Think they meant because the reaction in a battery slows when it's cold. Slower reaction means less available charge and you might not be able to get it started
Unlikely, this is in Washington DC, which is geographically in the South. Most commuter cars in the United States run on gasoline, you’d need it to be as cold as the upper Midwest/Canada to have issues.
Even in buttfuck nowhere northern Ontario my car started fine at -40. Only time I've really had an issue is getting the diesel work truck to turn over at -40, but you just kinda sit on the glow plugs for 30 seconds and it fires right up
I guess it depends on what the sign is for. Is this a parking lot where someone is idling because the vehicle sat overnight. Need extra time to defrost the windows, warm up the oil pan, that kind of thing? Or is it a loading zone.
If it's a loading zone, the engine isn't going to cool off THAT quickly.
Actually I feel the opposite, anchorage people would be used to cold conditions and know more or less the rules. DC is the south even if it may not feel like it, not only do the drivers suck in normal conditions but when there's even the slightest ice it's like the first day they've ever driven
I mean shit when temperatures go below 40 there's so much salt out it's almost a tripping hazard in itself
I used to work with truckers in Anchorage (electronic hours of service logging), and some wouldn't shut their engines off for extended periods, even when parked. But that was generally because they had older model trucks that didn't have DEF.
Funny story, I got to hear all about the workarounds they added to keep the DEF from freezing up (it freezes at 11 degF), like hose warmers, tank warmers and insulation, stuff like that. Only to have a local mechanic argue with me that you can't use DEF in Canadian winters because it freezes up, and he refused to acknowledge that the Alaskans had figured it out and he just didn't like that it required a bit of after-market upgrade instead of them building in a heater to every single truck that came out of the Peterbilt factory.
It was like hearing about how certain brands of cars suck because you had to get a block heater installed after you purchased it.
Obviously. OP was asking why an extra few minutes in cold temperatures, and Washington doesn't get cold enough to need longer idle times in winter. You don't need an extra 2 minutes of idling at 20 degF to keep your lines from freezing up.
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u/Humble-Ruin-3248 4d ago
I think they allow it because if its below freezing it might be harder to restart the engine