Our vehicles perform best in a pretty narrow set of environmental conditions. So what happens when you plop a car down in the Denver area and let our insane weather loose on it? Let’s find out!
A striking feature of Colorado is that our weather is crazy. Thunder snow, microbursts, blizzards, chinook winds, bomb cyclones (what even is that?), drought, hail, tornadoes, wildfires, and dramatic temperature swings are just a few of our exciting weather phenomena.
These all have potential to impact your vehicle’s performance (and cosmetics, thanks hailstorms! BTW these guys can help) but arguably the biggest factors are temperature and pressure.
Fuel economy and performance
Quick refresher from high school science class:
Gasoline internal combustion engines work by creating controlled explosions by combining fuel, air (specifically oxygen molecules), and a spark. To make sure the explosions are the right size to provide enough power without causing damage, your engine relies on precise mixtures of oxygen and fuel. But as temperature drops, air gets more dense, meaning there are more oxygen molecules in the same volume of air.
Your vehicle has a pretty sophisticated set of sensors and computers (mentioned in a previous post) to monitor and make adjustments for these variations, but it’s far from perfect. So how do these factors impact fuel economy and performance?
Cold weather = increased density of oxygen molecules.
Dense air = more power!! Racing enthusiasts are affectionately familiar with this phenomenon, but it is noticeable even for us common folk. The increase in density of oxygen molecules will be matched by an increase in fuel added to the cylinders courtesy of your vehicle’s super smart CPU. The result is that your car will put out more horse power!
But…
With great power comes great responsibility.
-Uncle Ben from Spiderman
Hang on. I mean, with great power comes great fuel cost. Your fuel economy will be worse during cold weather. I say it’s worth it! But I suppose it depends what your priorities are.
Ok, that’s cool, but what if you have an electric car? Without an internal combustion engine you would think that the temperature changes should have no impact since oxygen molecules aren’t as important. Sort of. They do have effects, but for different reasons.
Temperature impacts the speed of the chemical reactions taking place in the battery. Too hot or too cold dramatically reduces the range of an electric vehicle because the reactions are not progressing optimally.
And the thinner air found in warm weather or at higher altitudes actually gives a slight bonus to the vehicle’s range because there is less wind resistance or drag on the vehicle as it is driving.
TPMS - tire pressure monitoring system
Improper tire pressure can cause a host of problems in a vehicle from negatively impacting handling and load carrying capabilities to worse fuel economy and shortened tread lifespan (and possibly contributed to a number of fatalities during the Ford/Firestone controversy, eek!)
A TPMS monitors the air pressure in your tires and is required on all vehicles after 2007 due to the TREAD act that resulted from the aforementioned controversy.
When the TPMS senses tire pressure has moved outside of the preset threshold levels, either above or below, (but usually low tire pressure is the culprit), a warning light comes on the dashboard that looks like an exclamation point inside a horseshoe.
It seems that most people fall into one of two camps when it comes to car warning lights: those that completely ignore them, and those that totally panic. When it comes to the TPMS warning light, you shouldn’t do either.
If the light turns on and off periodically it could be due to temperature changes. Remember that colder air is denser and will take up less space, so tire pressure will drop in a tire when it gets cold, like overnights in Colorado, and pressure will increase once it warms back up. This is very common in Colorado due to our huge temperature fluctuations. You will still need to check your tire pressure and be sure to inflate any low tires to recommended pressures.
If the light flashes for the first minute or so every time you start the car and then stays lit, then it may not be functioning properly. This could be because it is faulty, or your vehicle may have different tires than originally equipped with, or perhaps the TPMS just needs to be reset after a tire rotation. Either way, check your pressure manually then take your vehicle to get checked out and fix the problem.
What you should do, in all cases, is manually check your tire pressure in all tires and add air to any below the manufacturer specifications.
Learn more about TPMS here.
And next, everyone's favorite....
Potholes!
Frequent, rapid changes in temperature can wreak havoc on our roads. Each time the temperature moves across the freezing line, a new cycle of destruction begins. As snow melts the water finds its way into the cracks in the road. Once freezing temps hit again this water will expand inside those cracks, making them larger. And, like Colorado do, when the weather quickly warms back up, the ice melts deeper into the cracks where the pothole formation process repeats with each freeze and thaw cycle.
Oh the joys of Colorado weather.
Last week in Denver we saw a high of 79 degrees on Tuesday and then snow on Wednesday. This week is has a similar forecast. Turns out, using the air conditioner and heater in the same day is a pretty typical Colorado experience! Hopefully you learned a little more about what that means for your vehicle.
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