What phenomena should a driver of a passenger car be wary of.
Drivers together with all fellow citizens rejoice at the positive temperature and the bright sun, but in fact — in vain they are so. During the thaw in winter and early spring, even more troubles can await them than in outright cold, reports the Chronicle.info with reference to Channel 24.
Heat itself is good, but and there is a feature of the thaw that it is intermittent weather changes. And it is the alternation of conditions that leads to complications on the road and in the behavior of the car. So, during the thaw, the driver of a passenger car should be wary of such phenomena.
Slippery
The thaw is an insidious phenomenon from the point of view of traffic safety. At noon on open sections of the road — almost heat, dry asphalt and in some places melt water. But in the late afternoon (and in the shade during the day as well!) the pavement of the tracks can keep the temperature below zero. That is, the same melt water somewhere can suddenly turn out to be frozen, which means that the car can be brought in.
Particularly prone to freezing are bridges and overpasses, the carriageway of which is additionally cooled by air from below. Thus, when driving in the winter thaw, one must remember that ice often covers the roadway not with solid sections, but with spots. Which appear every time in new places where the ice does not always have time to neutralize the utilities. Be careful driving.
Paint
Ice that melts on the body, then freezes again, is not very useful for paintwork. Once in the chips and microcracks of the varnish during the day, at night this water turns into ice, and expanding when freezing, increases that microcrack, tearing off the varnish and paint from the metal. For one or two cycles of thawing, freezing will not be a noticeable problem, but if this is repeated for, say, a whole week, towards the end of the cold season, the body will be speckled with paint damage. From which close to the beginning of corrosion. Reliable protection in such a case is body waxing on the eve of winter.
Corrosion
On every car older than 5 — 7 years under the bottom, you can find large or small damage to the protective anti-corrosion coating. This is especially dangerous for cars that are operated in cities and regions where the tracks are sprinkled (or watered) with salt. Unprotected metal soon begins to rust. In frosty weather, corrosion processes are suspended. In this case, usually a feature of the transition of rust to “hibernation” is considered to be temperature — 8 ° C — 10 ° C. At positive temperatures, and even with the remains of a salty environment around, corrosion begins to gnaw at the metal with double force.
Since it is not customary for us to restore the damaged anti-corrosion layer in winter, it is during the winter thaws that our cars are subjected to the largest corrosion damage in the lower part. It is possible, although not easy, to prevent this: on older machines, it is necessary to inspect and restore anti-corrosion protection every few years, destroying all pockets of corrosion.
Tires
This is not a very important, but nevertheless a real factor: excessive wear rubber. True, it concerns only inattentive and not very experienced drivers. During daily temperature fluctuations through 0оС, “spotted” areas are formed on the roads, where ice (compacted snow) alternates with clean asphalt.
When the car starts on such a surface, the wheel, once on the ice, easily breaks into a slip, and then, shifting to the asphalt at high speeds, intensively erases the tire against it. Winter tires have very soft rubber on the tread, which does not “like” such situations. This applies to a lesser extent to models with electronic traction control systems that stop slipping. It is better for owners of other cars to avoid stopping and subsequent starting from such areas.
Freezing
Parking in a puddle in the evening, you can find your car frozen in solid ice in the morning. Don't do this unless you want to gouge the car with a crowbar or wait for the next thaw. After all, an attempt to wrest a car from captivity with the power of the engine can only lead to “burning” the clutch or reducing the age of the automatic transmission.
The thaw is not yet summer or even spring. Therefore, with the sudden onset of heat, do not rush to switch to summer driving style. Because just as the warmth of a thaw changes into frost, so the “summer” section of the road suddenly turns into a “winter” one.