How does your car behave differently in the extreme cold?

Topics that apply to all 92-95 civics
 Reply
User avatar

How does your car behave differently in the extreme cold?

By teal_dx
- Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:26 pm #341883 It was -11°F when I left for work this morning :shock:

Obviously, I don't drive my EG in winter, but the tsx instead.
Here's some things I've noticed:
- Lcd display screen on radio is super slow. Transitions in text or numbers is faded in/out.

- Clutch pedal feels squishy and has less travel - feels like a completely different car.

- Suspension is a lot stiffer, that's kind of fun.

- Shift very slow until the car is completely warmed up. I can feel the gears engaging. Not grinding, but you can feel a slight notch when shifting into a gear. Once, right after I started driving after the car sat outside, I either did not have it far enough in gear or shifted too quickly because it popped out of second.

One thing I'm always sure to do when I arrive at my destination is to open the door for 20-30 sec before I get out and lock it up. I have a theory about hondas rusting from the inside out that I noticed when I replaced the rear 1/4's on my EG...

When it's cold outside and you're blasting heat inside and breathing, that's a lot of warm humid air trapped in the car. Think about a glass of ice water on a summer day. You get condensation on the side of the glass which is exposed to the warm humid weather. The same thing happens on the inside of cars. Especially when you have snow on your shoes and it melts into the carpet. If you've ever come out to your car and had to scrape ice from the Inside of your windows... that's why.

So I make it a habit to turn off heat a couple mins before I get to my destination and then open the door while I'm gathering my stuff before I get out. Maybe it helps prevent rust, maybe not... but it's good for a piece of mind.
User avatar

By egsedanguy
- Tue Jan 28, 2014 6:34 pm #341889 I know what you mean. It does not get really cold here but when it get to freezing or close to it i notice the same things. The shifting thing i notice the most. also it get weird when its really hot out side. I always warm up my car completly befor driving and that helps most of it go away. its just cold fluids. :thumb:
User avatar

By juls1488
- Tue Jan 28, 2014 7:00 pm #341892 the thing i notices the most when it gets really cold out is all the extra vibrations, rattles, and other noises that just aren't there during the warmer weather.
mostly its my dash. below 10°F that sucker vibrates like a lady's toy. :lol:
User avatar

By ohDirka
- Tue Jan 28, 2014 7:06 pm #341893 The GTI did almost all the same things your TSX did. Glad I dont have a catch can right now, a lot of people are saying that the catch cans are freezing causing the cars to run like crap.

By rustyrex
- Tue Jan 28, 2014 9:00 pm #341901 I bought a new house in September. I spent all of September, October, November, and 20 days of December tearing down the one car garage and building a 25x40 "2" car garage lol. I put radiant heating coils in the slab and in the driveway since we had to dig it all up. So my eg, crx, and f150 sleep cozy. They all run fine unless I have a lot of running around to do lol.
User avatar

By TrailerTrash
- Tue Jan 28, 2014 10:37 pm #341907 it was -4 last thursday and this morning it was 6 here in pa.

my 4 door cranks very slowly then it fires up and revs real high to like 3k for about 2 seconds and it sounds terrible like it doesnt wanna start :lol: the power steering is really stiff. even after warming up for 20 minutes its still quite stiff till i get driving. other than that theres nothing out of the ordinary(stiff suspension ect.)

my coupe acts the same no matter the tempatures other than when its really cold one of the cluster bulbs doesnt light up right away. it always comes on in the same 1 mile stretch of road on my commute each morning/night :lol:
User avatar

By suspendedHatch
- Fri Jan 31, 2014 4:55 am #342016 It doesn't get quite that cold here but on those rare single digit days and low 10s I've encountered all the things you mentioned.

I really hate winter blend gas.
User avatar

Re: How does your car behave differently in the extreme cold

By d-mon
- Fri Jan 31, 2014 5:09 am #342017
teal_dx wrote:- Shift very slow until the car is completely warmed up. I can feel the gears engaging. Not grinding, but you can feel a slight notch when shifting into a gear. Once, right after I started driving after the car sat outside, I either did not have it far enough in gear or shifted too quickly because it popped out of second.


trans fluid, like motor oil, doesn't function properly until it reaches operation temp. that's why we don't rage on cold motors...

you can't go by the 'temp' gauge, it only measures coolant temp. (if its not climbing, who cares)
your oil pressure gauge is much more accurate for telling when the oil is at operating temp, should be very close to 0 at idle. the transmission also needs some warm up, but will be ready when the motor is.

also, it should be noted that aluminum blocks are MUCH more susceptible to ambient temps than cast iron blocks. (that is to say they are more affected by the weather, hot days they will run hotter, cold days they will cool faster)

Happy motoring!
User avatar

By Civic_HatchSI
- Fri Jan 31, 2014 12:00 pm #342026 I am fortunate enough, that I get to park my civic every winter in the heated garage. When I first bought it I had to run it in -35c or colder. Everything loves to freeze up, especially the door locks and wipers. I currently run a 95 wrx in the winter, I couldn't even get into the car yesterday morning lol...

By HeikDiesel
- Wed Feb 05, 2014 2:16 pm #342226 My red hatch is pretty grumpy. Takes a few seconds to fire off and is pretty sluggish and surges and sputters for a minute or two. After that it clears up. I'm pretty sure that when we tuned it the cells for that temperature for IAT and ECT weren't touched so I may have to look into that.

By deschlong
- Fri Feb 07, 2014 8:26 am #342317 Rain or shine, hot or cold, I run my Civic. I find beyond -40C things get a little stiff or brittle. :) One thing I notice is that my steering wheel squeaks when I turn, which is annoying, until the car warms up. Also the dome light can be slow to come on, due to the door switches being stiff. My DRL relay is causing me problems as well as my light combo switch but these are all easily fixed.

Other than that, aside from it being damn cold when I sit down, and a bit extra time for cranking, basically things are just that much more stiff until she warms up. My heated seats mod takes care of warming the driver up PDQ, though.

I wouldn't be too concerned about condensation on the inside of the car after a drive. It's not like these cars are well-sealed plus there is venting to accommodate this issue anyway (though arguably insufficient, so maybe you do have a point). I will submit, however, than moving a car constantly from a frozen environment into a heated garage environment has the potential to cause more problems with rust than just leaving it outside frozen.
User avatar

By teal_dx
- Fri Feb 07, 2014 2:12 pm #342320
deschlong wrote:moving a car constantly from a frozen environment into a heated garage environment has the potential to cause more problems with rust than just leaving it outside frozen.


Very good point :thumb:

By ktang
- Thu Feb 13, 2014 8:35 am #342596 After sitting outside at work all day at -20 C, or overnight, if I open the hatch and then close it, the "Trunk open" light comes on, even if the hatch is latched.
 Reply
Return to Chassis - General