Winterizing Tip #6: Change your vehicle’s oil on schedule this Johnsburg winter

Changing your oil on schedule is the most important thing you can do to protect your investment in your automobile and that certainly applies during a Johnsburg winter.

Winter poses an additional challenge to motor oil in terms of doing its job of lubricating the parts inside your vehicle’s engine. Without oil, the friction between parts within the engine will create so much heat that, in a short period of time, the parts will grab hold of each other, things will break, and parts will fuse together as they cool. Cold weather makes it harder for the oil to work its way up through its passages and into the engine.

As we enter the Johnsburg winter of 2021-22, we don’t know how cold it will get. But we know the thermometer will fall below freezing and, quite likely, below zero. These cold temperatures have a specific effect on motor oil.

When it’s cold, the oil thickens. Until it warms, it’s reticent to flow when the oil pump works to pump up and through the engine. As the engine runs, the parts create the heat that is necessary to warm the oil and induce the viscosity that is conducive to oil flow. Viscosity refers to the rate of the oil’s flow.

What this all means is that, in the winter, the oil isn’t ready to flow when you’re ready to go. For that short time before the oil is warmed, the engine is operating with a minimum of lubrication. The potential for your engine to suffer greater wear and damage is likely.

With some vehicles, the manufacturer specifies a change of oil when winter comes. They want the owner to use an oil with a viscosity that isn’t affected by the cold as much; they want to get that oil up through the passages and busy lubricating moving parts as soon as possible.

Time and Use - two factors that play with oil’s viscosity

Additionally, as your motor oil works, time and the effects of its job can effect the viscosity. Oil that is in the engine longer will pick up dirt and metal particles. The heat it experiences during operation will breakdown the detergents in the oil. It will change the rate of the oil’s flow.

Oil is there to protect and preserve your engine. Extremely hot days will pose another challenge for your motor oil. But this is winter – the opposite end of the seasonal spectrum. Now, we want oil that will flow sooner in the cold, no matter how frigid it gets this Johnsburg winter.

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