FILL ’ER UP FOR SAFER WINTER DRIVING
Having the right vehicle weight balance for winter driving is more important than ever. With powerto-weight ratios on even entrylevel vehicles surpassing muscle cars of past eras, keeping control on winter roads is getting difficult.
Drivers from almost every corner of our country seemed to have got the message that winter tires go a long way to improve safety. But having the necessary weight in the rear of almost any vehicle can help lessen the risk of spinouts and generally improve traction. And like anything else in automotive life, there are right and wrong ways to approach things.
Fuel mileage suffers. Yes, adding enough weight to any vehicle will affect its fuel economy, but isn’t safety worth a few extra litres of fuel? Besides, fuel economy on most vehicles will take a 15 to 20 per cent dive on average when the mercury plummets.
Drivers have used many methods to add winter weight to their rides. Concrete patio stones and cinder blocks, bags or buckets of sand or salt or both have all been enlisted in the war on winter. The problems with these methods are twofold.
First they don’t always put the weight where it can have the best effect (low and close to the centre of the vehicle’s gravity) and second, while they might be well secured, they are never held in place well enough to withstand collision forces. In severe impacts or rollovers these items can easily become lethal projectiles, risking life and limb to both those in the vehicle and those outside.
The best place to add weight to your auto is already there: the fuel tank.
Gasoline weighs almost 0.8 of a kilogram per litre, so even an econobox with a 40-L tank can gain up to 32 kg with a full tank versus running on fumes. And a full tank comes with the added benefit of not taking up any interior space.
On the topic of added benefits, keeping your fuel tank topped up during colder weather with extreme and rapid temperature changes will also help reduce the amount of condensation in the tank that can lead to water-in-fuel running problems and no-start conditions.
Does all this mean constantly stopping at gas stations to top off your vehicle’s tank? Of course not. But when the weather forecast is messy and your gauge is reading half or less, filling it up can give your ride improved traction and handling, along with peace of mind of knowing that at least you won’t run out of fuel when you’re stuck in gridlock.