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Outside Temperature range -22F min.

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Technical Discussion' started by mrderik-work, Jan 14, 2008.

  1. ny biker

    ny biker Member

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    Yes, but you should visit Fairbanks in August. With all that summer sun, they grow seriously huge flowers.
     
  2. satwood

    satwood Member

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    Hey Dude! I took my son and his friend up to your neck of the continent last year and thoroughly enjoyed the outdoors in February. We stayed for a week and had -40 at night and -30 during the day. We visited the hot springs, the ski mountains, did some dog sledding, even camped out a couple nights. The Yukon Quest was just ending and it was a thrill!. We didn't rent a Prius because Avis didn't have one but that would have been a kick also. I love Fairbanks and would be there year 'round if I could make a living there. BTW, there is another Alaska Prius owner, KSlauson, in Anchorage who has over 100K on his car in similar conditions. You chould say hi to him.

    Sorry this is off-topic but I just wanted to let you know there are some of us who LOVE the adveture and cold!
     
  3. cnschult

    cnschult Active Member

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    my grandfather was stationed in alaska for WWII and he still goes back every summer.

    I know there is 24 hours of sunlight in the summer so parents dumb enough to tell their kids to come back when its dark may not see their kids for a couple of months.

    I also know it gets sooooo cold that the parking meters actually allow you to plug your block heaters directly into them, now that's cold!!!

    I bet those big rigs on ice road truckers can't ever turn off their engines when taking a break from driving to & from the de boer diamond mine.
     
  4. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    Yeah but note that his 2007 "slips and grips" compared to our old "slip and kill the power".
     
  5. mrderik-work

    mrderik-work New Member

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    Greetings Satwood -

    Glad you enjoyed your stay! The summer's here are quite spectacular. Every fall I take a week off and take a drive around the state. Last Sept I did 1,600 miles including a trip to Dawson City, YT, over the 'Top of the World' highway. I never get tired of that trip, and with the Prius I don't even have to buy fuel in Canada. :)

    I have some amazing pics from that trip - I did every Glacier in the State that you can drive to - See 'em before their gone....

    D.
     
  6. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

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    not the same on pavement. we did it twice while Dad was in Army stationed at Ft. Greeley. was 1300 miles of gravel road... could say it was just a bit dusty.... and yes, replacing the front windshield is about 90% probability. that is with or without a rock shield
     
  7. mrderik-work

    mrderik-work New Member

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    Greetings Dave -

    I'm coming from Fairbanks, so I do the Top of the World from Tetlin Jct (Alaska) to Dawson City, paved w/ intermittant for about 30 miles or so, then dirt to the Canadian border. Canada has taken out most of the chip seal on their side so it's mostly gravel now all the way to Dawson. Still a pretty easy road by 'Alaskan standards'. I'd love to go to the Arctic Circle in the Prius but that's still a one flat tire and broken windshield per trip and I'm just not going to subject the Prius to that one. I did it a few years ago (In a rental SUV) and that's the best way to do that trip by far. :) I will do the Denali Highway next year in the Prius though. That's 120 +/- miles of gravel / dirt washboard. You gotta love driving to do that one in a day.

    D.
     
  8. Rangerdavid

    Rangerdavid Senior Member

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    you're not only in trouble, you're really, really COLD!!! Brrrrr!!

    My wife wants to know, at -40 or -50, how warm is your home? and BTW, how does one efficiently heat one's home at those temps?

    thanks, all the best! :D
     
  9. BVISAILMAN

    BVISAILMAN Junior Member

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    I would use synthetic in all climates. It is better for the engine and it will increase your MPG slightly. But espcially in cold weather it does not thicken like mollasses as conventional oil does. So, the car will not only start and run easier at those frigid temps, but it will warm up much faster.
     
  10. mrderik-work

    mrderik-work New Member

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    Greetings Rangerdavid -

    We pretty much use the same method as anywhere else - only more so. :) Most people have a standard fuel oil boiler and radiant baseboard heat, baseboards are rated in btu per linear foot - so you just have more feet of baseboard per square foot of room. (Same with radiant floor). My Mom's house has a somewhat large living room (800 square feet) so she has baseboards running nearly the entire perimeter. We have a small home of 1,100 square feet and heat entirely with a single Fuel Oil 'ToyoStove'. Of course we have to use the largest model, but we only need one becasue we built new a few years ago and did 8" walls, with R50 in the ceiling. We can also heat our entire home with just our woodstove - and maintain 68 degrees when it's as low as -30f.

    My wife and I are pretty young and in the past we've kept our thermostat at 65. Now that we have the baby we've turned it up to 68. But our Toyostove (as well as most boilers) will run constantly when the temps get down below -30 or so. But remember, the thermostat only measures the 'Air temperature' in your home. So when it's -40 or -50 outside, the outer foot or two of our slab will get rather cold, and you may even get frost on the floor in the corners. Likewise with your windows - even Low-e Argon, etc. It's rather disturbing on occasion knowing that if that heater craps out you're up a creek.

    D.
     
  11. Rae Vynn

    Rae Vynn Artist In Residence

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    Ah, reminds of the good old days of living on the western prairie of Minnesota...

    Winter of 1996/97, for 6 weeks it never got above -30F. That is not counting "wind chill".

    No, I really, really, REALLY do NOT miss it. :)
     
  12. edthefox5

    edthefox5 Senior Member

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    What an incredible life you lead! It must be crazy beautiful up there. I grew up in Vermont and the coldest I have ever seen was -30 and that was painful.I remember my old man was stationed in Hicado Japan during the Koren war and said it got -50 over there. He said you could put a six pack of beer outside the barracks for 5 minutes and would freeze almost solid. It would be fantastic if you would do a test for all us PCer's. Put a cup of dino oil outside overnight and put a cup of Mobil 1 full synthetic 0-20 out too when you have one of your crazy -30 nights. Let them sit overnight. Please post what you find. Thats some real life testing there. Good luck!
     
  13. jayman

    jayman Senior Member

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    With the shop and the attached garage at my hobby farm, I did the slab footings down 8 ft as recommended. I then put 3 inches of Styrofoam SM on the exterior of the footing wall, down to the footing itself. The interior of the footing wall I put 2 inches of Styrofoam SM down to the footings before backfilling

    No permafrost here, but rather poor soil conditions for building a structure. Lot's of clay in the soil, a Gumbo like mixture. So I had piling done for the footings, slab, and the short cement driveway between the shop and the house

    With the detached shop, I used 12 inch ICF for the exterior walls. Ceiling is SIP from Global Panel Systems, 5.5 inches thick, with 6 inch Roxul mineral wool batts over top. So in theory I have R-50 walls and R-60 roof

    Before I poured the shop slab I put down 4 inch Styrofoam over compacted gravel, to ensure there is good drainage from the slab. At the worst, I have a few teeny hairline cracks in the slab outside of the expansion joints

    If I choose to heat the detached shop I have a Stelpro 7.5 KW electric shop heater. Even at -40 I *never* have cold corners on my slab, I usually set the electric heater to +5 C and it costs around $50 a month in cold weather

    The house I built with 12 inch ICF walls. Also used ICF for the basement, with piling done on the footings and slab itself. I have Polar tripanes in the house, with Low-E and Argon. I still put up plastic on the interior to keep frost/condensation off the windows

    I have an airtight woodstove in the basement, with outside air intake to the stove. It will very easily heat the house to roasty temps at -40. There is also an airtight fireplace insert in the living room, on a separate chimney, with outside air intake.

    Normal heating is provided by a gas Bryant 60,000 BTU Evolution variable speed furnace. At -40, the furnace will heat the house at low fire, it will only ramp up to high fire if I happen to change the furnace setpoint higher
     
  14. mrderik-work

    mrderik-work New Member

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    Greetings Edthefox5 -

    That's a good idea. Tonight's forecast is -30 to -40f and Sat night -35 to -45f so I'll have to give that a try this weekend - it would be interesting to know. Of course, synthetic's claim to fame is that it 'clings' to metal better, helping on startup (which is absolutely true) not that it necessarily 'flows' better at colder temps. But it would still be neat to check out.

    And yes, you can freeze bottled or canned liquids REALLY quick at those temps. There are some other 'fun' things about extreme cold. One of my favorites is - having snow on your boots and walking into the house, or driving around for a while, the heat melts the snow so the bottom of your boots are wet. Then as soon as you step out of the car or the front door onto bare concrete or pavement that water will freeze instantly and stick your shoe to the ground. Kinda like the old tongue on the flagpole deal.

    But everyones favorite (we do this for our hotel guests) is the boiling water trick. In case you don't know about it - The colder outside the better, but usually starting around -35f or colder gets you the best results - You take a pot of boiling water outside and sling the water up into the air. It makes a terrific WHOOOOSH sound - completely and instantly transforming into a cloud of frozen fog. NONE of the liquid actually hits the ground. It all just instantly vaporzies into a crystal cloud. I don't know why it happens, but it's really fun to watch! :)

    D.
     
  15. jayman

    jayman Senior Member

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    I've done that with Esso XD-3 0W-40, Mobil 1 0W-30, and a regular 5W-30. At -38 F, the 0W-40 will slowly pour from the bottle. The Mobil 1 0W-30 will also pour from the bottle, quicker than the 0W-40. The 5W-30 will just sit in the bottle, you can even leave the bottle upended and nothing happens

    Diesel fuel is interesting. Number 2 or "summer" diesel will form wax and slowly turn solid. I once put #2 in a gallon size glass pickle jar, and left it in a shed outside. Once the temps got to -25 C, a weird but pretty wax ball formed in the middle of the liquid

    As the temps got colder, the wax ball grew until most of the free liquid had been transformed into wax. Imagine the same process happening in a fuel tank, the fuel line, and the fuel filters

    With the diesel tractor at my hobby farm, I'm pretty careful about using #1 fuel in winter. I actually have 2 storage tanks, for different season blends. I also use a lot of fuel treatment to ensure I don't have a problem in winter

    Haven't tried the 0W-20 yet, but I promise to do so during our next cold snap. Currently we're having a balmy tropical heat wave, it may even reach 0 C tomorrow!
     
  16. jayman

    jayman Senior Member

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    Most conventional oils turn solid at temps of -30 C and colder. Esso has done extensive winter testing of gear oils, motor oils, etc to determine safe operating limits

    Esso also claims that if winter temps are consistently colder than -40, an engine canopy heater is recommended to avoid snapping drive belts

    http://esso.ca/Canada-English/Files/Products_Lubes/IOCAENPVLESAtf_Dex_III_Mer.pdf

    http://esso.ca/Canada-English/Files/Products_Lubes/IOCAENCVLESEsso_GO_GX_EX.pdf

    http://esso.ca/Canada-English/Files/Products_Lubes/IOCAENCVLESEsso_Xd-3_extra.pdf

    http://esso.ca/Canada-English/Files/Products_Lubes/IOCAENCVLESEssotran_MG.pdf

    http://esso.ca/Canada-English/Files/Products_Lubes/IOCAENCVLESHydraul.pdf

    http://esso.ca/Canada-English/Files/Products_Lubes/IOCAENINDESUnivis_Extra.pdf
     
  17. mrderik-work

    mrderik-work New Member

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    Greetings -

    So it took me a while but I decided to follow-up and do a test of Conventional vs. Synthetic oil. So I setup this highly scientific test facility :) to compare Valvoline Full Synthetic 5-20 vs. Valvoline Conventional 5-20. I started by leaving both bottles outside over the weekend. Last night was a true -42f. At the time of the test it had warmed up to -30f. Check out the pics for yourself, but bottom line is, I thought the conventional oil came out quicker and seemed to pour more readily. But, I think the synthetic was 'thinner'. I'll explain below. I ran two 'streaks' - the two left ones being conventional and the two right ones synthetic.

    Of course they were both like honey, and while the pictures show the conventional reaching the bottom sooner, it did NOT actually 'run' faster. My precision pouring apparatus (read cardboard box and shaking hand) was not sqaure to the metal plate so the conventional started out 'lower'. The Synthetic was more 'cloudy' but that did not appear to have any effect on it's flow rate.

    A more scientific method would have been to dispense the exact same amount of oil at the same time so I may try that tomorrow just for curiosity. I think in general you could make alot of assumptions about this test with only some of them being correct. For instance -

    The conventional appeared to flow out of the bottle easier, so you would think, therefore, that there was more volume of conventional oil on the metal - and it appears that way in the first pour. That's why I did the second pour. In that one, the volume appears almost identical. But the flow result was the same, they flowed at nearly identical speeds.

    The synthetic appeared to flow straighter than the conventional which tended to meander more - but I have no idea why - mabey having to do with their meniscus (sp) properties and the metal.

    --- A few hours later ---

    Really no change, I almost expected the conventional to 'run off' but I marked the top of each fluid and they are both still there. Again, I'll leave the plate out overnight and check it in the morning.

    The synthetic no longer appears more cloudy, but probably only because they both spread out and since they are one a sheet of stainless you can't really tell anymore.

    I don't have any way of measuring how much oil 'ran off' of either, therefore how much would stay on your engine components to help with start up. But again, using the highest measure of scientic accuracy available, I ran my finger down them both and this is where the results were surprising. The conventional seemed to 'accumulate' more oil (ie, more stayed on the metal and it pretty much just felt like motor oil) where the synthetic seemed way thinner - and had far less friction - more like baby oil.

    So, in bulk, I think the fluids are very similar. It's when you get down to a very thin layer that the synthetic appears 'slicker'. Assuming you turn off a warm engine and the oil drains to the pan, perhaps that's synthetics advantage, the ultra thin layer left behind is slicker than the thin layer of conventional. I think on extreme cold start-up, it probably makes enough of a difference that you would use it, although conventional may have a slight advantage in being easier to flow initially by the oil pump. But, realistically, you're going to damage your engine cold starting it at 30 or 40 below all the time and I certainly would never do this unless there was no other choice. And we run oil pan heaters as well as block heaters so I'm not convinced there's a huge benefit to synthetic.

    -----
    End result -
    Everyone has seen the commercial where they drain the oil out of two cars, one with 'synthetic' the other with conventional, and run them till the conventional seizes and the synthetic car drives off. That may be the case for heat, but I would not automatically assume the results go the other way in extreme cold. So, I'm proposing that Valvoline fund a grant for me to study this further, $100k or so ought to do it. :D But while I wait for that to come through, I'll probably just stick with conventional oil.

    D.
     

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  18. jayman

    jayman Senior Member

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    Interesting. Last year at -38 F, I had the opposite results comparing Esso XD-3 0W-40 to a regular Quaker State 5W-30. The Esso XD-3 flowed much better

    I did check out the Valvoline web site, and Valvoline does rate their oil as follows:

    http://www.valvoline.com/products/All-Climate.pdf

    http://www.valvoline.com/products/Synpower.pdf

    The conventional 5W-20 has a pour point of -36 C, a CCS value of 4,700 cP at -30 C, and an MRV of 16,000 cP at -35 C.

    The "Synpower" 5W-20 has a pour point of -45 C. The CCS is 4,200 cP at -30 C, and the MRV is 13,500 cP at -35 C.

    If you wondering why the test points are -30 C for cold cranking but -35 C for cold pumping, that is the way the SAE regulates the test. An oil rated 0W-xx has the CCS at -35 C and the MRV at -40 C

    Note: "pour point" is *not* a regulated test point standard like CCS or MRV. It has no bearing on lubrication and is usually self-tested by the manufacturer. Only a regulated test like CCS or MRV should be used as a guide.

    It's important to note that the SAE test - and your eyeball test - was performed on oil fresh from the bottle. An oil in use has acids and nitration that can cause quite dramatic viscosity increases. This is known as "gellation" and has been responsible for engine failure, either an oil pump drive has sheared or oil refused to flow

    In real world testing, once a conventional oil has some use, the pour point depressants are used up and cold start pumping viscosity - MRV - goes off the chart.

    I absolutely agree that an oil pan heater is mandatory if consistent operating temps are -30 and especially -40 and colder.

    You may find these articles informative. We receive them at work

    Temperature Stability

    Low Temperature and Viscosity Limits
     
  19. nerfer

    nerfer A young senior member

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    It's all perspective. I grew up on a farm in northern MN, and we'd have days of -40'F (or -40'C, as someone pointed out). Of course we'd have to go out and feed the livestock every day, you just need to make sure you're wearing your sorels and choppers in addition to regular winter clothes. Long johns go on at about 10'F or colder, that helps a lot. No such thing as weather too cold, just being underdressed.

    Then out of college, in July, I moved to Dallas for my first job. Drove down in a car without air-conditioning (rare to have it in those days in MN). I had seen in a weather guide somewhere that TX in the summer stays in the upper 70's all night long, gets up to mid or upper 90's during the day, but I didn't really believe it until I arrived. I stayed there nearly two years, and that was more than enough - first time I ever got cabin fever!

    All summer long in TX (which is May to October) you go from your air-conditioned house to the air-conditioned car to go to your air-conditioned job. Occasionally you go to an air-conditioned store. In a MN winter I would go outside skiing and snowshoeing and snowmobiling and ice-fishing (altho that gets too cold for my taste, since you aren't moving around). Even the winters in TX were a disappointment. It just gets brown and drab. No white snow, no green pines and spruce and balsam trees. Can't go skiing. (Downhill or cross-country or telemark, although the Texans only distinguish between water and "snow" skiing). There's only two or three weeks of spring and fall that are really worth anything. That's MN weather all summer, highs in the 70's, sometimes 80's. With skies that are really blue, not gray at the horizon, and puffy white clouds. Maybe it's the humidity (hopefully not pollution), but down south nice skies were rare.

    Back more to the point - cold snow is actually better for driving than the wet slushy stuff you get in, say, the mid-Atlantic region (also lived in D.C. for awhile, moderately better climate, CT was even better). The cold snow (cooler than 20'F) has better grip, once driven on it's more like packed gravel really, unless it's packed into ice. (When it gets down to 0'F, when you kick a snow chunk it skitters along, making a sound like a tin can.) My Prius, stock tires, no VSC, hasn't had any unexpected problems in snow and ice here in Illinois or southern MN. I couldn't get up my friend's driveway on Sunday, but it's a steep driveway and it was coming down fast and wet (4" snow in about an hour) and I couldn't get a run at it (would bottom out where I leave the street), and with my wife watching, it wasn't worth trying out various techniques. It was easier to park on the street and walk the 50 feet.

    So here I am in northern IL. As far north as I could return before I got lured into marriage by a "local".:) It gets below zero a couple times a winter, so I can go out and shovel snow and get a little taste of nice cold weather that wakes you up and makes you realize you're still alive.

    Sorry about the reminiscing, hope it wasn't excessive.
     
  20. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    No Prius, but more cold weather fun: Put a bottle of bubble-blowing soap into a warm inner pocket. Go outside when it's not windy, and blow some bubbles with warm lung-air. They will freeze from the top to the bottom (thinnest to thickest). Then, they can no longer shrink as the fill-air cools, and they implode with the smallest tinkling sound you can possibly imagine.;)