Volkswagen T4 cold start in extreme temperatures (-30 deg.)

The car was parked for a month due to a driving ban and temperatures dropped down to the -30s. All doors were frozen stuck.

BHPian Indian2003 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

As some of you might know, I went away up to the mountains for a weekend and the day after, ended up in hospital. Car had not been prepared for extreme temperatures. It was about -5 degrees when I arrived and had no artic diesel in the tank as I was planning to return on Sunday.

The car was parked for a month due to a driving ban and temperatures dropped down to the -30s. All doors were frozen stuck. When I arrived after a month, I used a blower to heat up the side door to place the blower inside the car. Same night, I connected a Ctek charger.

The next morning I started the car. It struggled a bit at first but ran fine after a few seconds. The car has passed 400,000 km so far and the engine has not been opened. All repairs and maintenance is done by myself. Clutch was replaced at 345,000 km and shocks at 300,000 km. The car is in original shape other than the leather seats which I had done in Poland.

No external heating source for engine heating has been used. I dont use additives but add a can of LiquiMoly Diesel Purge into the tank about once every 100,000 km. Hopefully, this will keep my injectors clean.

I run on Castro Edge 5/40. I don't follow a maintenance schedule but look into the car sometimes and repair as needed.

Here's what BHPian Jeroen had to say on the matter:

Sounds good. At minus thirty, diesel might be giving some problems. Although these days with modern diesel, much less than say 20-30 years ago.

As long as an engine is maintained regularly and you have a good charge in the battery it will fire up. Whenever we have a really cold spell in the Netherlands, the Dutch Wegenwacht (equivalent to UK AA) will have endless calls from people not being able to start and 99% of the problems tend to be battery related.

A battery might still be fine around 5-10 degree celsius, but when subjected to an overnight severe frost, that might kill it.

I spend some time in Yakutsk, Siberia. Many years ago and I was there during the summer which was fine. But 9 months of the year, the river Lena is frozen solid and temperatures will drop to -45 to -50 degree celsius easily. They told me that for instance, the police and fire department never shut their engines down. They just leave it idling for weeks, sometimes months. Don’t know if it was just a tall story or some truth into it. An engine idling for such a long time is likely to incur an awful wear and tear, especially if the cooling fluids don’t reach normal operating temperature.

We drove some old Classic Alfa Spiders to the North Pole in the winter. minus 27, simple carburettors, never a problem. Every morning we put the hood down and started and they fired up, not a problem. Getting them into gear for the first few kilometers was a bit of a thing though. Very carefully.

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