Weathermania!

I don’t know their technical name, but the fence of wires that now line every inch of the freeway was getting a workout this morning. I saw 5 vehicles tangled up in it on my drive in. A couple were sitting on top of the fence. That has to total every vehicle that touches it. A lot of damage for a dusting of snow and low temps.

Do you mean "cable barrier"?

That would be my assumption. And, yes, it tends to total the car that impacts it, but does so without injuring the occupants, and keeps the car from going into oncoming traffic as well.

Any median barrier like this is likely to do major damage to the car that hits it, but the cable barriers are also relatively easy to replace after they're hit, which is why they're becoming the standard.

With there only being a slight dusting, I assuming some of the chaos created in places this morning was caused by exhaust freezing to the pavement.

This recent cold snap has just been ridiculous.

That vehicles parked outside start is a testament to M.E. I don't even bother to plug in the engine heater on my '15 PU. Then again a friend in Cambridge has diesel that won't fire up plugged in 24 / 7 and a battery charger connected to both batteries.

M.E. = Mechanical Engineering

Cable barriers are one of the best things to happen to MN roads in a long time. A totaled car getting stopped by a barrier is an easy trade compared to the horrific injuries a vehicle crossing into oncoming traffic can cause.

Two auto related things that continue to amaze me. 1) how reliable they have become related to cold weather starts and 2) how well tires hold up given the extreme conditions - weather and road. Other than a punctured tire (nail) I have not had a lot of issues in recent history and it seems to take a wicked bad pothole to shred one.

Totally agree. I had to replace a battery in our Murano last week before the cold snap but I think got almost 6 winters out of it

On my old VW I did hit a pretty bad pothole one day that I saw too late. When the tire went flat I took it in to get replaced and there was a crack all the way through the entire wheel as well. I’d never seen anything like that

Up until this year I had a real problem with my tires losing a bead and slowly losing air in the cold months. Got new tires 6 months ago and it hasn't been a problem since.

As I understand it (I don't drive diesel vehicles), the low sulfur diesel fuel gels up in a bad way during these cold snaps. An engine block heater won't help the gelled up fuel in the tank.

I'm having this problem now. One of my tires has been losing about 10-15 PSI per day since December. I have to fill it up almost every day. It's gotten even worse since this cold snap. I filled it to 35 PSI when I got home from work on Friday evening. Didn't drive it all weekend. When I went out for work this morning it was down to 15 PSI.

I took it in to Discount Tire about 3 weeks ago and told them what's been going on. They tested it and couldn't find any leaks. It obviously IS leaking, because I'm pumping it back up almost every day. My tires are less than 3 years old and still have about half the tread left on them. I don't want to replace them yet, but I don't know what other options I have at this point. 😡

So far....knock on wood...the three Silverado diesels in my work's fleet of trucks have had no issues. Two of the three are parked outside at night with only block heaters, and all three are outside every day all day. They all mainly use fuel from Kwik Trip. Again...so far.

Do you have the V8 or V6 diesel? I am probably going to buy a GM truck this spring/summer and just curious how the diesel handles in the cold and how it works overall.

I am leaning toward a 5.3L gas but always good to have some first hand feedback.

I had this problem several years ago and it turned out my aluminum rims had some corrosion. The corrosion made for an uneven surface in one spot where the tire met the rim. It was at this spot the tire was leaking. I don't remember where I had it repaired- it may have been Discount Tire- but they used a grinder to smooth the surface of the rim. From then on I had no leaks.

Another thing to check, but I assume Discount Tire would have checked, is the valve stem. Can you feel air escaping? Do you have a cap on the valve stem?

The last thing to try is to spray soapy water at the tire, like checking for gas leaks. Maybe the air leaking form the tire will show in bubbles? This may help if you're leaking air at the bead as well.

I had a tiny crack in my rim this fall. Causing my tired to lose 10-15 lbs in a day. So have them check for rim problems.

All three trucks have the 6.6L Duramax, I should note that they are all 2500HD trucks. They all have handled the cold very well with no fuel issues and only one DEF issue. The DEF issue was the DEF tank heater crapped out and had to be replaced, $350 for the replacement installed. I guess DEF will freeze once it hits 10 degrees and the DEF heater only works while the truck is running. From what I've been told that the heater will melt the frozen DEF pretty quickly once you start the truck.

I will say that the one thing I have been impressed with is the fuel mileage. They each average right around 16-18 city and 20-22 highway. Mileage doesn't dip too terrible even with a decent load on a trailer behind the truck. I have got 19mpg with a 22' trailer with a skid steer on the trailer going down the highway. We have a 2011 Ram 2500 with a 6.7L Cummins that has power for days so I was concerned switching to a Duramax but it has equal amounts of power for towing. I will say that the Cummins is snappier in acceleration but that is the only difference I have noticed.

Compared to our older Chevy and Ford diesels we have had in the past these Duramax's have performed very well in the Minnesota cold. I would recommend one to anyone wanting a reliable, powerful, and fairly economic powertrain. The only pain is when you fill up the 32 gallon tank with diesel fuel and it costs about $100.

Thank you!

The 2500 is more than I need and it doesn't appear the 6.6LD is an option for the 1500. One of our managers has the 2500 with same engine, he absolutely loves it.

I sold my '99 Superduty w/ a 7.3 Turbo Power Stroke early winter / late fall. It had sat for a couple years. I but a slow charger on it, pumped up the front tires. 2 weeks later it fired right up but had a crazy fuel leak from the fuel filter on the firewall. Also front tires were way down and had a audible leak when I but a compressor on them.

Aluminum expands & contracts quite a bit and bead leaks are very common. In my experiance both the wheel & the tire need to be worked on. Also a good amount of "bead dope" applied and a serious amount of air, both in PSI & CF applied. There should be a serious POP when the bead seats. The 2 bikes I ride the most are both tubeless cast wheels. My local tire guy & I get along so I pull the wheels and order tires from Dennis Kirk in Rush City. A motorcycle rear that gets 20K miles is exceptional so I see him once a year.

I loved the torque my diesels ( I have had 3) had. The sport I was in then meant pulling horses so I used the diesels. With the cost of fuel being from .15 to .25 higher than gas I couldn't justify an "oil burner" & I'm not a fan of the ride you get with a 3/4 or 1 ton.

This is totally a first world problem but my car is old enough to have the low pressure indicator on the dash but NOT new enough where it identifies the pressure of each tire. It was always a drag to have to measure all 4 tires to find the culprit.

It's always the last one you check. Always! Regardless of which tire you start with.

Plus at least one of the caps will roll under the car during this process.

You guys obviously didn't inflate your tires with winter air, hence the problems. Duh.

I had an incident on a motorcycle a couple years ago that really made me think about these things. I was overtaking a vehicle in the passing lane. The vehicle I was overtaking decided to enter my lane with no turn signal and without checking its blindspot. I was forced to the shoulder where the cable barrier was. Thankfully, there was no crash. I have to say, in a similar situation, I would welcome a ditch or center median as opposed to the cables. Hitting one of those on a bike would be catastrophic. At least in the ditch, one would have a chance.

Cables vs a concrete media or oncoming traffic is an easy choice, IMO.

I spun out on a crazy icy road once and hit a concrete was with my bumper. The car bounced off and had minor damage. The cable would have made a bigger mess.

On a bike....gross.

Come on. Steve McQueen would just jump it like he did the fence in The Great Escape. Then again if you weren't on your Triumph that might not have worked.

If I had been on my Triumph I would have just hit the gas and been out of trouble in an instant. Being this was a couple years ago, I didn't yet have that modern marvel of engineering. No, I was on a 700+ pound evo with questionable braking performance. Kinda stuck where I was at.

I can't imagine insurance companies are fans of the cables. They can turn a call for a truck to pull the car out of the snow into at least one side of the car being trashed and possibly more if the car collects the vehicle behind it as well. Then again, it is the consumer that will end up paying for higher claims.

I have read that the cables really cut down on head ons.

I now own on of those 700 lbers. 2000 Heritage Springer.

Bored & stroked but I think it has a broken ring. Buddy needed cash & I needed a project.

I have no doubt that they do...in the summer. I think mother nature takes care of that in the winter. The winter is when they are constantly being hit, wrecked, and repaired.

Better check that cam chain tensioner on your new boat anchor.

[quote="Sioux/Bucky Hater"

Better check that cam chain tensioner on your new boat anchor.

That's what caused the previous owner to have it bored and stroked.

I’ve been trolling a lot of my friends who are talking about cold weather this weekend. However I’ve left the Texans alone because it could get below zero in north Texas and the Fort Worth NWS is forecasting 3-8” of snow Sunday night.

Winter is definitely drunk

That ugliness in Fort Worth yesterday? That was just stomach-churning.

I've found myself sideways on I-94 over the Chippewa River, looking up the hill at a semi coming down at me after spinning out (spoiler: I got out of the way before it got down to the bridge, and my truck was perfectly drive-able afterward. There were several vehicles involved, but no injuries much less fatalities, thankfully) and watching the cell phone clip from yesterday morning? That was horrible.

It was. I nearly flipped my grandparents minivan (with them in it) on highway 75 in NW Iowa when I hit glare ice. I was18 and to this day I’m not sure how we didn’t flip and how someone didn’t tag us coming the other way

I was playing pinball off the guard rails on both sides of the bridge, and definitely expected to find myself in freezing water. Ended up stopped across the two lanes, looking through my passenger side window up at incoming traffic. Glad I was able to get enough traction to pull out of the way before other cars got close enough to be a problem. Los of cars with damage, but all from there bridge guard rails, not each other.

I think the scariest moment I had was going from Plymouth Rd onto 394E, that Ridgedale exit, in my old Jeep. 2 lane ramp, cold weather like this. Hit a patch of ice, started to slide, purposefully over steered to avoid going OFF the ramp, did a 360, hit dry pavement (luckily going the right direction), and gunned it to stop the spin. At that moment, "Whew, that was close. *chuckle* That was a trip." Got home about 5 minutes later. THEN it sank in, and I thought, "HOLY SH* AM I LUCKY."

[media] https://twitter.com/NWSduluth/status/1360589015544602628 [/media]

Mother Nature got really drunk and is taking it out on Texas. North Texas is seeing wind chills of -20, DFW airport had 3” of snow with more coming, and a buddy in San Antonio posted pics of about 1-2 inches of snow in his driveway.

All 254 counties in Texas are under a winter storm warning too

Friend of mine on Memphis said they are expecting 5-7” of snow too. Said it could be the most they’ve seen since 1985

L.O.L.???

I'm trying to grasp what it would be like to experience weather that you don't normally get. Obviously we get most of everything here except hurricanes. The only thing I can think of is the heavy snowfalls that some other places like Buffalo, NY or the UP of Michigan.

Pics I've seen from around the DFW metroplex don't look bad at all for Minnesota standards.

Irving PD and FD put chains on their tires, the Dallas Morning News basically sent out a "TELL US WHAT TO DO!!" on social media asking transplants from northern climates to tell them how to deal with the weather, and there are 15 minute rolling blackouts since electricity demand has exceeded supply.

Hearing people are bundled up with multiple blankets in front of a fire and people are breaking out space heaters. Sounds like The End Times.

My sister lives in Dallas and is telling me they have rolling power outages due to the cold weather

I agree by our standards it doesn't look bad but that's more than just the thin coating they're used to seeing as well. The snow in San Antonio definitely caught my eye as did two people's pools that looked iced over enough that they could go ice skating safely on them.

A couple of my friends have been powerless since early this morning. Even if that happens here (one of them said it was 3 degrees and their house was down to 55 already) you're going to have problems so hopefully they don't start dealing with frozen pipes, etc.

Yeah - we get both extremes for sure. I know we were discussing this on Facebook but the only thing I think that comes close for us is that real summer humidity...the 75-80 degree dew point stuff they get in the south that we don't always see.

We had freezing rain that took down trees and power lines Saturday morning. We had no power from 10am Saturday until 1pm Sunday. We still don’t have internet over 48 hours later. Cellular was either impacted by the power outages or so overloaded that we couldn’t get anything resembling passably reliable internet on our phones until last night. Duke energy reported over 160,000 impacted Saturday in our area. Fun times ?

I’m always amused by the general panic that sets in for a few inches of snow, BUT as my relatives reminded me...they have no snowplows, no real winter clothing and their houses aren’t insulated nearly as well as here in MN. I have good friends just outside of Houston, they are freezing. He said Houston has only 2 snowplows, so that snow is going to sit until it melts. Their recently planted landscaping is probably dead as they are Zone 8/9, not 3-4 like here. They had to scramble to cover outside faucets. They don’t own winter coats, just a polar fleece zip. This isn’t being dumb on their part, this kind of cold is just unheard of that far south.

The inside and outside faucets are a problem. From the HGTV shows I’ve seen in Texas, it isn’t unusual for walls to be minimally insulated, if insulated at all.

My coworker is from Michigan but now lives in Fort Lauderdale. When we both had to travel to Salt Lake City a year or so ago she bought a winter coat and was shivering cold while I wore a fall coat and was totally fine.

Temps were in the 20s or 30s

A little off topic, but I recently learned that NYC uses garbage trucks for their snowplow trucks. Good way to not have to buy extra trucks, I guess!