This morning in Leduc County, where I am currently living, it was -43˚C when accounting for the wind chill. Given that it is December 20th in central Alberta, this kind of weather isn't really out of the ordinary. Living on an acreage, we park our vehicles outside on the driveway overnight. With multiple people living in the house, we have 4 vehicles on the property.
- 2017 Nissan Titan XD diesel pickup. Equipped with all-season tires and a block heater.
- 2019 Nissan Rogue SUV. Equipped with balding all season tires and no block heater.
- 2014 Subaru Legacy sedan. Equipped with new winter tires but no block heater.
- 2010 Nissan Altima Sedan. Equipped older winter tires and block heater. This car is former drivers education car and has more than 300 thousand KM on the odometer.
Starting the Subaru
After having had my cup of coffee, I went to go start the vehicle that I had planned to take to work. The first car I tried was the Subaru legacy. I brushed off the couple of inches of snow from the car and hopped into the drivers seat. I put the key in the ignition let all of the electrical components start up. The dashboard, display, and the fan all turned on shortly after the first turn of the key in the ignition. I could tell that the vehicle was cold by how the electrical components were struggling to get going. After about 25 seconds gauges and display had finally fully illuminated and proceeded as they normally would. I then grabbed the key a second time and turned it to the on position.
Where I would have normally heard the starter engage and the engine putter a bit before eventually turning over, I instead heard 2 long and drawn out whirring noises before quickly turning the key back to the "on" position. I'm sure the concern on my face was noticeable, if anyone had been around to see it that is. I had the internal debate on whether or not it would be worth trying again, or if my fate had already been sealed. I had opted to give it one more go. I once again turned the key to the start position. This time? Nothing. Not a single effort by the vehicle to start. It was as if I hadn't turned the key at all.
At this point I had assumed that the Subaru was not going to make into the office. I went to go pull the key out of the ignition, but alas, the key was stuck in the ignition. This is a fairly common occurrence with Subaru's when the battery gets low. It happens more often in cold weather, but that is usually as a result of low battery voltage. I popped the hood of vehicle and got the battery trickle charger going. Given that the battery was fairly low and I was trying to get it going right away, I put it on the 12 A fast charge to get things up to speed a little faster. After about a minute on the charger I was able to remove the key from the ignition.
If your Subaru key ever gets stuck in the ignition like this and you don't have access to a battery charger, try changing the gear of the car with your foot on the brake. Apparently the electrical connection that holds the key in can be temporarily disengaged so that you can pull the key out.
Dawning the Diesel
After having decided that Subaru was not going to work right away, I steered my attention towards the Nissan Titan diesel. While I know that diesel vehicles are notoriously difficult to get started in the winter, I thought that the block heater might be the difference maker. Given that the truck has a push button start, it's difficult to gauge how much time the glow plugs need to warm up. After jumping into the front seat of the truck and turning the vehicle on, I was actually quite hopeful that it would turn over.
After letting the truck sit in the "on" position for a couple of minutes I pressed the engine start button. A few convincing noises made me believe that the truck might actually turn over. However, just like the Subaru, nothing.
Given that the truck still has the original batteries (diesel trucks have two batteries if you didn't already know that), I figured those batteries might be dead too. After 5 odd years of Canadian winters doing their damage to the battery, I had kind of assumed it was toast. I put the other trickle charger on one of the diesel batteries in hopes to rejuvenate it a little bit. Unfortunately for me, this didn't have any impacts at all.
rECONSIDERING THE rOGUE
After my failure to start the truck, I was left with a 13 year old drivers ed car that had been road hard and put away wet or a newer Nissan Rogue with bald tires. Given that I had been catching a few seconds here and there of the traffic report on the radio, I had run under the assumption that the roads were bad. Bad roads would need winter tires to get me the grip I needed to stay on the road.
Alas the Altima
It sort of seemed like I had the option of doing something that might end up being a bad idea or doing something that was definitely a bad idea. With the clock ticking, I made the decision to try and get the Nissan Altima started. Once again, the push button start made it a difficult to gauge when I should be pushing for the car to start. Similarly to the truck, I turned the electrical components on before going right for the engine start.
It was the moment of truth, I had the last viable option for my commute to work on the line. I pushed the start button. To my surprise, the engine didn't sound like it was about to explode. While the car didn't start up on the first push, it sounded far more likely to start than the previous two vehicles. Immediately I plugged in the block heater (that had been attached to the truck) and I went back inside to warm up.
Back to Basics
After I had spent 10 or so minutes inside making my lunch for the day, I felt like enough time had now passed since trying to start my Subaru the first time, that could now give it another go. I hopped back into the front seat of the car in eager anticipation. The charger had read full. The second the key clicked to the on position, all of the lights came up no problem. I had a good feeling about this.
After turning the key to the start position the engine whirred loudly twice before turning over. Finally a vehicle had started and I could actually get to work. At least that's what I thought. After the car had started, it made a terrible sound and my cars dashboard had lit up like a Christmas tree. Apparently Subaru's don't like to live outside in -40˚C.
Hoping from Home
After my multitude of failures in trying to make it into work today, I made the less than executive decision that I should just work from home today. It felt pretty clear that all of the vehicles at my disposal were not going to be the answer today. Instead of using more time and trying to make it into the office, I would make things work remotely.
And you know what? Everything went smoothly. Any person I needed to talk to I could call up and have a quick chat with them. The files I needed access to? Not a problem with how Armour has their IT setup. Getting the approval to work from home? All good with HR and management.
Despite my morning being hectic and overall frustrating, it was easy for me to adjust on the fly. Today showed me how adaptable and flexible the people of Armour are. Working with the people that I work with makes it easy to overcome circumstance. In all honesty, it's easy to want to come back into the office (even when it's -40˚C).
As a little bonus, here were the ugly Christmas sweaters that our different offices had on today.
