Driving and Insight at -35C

[BillR]

Hello everyone,

I don't know how many of you experience extreme cold when driving your Insights, but I thought I'd pass on some of the things I've learned. I live right in the center of the North American continent, and we experience a weather phenomena known as a "continental high". This happens during the winter when a big blob of cold arctic air sits on the middle of the continent and takes days or weeks to move off because it takes some really energetic low presure systems to push it out. Right now many of you in the US are feeling the effects of this cold air, but here in central Canada it's stupid cold! How many of you have ever had the car start using the 12 volt starter motor. Every time it happens it makes me jump and think that something terrible has happened!

Enough whining. Here's what I've done to help the little car survive at these temperatures.

1) Block off the front: I use pieces of cardboard to block all of the AC heat exchanger and about 90% of the engine's. I only leave about 2" open at the top on the left side.
2) Control the fan speed: Our drive starts with 3 kms of gravel road before reaching the highway. On this stretch in the summer, the car easily reaches "normal" on the temperature readout. When the tempurature drops below -20C, I keep the fan speed at one square to allow the engine to warm up as quickly as possible, but still the coolant hasn't reached the "normal" point before I pull out onto the highway. It usually takes another km while accelerating before this is reached. We then drive 20 Kms with one stop at a T intersection before reaching the edge of the city. I keep the car in 4th gear because at 90KM/H with cold, dense air and thick transmission fluid and wheel bearing grease, the motor has a hard time pulling 5th gear. On this segment I manually set the fan speed to four squares since this blows more air than the automatic setting. Most of the heat produced by the motor is pulled away by the heater, in fact when I stop at the T intersection, I have to turn the fan down a couple of squares or the coolant tempurature drops from its "normal" reading. It's a little disconcerting when I let the clutch out at this corner and find that the pedal returns like it's moving through thick syrop. It makes gear changes a little bit jerky. When we reach the city and merge into traffic flowing at 60KM/H, I have to keep the fan at two squares or again the coolant temp will drop. Loafing along at 60KM/H the motor just isn't making enough "waste heat" to allow for the higher fan speed.

I suppose that a person could just watch the road and drive without covering the rads or taking the HVAC off of the "auto" setting and things would work just fine - although you might get a little cool if the engine cools off too much. I take the measures that I do to try to get the best fuel economy that I can by warming the motor up as quickly as possible and keeping it there. Even still, driving in cold weather really sucks the fuel. Our 80Km commute averages 3.1 l/100km in the summer and 3.9 l/100Km in the winter (I use the B trip meter to get a season average) (3.5 l/100km is our lifetime average). When the air tempurature drops down into the -30's, my tank average rises to 4.5 - 4.7 l/100km. I know that most people would be extatic to get this kind of fuel economy with their cars, but as an Insight owner it makes me cringe.

Keep warm out there everyone! Spring's only a few weeks away!

Bill.

[bryankwalton]

Thanks for your post. Just yesterday, I started a topic in the "Problems and Troubleshooting" forum on the stiff clutch in extreme cold. I live in eastern Iowa (US) and have experienced some really cold weather (not -35 C) at -23 C. Here is what I've done to deal with it:

1. I chose not to completely cover the radiator, but rather cover the bottom half of it. I'm taking a mpg hit, I'm sure, by doing that. But I decided I wanted the A/C condensor somewhat uncovered for when the defroster/defogger is running.

2. Wear gloves and hats. I leave my heat completely turned off until the engine is up to temperature. Then, I only turn the dial one notch to allow as little heat as possible to move from the engine into the cabin. I then set the mode button to direct some of that air to the windshield and the rest to the floor. I leave the cabin fan turned off almost all the time. Perhaps some people might freeze inside my car, but I'm quite OK with this setting.

3. With these settings, I've found that once the car is fully warmed up, I can still take advantage of idle stop mode down to about -12 C. Below that temperature, and I find it almost impossible to get into idle stop mode, regardless of what I do with cabin heat.

4. Also, below -15 C, I find that lean burn mode is almost impossible. This is where I could benefit from the warm air intake mod, which I haven't done. Of course, here in Iowa, we are above -15 C most of the time.

Still, with these settings and careful driving, my mileage hit hasn't been too bad. I'm averaging around 66 or 67 mpg through the winter so far.

Cheers,
Bryan

[Leeper]

We've had the very same phenomenon, but expected, drop fin temps here in S. California. The weather made a sudden drop from near 80 f all the way down to @ 65 f. As you could imagine our gas mileage goes down significantly when we are forced to then put a coat in our beloved cars and wear long pants. The upside though is that our seats won't get nearly as much sunblock on them this time of year. We feel the pain like our northern brothers, sorry to whine back atcha

[james]

"...but still the coolant hasn't reached the "normal" point before I pull out onto the highway."

Something you may not realize unless you have a ScanGuage or similar installed is that the temperature
gauge is not at all sensitive. It reaches its "normal" reading at around 140F (I'd have to check to be sure
of the exact figure) and stays there even when the coolant temp goes to over 210F, as it can on a long
mountain climb. The actual normal temperature should be 195F, which is what the thermostat is set at.

[gossg]

I live in Calgary. We get short (3 to 7 day) cold snaps below -35C. This is my first year with my 01 Insight -- I bought it a year ago, but weather was mild after I bought it last year. It lives in a garage overnight (unheated, but attached to the house -- never falls below -10.) So my drive home is usually about 5PM -- the warmest time of the day.

The clutch pedal has a slow return after shifting, but other than feeling weird, it doesn't seem to impact my shifting.

My gas mileage is worse than what all you guys get. I weigh 340, which may have something to do with it. My normal mileage in a crowded commute is 4.6 l/100Km, dropping to 4 ish on a careful highway drive. In the really cold weather, this rises above 5. Close to 7 till the engine warms up. I had the lower air intakes blocked off with 3/4 inch packing foam, but the engine never seems to warm up. I hadn't thought to keep the heater fan off.

The big issue was the 12V start that someone else has mentioned. I still have the original 7 year old battery. At -35, there's not a lot of oomph left in it. The one time I've needed a 12V start, it wasn't there. I had to call a friend for a jump start. I've been meaning to replace the 12V battery, but haven't yet. This particular day I was doing something before and after college, so didn't get back to my car in the commuter train lot till about 10:30PM. The 12V start, uh, didn't. I have a spare "big" battery -- in my last car, it could easily start the car after leaving the lights on for 2 hours at -35. But it doesn't fit into the appropriate space in the Insight.