Posted on 10/31/2025
When temperatures drop overnight, your car might start showing problems that weren’t obvious the day before. Maybe it hesitates during startup, a dashboard light flickers on, or the brakes feel a little different. Cold weather doesn’t actually create new problems out of thin air, it just puts extra stress on systems that were already close to failing. What feels fine in mild weather can start acting up when things get frosty. Battery Trouble Is One of the First Signs Your car battery works harder in cold weather. At 32°F, it already loses around 20 percent of its power. Drop the temperature further, and the output drops even more. At the same time, your engine takes more power to crank because the oil is thicker. A battery that was just barely getting by in warm weather might not have enough charge to start the car on a cold morning. Older batteries or ones that haven’t been tested in a while are more likely to struggle. If you hear slow cranki ... read more