MOTORING

Three winter motoring essentials

ADAM TUDOR-LANE offers up three products to help keep your car windscreen frost-free and charged up this winter.

Around this time of year, I see many ‘Car essentials for winter’ articles. They go to great lengths in advising you to carry a snow shovel, foil blankets, tow ropes, torches, a first aid kit, and while the latter two are definitely handy to have in your car, the majority of us Brits face just two issues come winter.

A frozen windscreen or a dead car.

So here are my three highly advisable winter essentials to make life easier and keep you on the road this winter. Windscreen cover

Ice scraper

Put that long-forgotten store card back in your wallet or purse and keep the kettle indoors. Investing in a decent ice scraper is one of those things you always put off. “How much for an ice scraper?! I only use it a few times a year”. Yes, but buy cheap, and you buy twice, or three, or four times. A decent scraper will last a lifetime.

Swedish Ice Scraper – around £14, it’s beautifully designed, strong as anything and made from laser-cut recycled acrylic glass with diamond-polished edges to slice through frost and ice. There’s also a wiper blade cleaning slot; how’s that for fancy?

Get one. You won’t regret it.

Find it on Amazon by scanning the QR code If you don’t fancy being up an hour early to squeeze in those extra ten minutes needed to clear the windscreen of frost (where does that time go?!), just get a cover.

Then all you have to do is check the weather that night, see if it’s going to be a minus number, go outside, put the windscreen cover on and look smug as you remove it the next morning and be on your way.

I’ve personally used a Maypole windscreen cover for years. It comes in a handy little pouch and folds up incredibly small. What makes it stand out from others though are the small winglets that have a piece of rigid plastic in each side. You open your car door, close these in, and it stays in place with no problem.

Price - £7.95. And I must have had mine a good 10 years. Worthy investment – but still get an ice scraper for those nights you forget to check or need to clear the side and back windows.

Find it on Amazon by scanning the QR code Trickle charger

Batteries don’t like the cold. EV drivers will know this with great pain.

As the temperature drops, the chemical process inside car batteries slows down. This reduces its ability to hold charge resulting in less power to turn the starter motor and fire your car into life. If your battery is less than three years old, you’re likely fine, but winter can become a challenge for anything around the five-year-plus mark.

A trickle charger is the best way to look after your battery and prevent this. Plug it into the mains, and it will slowly and safely charge your battery. This will keep it in good health over the chilly months. Now you don’t have to keep it connected all the time. One day a week should be enough to keep you topped up.

You can, of course, replace your battery, but at £22 for a trickle charger like the Ring Automotive RSC804, that’s probably around 1/3rd of the cost, and it will help stretch your battery’s life.

Find it on Amazon by scanning the QR code

I’ve used all these products myself, so I can vouch for them, and I believe they’re all the average motorist needs to see them through winter. All for less than £45.

Prices are correct at the time of printing – it’s not my fault if they go up!