WINTER PREPERATION FOR YOUR CAR IN POLAND

It won,t be long now before the minus tempretures are upon us , so its time to prepare my car for the Polish winter , but my lack of Polish language skills make some things a bit difficult....for example...

I want to drain out my radiator , and put in a 50% mix of anti freeze and water to cope with whatever minus tempretures come along , but when buying anti freeze i can,t tell if the stuff i am buying is neat anti freeze that i need to dilute with water and put in or if its already mixed and i can put it in straight from the bottle....

Same goes for screenwash , what words on the bottle will tell me if i put it in as it is , or dilute it...???

Dont forget to make sure your bty and starter motor terminals and all earths are nice and clean and put a smear of grease on them for protection.Nothing like a flat bty or none starter on a cold morning

You should change tyres to winter ones. Depends where you are. I use a car in Gdynia and it's a must.

you should look for a word rozcieńczać/rozcieńczyć (meaning to dilute) if it is gonna be there this most probably will be in the small print section (application)

nie rozcieńczać in one block means - do not dilute

Some helpful replies, but the way they drive in Poland, I would suggest putting the car away for the winter and using public transport instead.

there should be a temperature mentioned somewhere on the bottle till which it stays liquid. That's the way it's normally is in Russia. How much does screen wash cost in Poland?

As for antifreeze... why don't you want to use the one that recommended for your car by a producer?
I bought a can for my peugeot and add it whenever I need. I use the same liquid all the year long.

Put it in neat, what do you have in your car right now? just water? Decent summer coolents act as anti freeze in the winter aswell. Ive had top grade anti freeze in my motor and still had it partially freeze back in Jan 06, got to -36. Anybody remember that?


Safe bet with that is dilute in teh summer and neat in the winter, anything other than that and your water jets will clog and not work.

another usefull tip is to spray WD40 (lazy way) or rub on vaseline around the door trims, anywhere they touch, in freezing conditions its not that uncommon to rip of trims and panels after theyve frozen together.

Bad bad idea it contains petroleum which rots rubber seals (but it does work)

Silicone spray works a treat!

Thats great..i have got my radiator and screen wash sorted now , the stuff i put in should be good for down to minus 35 degrees..

As others here have said this is the time of the year for flat batteries so make sure yours is in good condition....A battery that might have started your car with no problem in the summer may let you down when its very cold....A battery loses some of its power when its very cold , add to that the fact its trying to move your engine parts through oil that is much thicker due to the cold and you can have a problem...

During winter , if your car is only used for short journeys to work , and you have on your heater , your demisters , radio ,lights etc , you may be taking more power out of the battery than your short journey is putting into it....If you have a spare battery , not a bad idea to keep it in the house on charge...

If its a really cold morning , don,t flatten your battery trying over and over to start the car . a quick squirt of easy start will fire up any petrol or diesal engine right away....

Don,t forget a warm coat , some shoes good for walking in snow , and a shovel . just in case you get stuck.... If you travel on roads that are little used , not a bad idea to have a flask of soup , or hot coffee in case you have to stay there a while till rescued...

I am an experianced 4 x 4 driver , but even i accept there is a possibility to get stranded somewhere , and as well as a shovel , i carry enough stuff to survive a night in the car without freezing to death...

Its not a bad idea to have a decent tow rope in your car , even if your car is not capable of towing anything , it may be that you get stuck , and someone who stops to help may not have one....

Dont forget to have a can of deicer to unfreeze the door locks , and don,t put it in the car , keep a can in the house...!!!!

Make sure all your lights are working , and keep them clean , your lights can get pretty dirty driving at this time of year....

It goes without saying that driving on snow or ice makes it harder to stop , so don,t drive like a **** , and leave a good gap between you and the car in front....drive in as high a gear as possible , and avoid spinning the wheels setting off , this turns the snow under your wheels into ice....

People new to Poland may be a bit shocked that the country does not grind to a halt when two inches of snow falls ( unlike the UK ) and that many minor roads are not gritted....this is the time of year to find out if you can drive....or not....

drive carefully peeps......