Getting a Car Ready for a Perth Winter
Jani · 4 May 2024
No snow, no ice, no winter tyres. Perth winter is wet roads and cold starts, and those break different things.
Most winter car advice you will find online was written for somewhere that gets snow. Perth does not. There is no ice to scrape, no reason to fit winter tyres, and no chance of the coolant freezing in the radiator.
What Perth gets instead is rain, standing water on roads that were dry for six months, mornings around 8 degrees, and the shortest days of the year. That combination breaks a different set of things, and this is the list that actually matters here.
Tyres, for water rather than snow
Tread depth is the one to check. Tread exists to move water out from under the tyre, and a tyre worn near the legal limit of 1.5 mm has very little capacity to do that. The result is aquaplaning, where the tyre rides up on a film of water and steering and braking stop meaning anything for a moment.
Check pressures too. Cold air is denser, so pressures read lower on a cold morning than they did in February, and an underinflated tyre in the wet is worse again.
The battery is the thing that will actually strand you
Cold weather does not kill batteries so much as expose the ones that were already finished. A battery holds less charge when it is cold and the engine is harder to turn, so the first genuinely cold morning of the year is when a marginal battery fails. Most do it without warning.
If yours is over three years old, have it tested before winter rather than after it lets you down in a car park.
Wipers and demisters
Wiper blades bake through a Perth summer and come out of it hard and split. The first real downpour is a bad time to find that out. If they smear or chatter, replace them, and top up the washer bottle while you are there.
Check the demister and the air conditioning as well. Air conditioning is what actually dries the air inside the car, so it is a winter system as much as a summer one. A windscreen that fogs and will not clear is a genuine visibility problem in the dark and wet.
Lights
Short days mean far more of your driving happens in the dark, and in the rain. Walk around the car with the lights on and check every one of them, including the brake lights and the rear fog light if it has one. Cloudy or yellowed headlight lenses throw much less light than they used to and can usually be restored cheaply.
Oil and coolant, briefly
Antifreeze in Perth is about corrosion protection, not freezing. Coolant still matters, and old coolant stops protecting the inside of the engine, but nothing in a Perth winter is going to freeze it.
Oil grade is the same story. Modern oils flow fine at 8 degrees. Just do not stretch the interval.
Buying a car in winter
Rain hides things. Wet paint conceals scratches and mismatched panels, a wet engine bay hides fresh oil leaks, and a car that has been sitting in the rain will not show you a coolant drip on the driveway.
If you are looking at a car in winter, that is exactly when an inspection earns its money, because we get underneath it and look properly rather than judging it from a wet forecourt.
Common Questions
Do I need winter tyres in Perth?
No. Winter tyres are for snow and ice, neither of which Perth gets. What matters here is tread depth, because tread is what clears water and prevents aquaplaning.
Why do batteries fail in winter?
A battery holds less charge when it is cold and the engine is harder to turn over, so the first cold morning finds every battery that was already near the end of its life. Most fail without warning.
Does the air conditioning matter in winter?
Yes. Air conditioning dries the air, so it is what clears a fogged windscreen quickly. A demister that cannot clear the glass is a real visibility problem on a dark wet morning.