Greetings, all.
-10F this morning, here in central Minnesota. This is pretty much the first *serious* cold of this wacky so-called winter. And neither of our vehicles will start at all.
I was wondering if anybody had experience putting one of those "tank heaters" in their car -- one of those engine heaters that goes in-line in one of the heater hoses (I think)? The 400W Subaru one takes a long time to warm up the engine enough to matter -- because of course it's meant to be left plugged in overnight.
(In this case, we're talking about an '02 Impreza, the Outback Sport version with the 2.5 engine)
Why don't I just leave it plugged in overnight then, you ask? Because we have a solar-powered house and can't spare that much electricity from our batteries overnight. On cold mornings, I have to hope the gas generator will start, plug in the car and wrap it up with blankets, and wait as long as possible before trying to start it.
I have one of those tank heaters on my ancient diesel tractor, and it warms it right up to operating temperature if I give it 20 or 30 minutes.
On the subject of Subarus in winter, and as it's been a long while since I was reading this newsgroup -- has anybody found any nifty ways of coping with the ice/snow buildup in wheel wells and inside rims (short of a nice, warm garage)? I heard a rumor that Subaru was going to redesign this out somewhat (I assume with more clearance) -- but that doesn't help me until I get a new car.
Also, and please forgive my laziness in not searching the archive to answer this, as I'm sure it's been covered plenty 'o' times before: how many guys follow what the owner's manual says about using 5W-30 all year in this engine? I use the Castrol synthetic, and have been switching to
10W-30 in the summer the last couple years, but can't decide if it matters or not. It would be nice to always use the same stuff, and not have an assortment of half-bottles waiting around for 6 months...