What causes a running vehicle to shut down in extremely cold weather?

[BillyHW]

Hey Folks,

We are headed toward -40 degree weather here in Alberta shortly. Whenever it gets this cold I always see quite a few vehicles, usually older vehicles, broken down and abandoned by the side of the roads and highways.

They started, they ran for a bit, and then stalled while driving, and wouldn't re-start.

I'm just trying to understand the cause of this. The battery seemed good enough to start the car, and then wouldn't the alternator take over from there? Or is a good battery still needed when the car is running?

If any smart people have any insights please enlighten us about what's really going on here.

Thanks!

 

[Astro14]

Too many possibilities exist for your description.

They could have overheated, for example, because the coolant froze. So, they start up, have slush in the radiator, no circulation, and they overheat.

Batteries, and alternators, don’t work very efficiently in the cold, so your hypothesis might be true, that it’s an electrical problem.

But to your point - yes, the battery needs to be good, you have to have a working battery in the system, or the alternator won’t work.

And a bad battery can drag an alternator down.

 

[Vercingetorix]

Reduced fuel economy in cold weather.

 

[BillyHW]

Reduced fuel economy in cold weather.

You think they ran out of gas?

 

[Vercingetorix]

You think they ran out of gas?

Maybe?

 

[CourierDriver]

I think Im gonna start drinking,,,,,,,,,,,,, early

 

[andrew_j]

The extreme cold initially put a significant amount of stress on vehicle systems. Parts teetering on the cliff get that nudge over?

 

[joekingcorvette]

I would say possibly electrical or ignition problems or a bad fuel injector or carb. Compression, spark, and gas make them run and you need everything to be working. Probably fuel problems are the main reason especially with diesel engines. Sometimes they have a flat tire or broken suspension that you can't see when driving in the fast lane.

 

[proveitwithdata]

They either jumped on too thick of an oil, or they went to tgmo 0w8 and the oil froze.

Just stating the "FACTS"

/s for those whose sarcasm radar is defective

 

[FowVay]

I have seen:

- carburetor icing
- water in fuel line/filter freezing
- moisture in intercooler freezing
- moisture on air filter planar panel freezing

The ice blocks either the air or fuel and causes shut-down. Naturally, carb icing isn't happening on anything modern and intercooler icing isn't happening on anything non-turbo but there are quite a few vehicles on the roads that have these issues. Every European car that I've owned has sold air filters that have pre-filters for extreme cold environments specifically to prevent the filter blockage.

 

[Kira]

I thought ice in the fuel caught by the filter.
Question: Haven't foam filters ahead of a paper element been referred to as "snow filters" in some applications?

 

[Snagglefoot]

Grandpa used to buy gas line antifreeze.

 

[BillyHW]

Grandpa used to buy gas line antifreeze.

View attachment 197817

Is that still necessary with E10 gasoline?

 

[FowVay]

Is that still necessary with E10 gasoline?

Have you ever done a test to measure the alcohol content of your fuel? You measure out 5 ounces of fuel and add and additional 1 ounce of water, agitate the mix and then let it settle. What you see happen is the alcohol in the fuel bonding to the water and settling to the bottom. You can measure the alcohol content by the amount of separation you see. You'll usually see 1.5 ounces of separation if there is 10% alcohol in the fuel (.5oz. suspended in the 5oz. of fuel).

So when excess moisture is mixed in the fuel tank from aspiration or simple condensation, at some point the water will bond with the alcohol and it will settle out. They call this "phase separation" and it doesn't take a lot to plug a tiny fuel line and even less to plug a filter. When temperatures are at -40ºC/F, it will freeze.

 

[Snagglefoot]

A 150 ml bottle of gas line anti-freeze is 0.15 liters. My gas tank in my Burb holds 160 liters. That 150 ml bottle would be .09 % of my tank. The gasoline already contains at least 5% ethanol. I’ve never purchaed gas line antifreeze and have never had a problem. It’s just a product left over from the old days.

 

[Kira]

"One end of the alcohol molecule attaches to water, the other to the petroleum.

A coworker's car had a leaky gasoline tank with lots of water in it. He dumped in 6 or so bottles of "drygas" -aka alcohol.
So much water was drawn into the carburetor, his car wouldn't run.
He wasn't mechanically inclined at all.

 

[SC Maintenance]

Is that still necessary with E10 gasoline?

Probably not, but OP is in Alberta. Is it E10 up there. Maybe they have escaped the lunacy.

 

[SC Maintenance]

I agree with @Astro14. 50/50 coolant will start to slush at -37F, so might oveheat. May not get warm enough to warm the TB as well so it could ice up. You need to run a 60/40 mix in places that cold - Except most places don't even sell pure coolant anymore.

Fuel line freezing could also be the issue - again if you don't already have ethanol in your gas.

 

[JimPghPA]

Add to the list that a serpentine belt or whatever belt is driving the alternator could break with the stresses seen in extreme cold and the battery would probably only have about 15 minutes of available power to run the high demand of the engine on vehicles nowadays before the battery would deplete to the point where it couldn't keep the vehicle running anymore.

A good source of information about the kind of problems that are happening would be to talk to the mechanics who repair those vehicles. They are the ones who will tell you what actually caused the vehicle to stop running in most cases. The exception may be that if it was something like throttle body icing or carburetor icing that when the vehicle was towed into a warm garage and the iced in section melted, that unless someone had seen it before it mailed it they may not realize what the problem was.

 

[BillyHW]

I think most fuel in Alberta is E10 now, or at the very least E5. I think most people still run 50/50 coolant here too.