available to help or provide assistance. Fluids like windshield wiper fluid and antifreeze are also available for sale.

After my visit with Boateng, I checked in with Andrew Toler, director of the Kawamura Center, which oversees the Auto Skills Center, to see if he had any more advice on winterizing a vehicle.

He said that people often forget to check on their hoses and belts, which can deteriorate in cold weather.

“If your car is a few years old and you’ve never changed any of that stuff, cold weather makes stuff get tight, and then the next thing you know, you broke a belt,” he said.

It’s also important to check the car battery, he added, especially in older vehicles.

Finally, he told me to get my car ready for winter now, to avoid dealing with issues later on.

“When you wait until it happens, you’ve got to deal with it in the cold,” Toler said. “If you prepare for it now, you have a better chance of surviving through the winter without any problems.”

For more information on the Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Auto Skills Center, including services, prices and hours of operation, visit www.belvoirmwr.com, or call (703) 806-4088.