Experts reveal five things you should never leave in your car during winter

You’re home after a long day at work, Christmas shopping or general socialising. It’s dark, cold and you just want to get inside. You’re not going to remember to take things from your car that you would usually keep in there all year. But, experts at GFS car parts have revealed five items you must remove from your car during winter.

Most of us have heard people name things you shouldn’t leave in your car during summer and high temperature days, but no one has ever mentioned, to me at least, to remove things due to cold weather.

It’s convenient to leave things in our cars, whilst fumbling through the multiple keys you have to try and fine the right one whilst your body temperature drops, keeping these things in your car could damage them.

Medications

If you haven’t made a quick trip to the chemist, it’s likely you have some tablets such as paracetamol in your car in case you have an impromptu headache come on, and you’re in the middle of a busy day.

Going below freezing won’t make medications harmful, but it’s likely that they will not work as intended.

In cases of insulin, it’s more serious. Insulin is a serious part of someones livelihood, and if you’ve forgotten it, which can be easy, do not think you can just nip out in the morning. Insulin must be stored in a fridge when opened, and once in use, must be at room temperature. If it’s frozen, it will not have the desired impact and will not lower your blood sugar.

If you thaw it, and try to use it when it’s at room temperature later, the damage has already been done.

Electronics

Keys, wallet, phone. That’s the usual formula you have when exiting your car. The three essentials. It’s rare for someone to realise they’ve forgotten their phone and just decide to leave it in there. However, grab it immediately. We’ve all suffered our iPhones over heating at some stage. That’s because smartphones, laptops and tablets have an optimum temperature range.

This means the operate most efficiently when in between 0C and 35C.

Just like when they overheat, if they’re too cold they could stop working altogether and experience issues that make them hard to use as they’re not working at optimum levels.

Musical instruments

When initially reading this, I too raised my eyebrow at this one. Having never played a musical instrument myself, I wasn’t aware of just how the weather could negatively affect your instruments, especially wooden ones.

If they’re in the boot after a gig or a lesson, I think I’d leave it there, and retrieve it in the morning. Perhaps that’s me being naive because I’ve never been in this world of musicians.

However, if you do leave it in there, instruments such as guitars and violins could losing their tuning due to the cold weather.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the freezing temperature’s could also could the wood to crack, and you don’t have to be a musician to know how bad that would be.

Fuel issues

Admittedly, this goes off on a tangent slightly, and technically it is something you do leave in your car, the fuel anyway.

With more fuel in your tank, the less likely it is to freeze, which would cause all sorts of disruption for yourself. Always try and fill up more regularly during cold weather.

Tyre pressure can also be impacted by cold weather, so be sure to check them more regularly too.

Aerosols

At least three or four of my friends, and myself have deodorant in the car. You just need to freshen up sometimes. The can of deodorants sole purpose is to freshen up yourself whilst on the move, so why would I ever bring it inside?

Here’s why - getting too hot, or too cold could cause product like deodorants or hairspray to explode.

So whilst that can of Lynx will always be in the glove compartment, around the beginning of November, make sure to remove it, and not leave it in your car.