Winter Time Sadness? Common Car Damages to Watch Out for This Winter

Winter isn't the best month for keeping your car healthy. The four main causes of car damage are extreme weather, minor bump accidents, high-speed crashes, and maintenance neglect. Since it's winter, weather oriented dings and bumps are in season!

Car body shops see countless winter woes brought about by the weather, but some are more common than others. Before you're bemoaning your new car damaged by hail, we've got a few damages you should keep in mind as you travel and park this winter.

• Watch those wipers: You've probably seen cars parked with their wipers pulled away from the windshield while it's snowing. They've got the right idea. Wipers are predominantly meant for wiping water off the windshield. When winter weather fluctuations cause wipers to freeze to the windshield or if you start dragging rubber wipers over ice and snow chunks, they won't last very long. When you're parked outside, pull them off the windshield and they'll live much longer.


• Scrape with care: Auto paint shops see a bunch of this after the winter is over. People scraping and brushing snow/ice off their cars don't do it carefully. Your car is resilient to a lot of external stressors but if you're haphazardly dragging an ice scraper across your hood, you're going to wake up in the spring to some hearty scratches. Pamper your paint and go lightly on it!


• Tuck your mirrors: It's not a great feeling to walk to your car in the morning to see your vehicle sideswiped. While this is no fault of your own, it tends to happen more in the winter with plow trucks, trickier conditions, and inept drivers. Mirrors are the most awfully abused parts in this realm. Tuck them in when you're parked and you'll at least give yourself a little space from cars and the heavy force of snow being pushed off the road.


• Watch the weather: Have you ever seen a car damaged by hail? Gravity pulling little ice chunks from the sky onto your car will call for dent repair. It's winter time, too, so the combination of rain, ice, snow, and weird temperature fluctuations make for perfect seasonal skyborne dent makers. Watch the weather and keep your vehicle sheltered as often as you can when the elements are going to misbehave.

Wintertime risk of vehicle damage is a fact of life. It's a tough season on humans and machines alike, so being ready for the common damages associated will help you take the proper steps to avoid them. Getting sideswiped or having your car damaged by hail might not be the things you want to be thinking about this winter, but we promise that knowing what father winter has in store for your car will keep you a step ahead of him.