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'99XLS winterizing

1999 XLS 106K miles

My son is moving to North Dakota from the deep south next month. He is starting a great job, he is also not a mechanic of any kind (dad's job I guess). I know some of you on this forum are from colder climates so my question is "Is there anything you would recomend i do differently to prepare for winter?"

We basicly shut down around here if it gets much below freezing and three snowflakes closes the roads. ;-) A couple of issues I have had with the truck that have caused NO problems except trip the CEL are cold related.

  1. Oil pressure gauge (outside temp below 30deg) stays at the bottom for about 5 min then jumps to normalwhen engine is warm. I know we have disscussed this before and it has never caused any problem for the last 11 years. ???

  1. PO171 and PO174 codes will trip if the temp gets around 20deg and is humid. Reset it and it is good until the next year if it gets that cold.

I'm asking because we wear short sleeve shirts all year here and we know nothing of the white flakey stuff from the sky.

Reply to
Richard
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Could be a vacuum leak, most likely it is. Replace the intake gaskets between the upper and lower manifold, add no less that 5W30 oil, 5W20 if no leaks and engine is in good shape. 50/50 antifreeze mix and a 195 degree thermostat. Your V6 has a on & off switch for the oil pressure and not a true gauge.

My advice is to trade up, something low miles that will start and not nickel and dime you in that cold winter. Easy for me to say, I don't like to walk in sub zero weather.

Good luck,

Ron

Reply to
Ron & Maggie

I'm from NYC area which is not as cold but some obvious things are:

  1. Use the recommended oil with lowest cold temp viscosity
  2. Coolant is not expired and rated for those low temps.
  3. Battery is not too old and has good cold cranking ability.
  4. You might also want to consider a set of tires with good snow/ice ratings, possibly even winter specific tires.
  5. Keep an eye on tire pressure.
  6. Allow some warmup time before driving off.

Ben

Reply to
Ben Kaufman

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