Extreme Cold Weather Subaru Love

[FireGirl_Photo]

I've got a 2002 Subaru Outback that's my adventure machine. For the moment I'm living in rough quarters and the Subaru is stuck outside with nights that regularly plummet to well below zero, often into the -20s, with windchill into the -50s and below.
I park as much out the wind as possible, have a strong battery and an engine block heater.
Anything else I can be doing to keep the Suby happy?

 

[Deleted member 13060]

Maybe add a battery warmer to go along with the block heater..... Other than that it would seem you've got it covered.

YMMV RON

 

[lbarcher]

Synthetic oil is a good thing too. -20 starts will be easier.
-20 really isn't that bad. Our old Tacoma starts easily at -30c with synthetic oil in it without being plugged in.

 

[Ronct110]

Ditto on using synthetic engine oil especially in cold weather for start-ups.

I think you can go with 5w30 synthetic on your Outback; I like Mobil 1 brand.

Here's a good saturday night "staying at home" read re: Motor Oil 101 (jump to chapter 3 comparing regular engine oil vs Synthetic): http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/motor-oil-101/

 

[FireGirl_Photo]

Cheers, guys, thanks. I've already got synthetic in there and so far she's holding pretty well with the engine block heater.