It's been cold by Michigan standards the past few days and I've noticed the following things happening -- is this the same for everyone else?
1. When I start the car, all of the lights for the radio are off and the headlights don't turn on. It's like the car doesn't realize that it's dark out. I have to turn the car off then back on about 3 times before it "realizes" it's dark out and the headlights turn on and all the lighting on the radio works.
2. Are your windshield wipers COMPLETELY useless? Regardless of if I'm parked (less of a wind chill) or driving on the freeway after the car has warmed up to operating temperature, if I pull the wiper stalk back and it sprays the windshield fluid on the windshield, my wipers just skim right over the fluid and don't wipe it off. I thought my windshield wipers were just old so I went out and bought the top of the line ($50 for the pair) wipers from O'Reilly Auto and it made no difference.
I'm talking about a very serious safety issue - I was driving when it was -3*F out and I was getting a ton of misty gunk spraying up from the cars in front of me onto the windshield so I pulled the stalk back to spray wiper fluid on the windshield and clean it off and my windshield was immediately covered in fluid, the windshield wipers weren't doing jack shit, and I was completely blind driving 40mph on the road...
When I got home from work today after driving for an hour (so the car was definitely up to temp and the windshield wiper fluid should have been warmer), plus it was 19*F out, I pulled the stalk back and my windshield was covered in fluid and the wipers weren't doing anything. I just can't tell if it's the wipers I bought that are useless or if it's the design? I don't really remember it being this cold last winter so I don't have any past days to compare to.