QOTD: Hello, Winter

We don’t know about the rest of you lot, but the vast majority of us who toil at this august publication reside well within the snow belt. Starting around this time of year, shovelling, bundling up, and generally cursing at cold weather is a daily occurrence for most of the masthead.

Modern cars are virtually maintenance-free these days — save for vital fluids, of course — especially compared to the Bad Old Days when one had to gap plugs and set points in order to get to church on time. Despite this, are there any particular ways in which you prepare your car for winter?

Winter tires (four of them, please) are a must around these parts. They aren’t legally required like they are in La Belle Province, but to do without rubber bearing that three-peak mountain snowflake is only inviting disaster when the mercury falls. (Your author had a falling Mercury one time, but that was thanks to sagging springs on a Grand Marquis.)

Underneath the back seat of a 2018 GMC Sierra, for which I dole a monthly stipend to GM Financial, resides all manner of winter-ready gear from jumper cables to a blanket to energy bars. Seriously. As we knock on the door of 2020, I am 99-and-a-bunch-more-nines-percent positive I will never need any of that, but their presence stems from a childhood filled with tall snowdrifts and stalled cars and maternal warnings ringing in my ears about perishing on a Newfoundland roadside while a vicious winter storm covers my car. These days, the chance of that is minuscule; yet, I still cart around all that crap.

What do you pile on or aboard your rig — necessary or not — once the snow starts to fly?

[Image: © 2018 Matthew Guy/TTAC]