Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Latest news, weather, high school sports for Michigan’s Upper Peninsula

Car Turds: can they be dangerous?
by Nikki Davidson
Posted: 01.20.2012 at 7:17 PM
0

Ice and snow buildup in between vehicle tires

MARQUETTE -- If you're like many of our Facebook viewers, you may not have heard an actual term used to describe the snow and ice that builds up near your vehicle's tires.

But at TV6, we are calling them 'car turds,' and our Facebook viewers wanted to know more about them.

What's the best way to remove them and can they be dangerous if not disposed of properly? Whatever your preferred method is, the message we heard loud and clear from our Facebook viewers today was:  clean up after your car.

Facebook fan Ryan Lucas writes: "Anything is better than people not knocking them off from their cars and the 'turds' falling off in the middle of the road! My car can't clear those without it scraping the bottom."

According to experts, in that situation, these pesky droppings can actually damage your vehicle.

"There's a lot of different plastics on the front of vehicles, under the vehicles that could damage or break those," says Mike Grange of Quality Car Care. "There's lower hoses, lower lines; if it catches it just right, it can cause a problem."

But what about a vehicle that's carrying a full load? They say only in certain situations could it actually do some damage.

"I don't think it really affects the car very much," Grange says. "It may cause some rubbing noise when you turn the tires."

But if you are looking to tidy up your droppings, as I found out today, it takes less than a minute and some say it can actually be fun.

Maria Parkkonen writes:  "I'm obsessed with removing them and do it constantly. I even kick them off cars that are not mine in public parking lots."

A winter weather problem they do see at Quality Car Care in Marquette is snow and ice stuck in the wheel wells, inside of the rims. That can actually throw a vehicle out of balance, causing your car to shake. To fix that problem, you just need to keep the vehicle in a heated garage for a melt or take it into a service station to have the ice knocked out.

Quality Car Care also says another common winter weather problem they see in cars is windshield wipers that have been stripped out after the driver has not properly cleaned the vehicle of snow and ice.

They say when the transmission has been destroyed, that damage can be expensive to fix.

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