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HandoutHandout 1: Supply & Shopping List
Handout 1: Supply & Shopping List
Before we meet, get this stuff together. None of it's exotic. Most of it you can find in one trip, and a lot of it you'll use for years, not just this class.
I've split it into "budget" and "nice-to-have." Budget tier is genuinely all you need to be safe and capable. Nice-to-have is stuff I own and like, but you're not behind if you skip it for now.
Budget Tier (get this, no negotiation)
- Jumper cables — the actual cable kind, not just a portable jump pack (though those are great too, see below). Get 12-16 feet if you can, so you're not parking bumper to bumper with a stranger in a snowstorm.
- Basic tire pressure gauge — the little pen-style ones are fine. A couple bucks.
- Ice scraper with a brush — not the tiny one that comes free with a gas station fill-up. A real one, decent handle length.
- Ready-mix windshield washer fluid rated for cold — check the label says something like "good to -20" or lower. The summer stuff will freeze in your lines up here and that's a bad afternoon.
- A cheap flashlight or headlamp — headlamp's better, keeps your hands free. Dark comes early in winter and your phone flashlight is not it.
- A pair of work gloves — something you don't mind getting dirty or a little scraped up.
- Owner's manual — you probably already have it in the glovebox. If not, most are online as a PDF now. We'll use it.
That's genuinely the floor. Total cost, if you own nothing, maybe $40-60 depending where you shop.
Nice-to-Have Tier
- A decent OBD-II code reader — this is the little scanner that plugs into a port under your dash and tells you why your check-engine light is on. You do not need a fancy one. I paid about $20 for mine years ago and it's told me everything from "loose gas cap" to "actual problem, go to a shop." Worth it if you want to stop being anxious every time that light comes on.
- A portable jump-start battery pack — nice because you don't need a second car and a person willing to help you at 11pm. Keep it charged though, it's useless dead in your trunk.
- A battery tester — I'll be honest, I got burned by a cheap one once. It told me a good battery was bad, I replaced a battery that didn't need replacing, wasted forty bucks and an afternoon. If you buy one, spend the extra ten dollars and get a name brand. This is a "buy it once" item.
- A small tote or bin to keep all this together in your trunk, so it's not loose and rolling around. Doesn't need to be nice. An old Costco box works fine.
- Coolant tester (the little squeeze-bulb kind) — tells you the freeze point of what's in your radiator. Genuinely useful up here where we get big swings, but not essential for this class specifically. We'll talk about why coolant matters more than people think.
Shopping notes
Most of this is at any auto parts store or the automotive aisle at a big box store. Macey's and similar grocery stores sometimes carry the basics (scraper, washer fluid) if you're already doing a grocery run and don't want a separate stop. Costco's a good spot if you want jumper cables or a jump pack in bulk-value territory, though obviously you need a membership.
Don't buy the washer fluid that's on sale for $1.99 if it doesn't say a cold rating on it. I've seen people grab that thinking fluid is fluid. It's not. Same idea as the coolant — the stuff going in your car needs to match what our weather actually does, not what it does in Arizona.
Bring whatever you've already got to our first session, even if it's incomplete. We'll fill gaps together and I'll show you what each thing's for before you ever need it in an emergency.
HandoutHandout 2: Winter Car Cheat Sheet
Handout 2: Winter Car Cheat Sheet
Print this, stick it in the glove box, forget it's there until you need it. That's the point.
Battery
- Test it before the cold snap hits, not during. Cold is when a weak battery finally gives up.
- Corrosion on the terminals looks like white or greenish crust. Wire brush, few minutes, done.
- Jumping a car: red to dead positive, red to good positive, black to good negative, black to a bare metal ground on the dead car — not the dead negative terminal. Do it out of order and you'll get a spark and a story. Ask me how I know.
- Buy a decent tester if you're checking your own. The clearance-rack one will lie to you.
Tire pressure
- Cold air shrinks tire pressure. You'll lose about 1 psi for every 10 degrees the temp drops. Check monthly, check more when we get a hard freeze.
- The number on the sticker inside your driver door, not the number on the tire itself.
- Do it cold, before you've driven anywhere. Driving warms the tire and skews the reading.
Wiper blades
- If they're smearing instead of clearing, replace them. Don't wait.
- Rule of thumb: once a year, more if you're driving up the canyon a lot where the wet snow really works them over.
- Two-pack, ten minutes, cheap insurance for seeing the lane.
Coolant / antifreeze
- Check the level when the engine's cold, against the fill lines on the overflow tank. Don't guess "close enough" here — same as measuring flour by weight instead of eyeballing a cup, it matters when it matters.
- A sweet smell in the cabin or a little white crust on a hose clamp means a slow leak. Catch it there, not on a gauge on the highway.
- Our dry air and big temperature swings are hard on a cooling system both directions. This is a genuinely Utah problem, not a nothing-burger.
Oil
- Check the dipstick monthly. Pull it, wipe it clean (use a rag, not your shirt — long story), reinsert fully, pull again, read the level.
- Cold mornings make oil thicker and slower to circulate. Doesn't mean idle forever, just means be gentle for the first minute of driving.
The "warm it up" myth
You do not need ten minutes of idling. Thirty seconds to let oil pressure settle, then drive it gently. Idling in the driveway burns gas and doesn't warm your transmission or tires at all. This one's a hill I'll die on.
Dash lights
If something lights up, don't just tape over it and hope. Most breakdowns I've seen aren't bad luck, they're a light somebody ignored for three weeks. A cheap code reader ($20ish) will pull the code in a parking lot. Sometimes it's nothing — I once cleared a whole check-engine light by tightening a gas cap. Sometimes it's not nothing. Either way, you want to know which one you're dealing with before you're stuck on the shoulder at 11pm in a storm.
When you're stuck
- Stay with the car if it's safe to. It's shelter, and shelter matters more than people think — a cabin can drop below freezing faster than you'd guess once the engine's off.
- Hazards on, phone charged before you need it, not after.
- Not glamorous. Just the list that keeps you off my shift log.
No worries if half this is new to you. That's what the class is for.
WorksheetHandout 3: Your Winter Car Checklist
Handout 3: Your Winter Car Checklist
Print this, stick it in the glovebox, use it before every cold snap. Takes fifteen minutes if you've got the stuff on hand, less if you've already done this once with me. No worries at all if you find something wrong — that's the whole point of checking.
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Under the Hood
Battery - [ ] Terminals clean, no white/green crust - [ ] Cables tight, no wiggle - [ ] Tested with a real tester (not the clearance-rack kind — trust me on this one) - Battery age: ______ years. Over 4-5 years old in cold weather, keep an eye on it.
Coolant - [ ] Level between MIN/MAX lines (check when engine's cold) - [ ] No sweet smell around the engine bay - [ ] No crust or residue on hose clamps - Color looks normal (not rusty brown): Y / N
Oil - [ ] Dipstick pulled, oil between the marks - [ ] Color not sludgy black - [ ] Wiped with a rag (not your shirt — ask Maverick about that one sometime)
Wipers - [ ] Blades still flexible, not cracked or "jerky"-textured - [ ] Wiper fluid topped off — get the kind rated for freezing temps, not the summer stuff
Belts and hoses - [ ] No visible cracks - [ ] No soft or bulgy spots on hoses
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Tires
- [ ] Tread depth (penny test or gauge): ______
- [ ] Pressure in all four: ______ / ______ / ______ / ______
- Note: pressure drops with cold air, roughly 1 psi per 10 degrees. Check it again after a hard cold snap, don't just set it once in October and forget it.
- [ ] Spare tire has air in it too (people forget this one)
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Lights
- [ ] Headlights (both, high and low beam)
- [ ] Taillights
- [ ] Brake lights (have someone stand behind the car, or back up to a window)
- [ ] Turn signals, front and back
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In the Car (Emergency Kit)
Pack this and leave it in, don't just plan to someday:
- [ ] Ice scraper
- [ ] Extra warm layer / blanket
- [ ] Flashlight
- [ ] Jumper cables or jump pack
- [ ] Phone charger (the cheap cord kind, dedicated to the car)
- [ ] Small bag of sand or kitty litter, for traction if you're stuck
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The Two Habits That Actually Matter
1. Don't idle forever to warm up. Thirty seconds, then drive it gently. Long idling doesn't warm the drivetrain, it just burns gas and makes you late. I know that goes against what you probably grew up doing. I'm telling you anyway.
2. Listen to the car. Dash light, weird smell, new noise — write it down here the day it happens, don't wait three weeks:
Date noticed: _______________ What I noticed: _______________________________________________ Did I check it out? Y / N
Most of the breakdowns I've pulled up on were something the car mentioned first and the driver didn't act on. This sheet is just a way to make sure you're the kind of driver who does.
HandoutHandout 4: Troubleshooting Guide — The Usual Suspects
Handout 4: Troubleshooting Guide — The Usual Suspects
Most of what strands people on the side of the road in a Utah winter isn't bad luck. It's one of about eight or nine things, and your car was probably hinting at it for days. Here's the short list, what it looks like, and what to do about it. Print this, stick it in the glovebox.
1. Car won't start, just a click. Almost always the battery, especially once temps drop. Cold makes a marginal battery show its age. Fix: jump it (see Handout 2 for the order — negative to ground, not to negative, learned that one the hard way myself) or get the battery tested. Buy a decent tester or have a parts store do it free. Don't trust a clearance-rack tester, I've been lied to by one.
2. Car won't start, doesn't even click. Could be a dead battery all the way, could be a bad connection. Pop the hood, look at the terminals. White or greenish crust? That's corrosion. A wire brush and ten minutes usually sorts it. No worries at all if you've never looked before, everybody starts there.
3. Check-engine light comes on. Don't panic, don't ignore it either. Pull the code with a cheap OBD-II reader (under $20, worth owning). Sometimes it's something serious, sometimes it's a gas cap that didn't click all the way. I've cleared a code in a parking lot before because that was genuinely the whole problem. Read the code, look it up, decide if it's a shop trip.
4. Windshield wipers smear instead of clear. Replace them. Super cheap, super easy, and this is the one people put off out of pure stubbornness. I did it once, got caught in wet snow coming down the canyon barely able to see the lane. Bought a two-pack the next day. Don't be me for even one storm.
5. Heater's slow to warm up, or blows lukewarm. Check your coolant level first. Low coolant means a weaker mix moving through the system, which means a weaker heater. Also worth a sniff test around the engine bay for anything sweet-smelling. That's coolant, and it's a sign of a leak before it ever shows up on a gauge.
6. Car "feels sluggish" in the cold mornings. Probably nothing wrong, just cold. You do not need to idle it for ten minutes, that's a myth and it just burns gas. Thirty seconds, then drive it gentle for the first mile. The drivetrain warms up by moving, not sitting still.
7. Tire pressure light comes on when it gets cold. This one's honest, not a malfunction. Air contracts in the cold, pressure drops, light comes on. Check your actual pressure against the number on the door jamb (not the tire itself) and fill accordingly. Happens to everybody up here every fall, it's not a breakdown, it's physics.
8. Squealing or grinding when you brake. Squeal is usually a wear indicator doing its job, telling you pads are getting thin. Get it looked at soon. Grinding means you waited too long and it's metal on metal. That's a "today, not this weekend" problem.
9. Sweet smell, or a puddle under the car that isn't just melted snow. Coolant leak. Check hose clamps, check under the radiator. Small leaks are easy to miss until they're not small anymore. I found mine by smell before it ever hit the gauge, and I bring that up every chance I get because it actually saved me a real repair bill.
10. Transmission acting weird — slipping, hard shifts, warning light specific to it. Being honest, that's past what this class covers and past what I do myself. That's a shop job. Don't let anybody talk you into DIY-ing a transmission off a video.
The theme running through all of this: the car tells you first. A light, a smell, a smear, a click instead of a start. You just have to know the handful of things worth checking before you're the one on the shoulder at 11pm with no signal, which, statistically, is also right around when hypothermia starts to be a real concern in a stalled car. Anyway. Check the list, you'll be fine.
Videos worth your time
Hand-picked by your instructor, with notes on what to watch for.
- Don't Skip These Winter Car Tips (Prepare Now!)Classic Car Maintenance
Watch this to get a full walkthrough of getting your car ready for winter, including checking the battery, tires, and fluids before cold weather hits.
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