For 5 questions this week, the Herald spoke to Jeremy Olson of Olson Auto Repair at 1322 and ½ Dyke Avenue in Grand Forks about cars and winter weather.
Q: How busy have you been because of the cold? Does that change from season to season?
A: The cold is weird now with the vehicles. The vehicles are efficient enough that they won’t be affected unless we get into the sub-arctic temperatures like last week. It’s extreme heat, extreme cold. That puts so much pressure on your power steering hoses, your batteries, your alternators, your fan motors. This is awesome. I tell everyone it’s like an 80 year old body; You have a component in your body that is starting to fail and then you see this extreme heat or extreme sub-arctic temperature that it is going to fail. Something’s going to break, or break, or fail, batteries, starters, all of those things. That’s how it works.
Q: What can people do to avoid some of the problems that come with subarctic temperatures?
A: It’s all about being one step ahead of the game. Proactivity, I tell everyone to have their batteries checked. You need to make sure that your voltages are coming from your generators. So many people wait for something to break to fix it. Usually when you have a problem or the car doesn’t seem to start quite the way it should, it is usually your battery failure. You have to find an honest repair shop, and I’m on par with everyone in this area. My grandfather was an aircraft mechanic during World War II, he repaired the planes that bombed Germany. He founded us in 1946 out of the Second World War. I’m the oldest store in the Red River Valley, in the same place I believe. We are three generations. In 1970 my father took over the management and then I took over here a few years ago. I am honest, I am sincere and I do what needs to be done. I take care of people the way I want.
Q: What do you recommend to people who cannot plug in their car?
A: That’s a tough question. If you can’t hook it up, there is only one more thing you can do to stay proactive. When your battery is a few years old, buy a brand new one with the biggest, worst cold start boosters you can get. If you don’t have block heating, if it’s negative well into the negative 30’s, you will be in dire straits. It’s so hard for everything.
Q: How do you get cars that won’t start into the store? Do you make house calls?
A: I’m 50 now. I did it when I was younger. They put them on a wracker and when they come to my shop they put it right in my shop. This is how most businesses do it.
Q: Does your car actually need to warm up before you start driving?
A: Absolutely, a million percent. Here’s my analogy, everyone absolutely understands when I say this. When you wake up in the morning because a car is no different from this perspective, do you jump out of bed and do a hot lap around the block? Just pop, jump out and do a full sprint? No. Your transmission, your engine, they have feelings in my realm. If you treat the thing well, it will treat you well.
