If I have all wheel drive is there any reason to park my car face out before a snowstorm?

Only to save neck strain.

I always do simply because I need to see. My neighborhood is full of kids, if skidding might happen I want to cope with it before someone gets squished. (I, too, have AWD)

The negative to being face out is that the wind and snow will be able to blow through the grille nd cake on the inside of the engine, and make the engine colder. Parking with the engine close to a wall or garage will protect it somewhat.

Will the car be in a garage or outside?

No it’s in a driveway; either way it will face the outdoors.

I just went out and switched it around.

Nanook of the North!

I always back in the cars, if I back out on to the street I can’t see. We have a bunch of kids on bikes and some seem to have a Evel Knieval complexes. The weather doesn’t make any difference

I think it’s wise to face out. 4 wheel drive helps you drive, it doesn’t help you brake, and the skid is in the braking.

If you attempt to back out over snow, you may clog your exhaust pipe.

@SquirrelEStuff I wasn’t planning to back out until dug out but good to know anyway.

I always prefer to face out when the snow is deep. Good move.

@LuckyGuy I think I’d get a gold star for prep from you!

@janbb You are set! That is great. Did you decide which food to defrost? This is your chance to shop from your freezer.
I defrosted a package of mild Italian sausage from July 2014. I cooked all 6 and ate 2. The others are in the refrigerator for lunch or dinner tomorrow. food to defrost?

I checked the freezer but it’s all baked goods so I’ve actually cooked meatballs and sauce and chili today. I’m optimistic that the power won’t go out.

If you back out, you have to stop to change direction and may get stuck then. Facing forward, you don’t have to stop.

I fail to see what AWD has to do with this. Most of my vehicles have been FWD, and I’ve still used their bumpers as snowplows when the need arose. You can’t do that in reverse unless you plan to make your entire trip backwards; @kritiper is correct there. Once you get going, you do not want to stop, and it’s also easier to control the car going forward.

@elbanditoroso Engines tend to cool fast enough that if you leave the car parked long enough to get a good night’s sleep, it’ll be equally cold no matter which way you face it. Also, I’ve never seen snow make it through the radiator. The absolute worst that could happen that way is to get a dusting of snow on the outside face of the radiator so that the next time you ran the engine, it’d melt off as ~180F coolant circulated through.

Actually, @jerv, though I’ve never seen it at first hand, I heard from a reliable person who said he had experienced it: when he rented a car from Hertz at a Michigan airport, he got to the car (the day after a strong blowing-and-snowing storm) to find that the engine would not even turn over. The rental car tech apparently opened the hood to find snow blown around the engine compartment – and fan – so tightly and compactly that the fan blades were preventing the starter from turning the shaft. He said it was true, and I had no reason to think he was lying to me or kidding.

I usually park nose to the garage now that I have a block heater. Really really helps the ol’ diesel start. I would rather not have the extension cord strung across the driveway in the wet ice and snow.

@CWOTUS Modern cars have electric fans on the radiators, and (usually) a transverse engine. Of course, there are reasons I used an oversized battery; I like Cold Cranking Amps, and usually spent a little more to get enough CCA to crank over at -35F….

I would for sure pull the wipers so they are sticking out to keep them from freezing to the glass and to make it easier to scrape the windshields

@majorrich I hate to appear stupid, but what is a block heater?

Diesels are notoriously difficult to start when they are very cold. A block heater is an electric heater that warms the coolant and thus the engine block to make it easier to start. I’ve soldiered on without one for years until this winter, and I am hooked.

Is your car fitted with a block heater? In case it is either necessary to have a cord long enough to reach or have it facing in.

If it is an older or finicky vehicle you can cut cardboard and slide it under the grill leaving only some of it exposed. Make sure the car isn’t low on gas letting it run for 10 to 20 min is good if its below freezing and sometimes you have poor quality gas watered down or impure and it could freeze next time you fill up consider buying some Heet to top off the tank.

Also seen some people use an old blanket to cover the hood and sometimes the windshield. Gives a little protection from snow blowing in crevices a layer of insulation and can make removing snow as easy as pulling off the blanket. I’ve never done it but to each his own. If you don’t have a proper snow remover an old broom makes quick work of it and it has reach.

Edit block heater is a pas that your battery and a dew other parts are hooked up to you plug it into your house.. Like an electric blanket for your vehicle

Oh extra trivia. In Alaska before they had block heaters and it got cold every time Alaskan drivers parked their car for an extended period of time they would remove the battery and take it inside with them. Sounds perfectly miserable.

Just a note on the “pulling your wiper blades away from the windshield” thing: the last time we had a storm like this, with extreme winds and blowing snow circumstances, the wiper blades on my car and some neighbors’ warped and bent a bit and needed to be replaced. It works well in normal snow circumstances, not necessarily in extreme ones.

Wow! That was some serious wind to bend a wiper arm!

Yeah, it was a NorEaster a couple of years ago, gusts 45–50. The extreme cold and battering of mini ice bits were brutal. I was out in it tying something down and my face was scraped and oozy after about 10 minutes.

We never pulled our wipers away from the windshield. I’ve never heard if doing that and I lived in MI for 3 years and grew up in the Northeast. We just brush off the snow, put on the car, put on the defroster with heat, chip away some ice here and there, and once the ice melts the wiper works.

Heard of it, done it, never lost a blade. Then again, where I was, the trees broke the wind up enough that the blowing never bothered us at home.