When you're sitting in your two-year-old, $40,000 vehicle listening to its 300-hp engine not start of a cold winter morning, there may be some comfort in thinking about how well a car does in comparison to other high-priced electronic equipment.
Really, what do you think would happen to your digital camera or your laptop or your DVD player or anything else if you left it sitting outside in the snow and ice (or even just the rain) for two or three days? Nothing is what would happen, since those high-tech toys would likely be an expensive memory.
But a car, which has a lot more electronic gear than you probably imagine, almost always starts up every time you turn the key.
This is the result of a history or real-world testing that stretches back for decades, and which has a cultural centre in Kapuskasing, Ontario, where General Motors operates its state-of-the-art Cold Weather Development Centre.
Each year, says GM's John Healy, ''we perform about 4,000 vehicle tests in Kapuskasing. With temperatures at the centre getting as low as minus 40 or 50 degrees Celsius, our vehicles are really put to the test."
As a result of these tests that are done in The Kap and other such facilities around the world, modern cars have a remarkable reliability record in the kinds of weather that comes to Canada every winter.
Despite the work of Healy and others, however, there are times when the car company can do no more to guarantee a vehicle's mobility and the comfort and safety of its occupants. So the smart driver does his or her part to keep a vehicle's occupants comfortable and safe.
This is particularly true as a vehicle ages, since such components as the battery and the oil and other things are aging right along with it.
Really, what do you think would happen to your digital camera or your laptop or your DVD player or anything else if you left it sitting outside in the snow and ice (or even just the rain) for two or three days? Nothing is what would happen, since those high-tech toys would likely be an expensive memory.
But a car, which has a lot more electronic gear than you probably imagine, almost always starts up every time you turn the key.
This is the result of a history or real-world testing that stretches back for decades, and which has a cultural centre in Kapuskasing, Ontario, where General Motors operates its state-of-the-art Cold Weather Development Centre.
Each year, says GM's John Healy, ''we perform about 4,000 vehicle tests in Kapuskasing. With temperatures at the centre getting as low as minus 40 or 50 degrees Celsius, our vehicles are really put to the test."
As a result of these tests that are done in The Kap and other such facilities around the world, modern cars have a remarkable reliability record in the kinds of weather that comes to Canada every winter.
Despite the work of Healy and others, however, there are times when the car company can do no more to guarantee a vehicle's mobility and the comfort and safety of its occupants. So the smart driver does his or her part to keep a vehicle's occupants comfortable and safe.
This is particularly true as a vehicle ages, since such components as the battery and the oil and other things are aging right along with it.