Hurricane Season Readiness

Hurricane season runs June through November, and the vehicle preparation that matters is the kind you do in May. Once a storm has a name and a cone, the shops are booked, the gas stations have lines and the parts are gone.

Your Car Is Your Evacuation Plan

If you leave, you leave in it, usually in heavy traffic, in heat, possibly in rain, with the A/C running and the car sitting still. That is the hardest duty cycle a car ever sees, and it is exactly when a marginal cooling system or a three-year-old battery decides it is done.

Before the Season, Not During

• Battery: load-tested. If it is over three years old in this climate, budget for it.
• Cooling system: pressure tested. Stop-and-go evacuation traffic is where overheating happens.
• Tires: tread depth and pressure, including the spare. Standing water and worn tread do not mix.
• Wipers: replace them. Florida sun destroys the rubber annually.
• Brakes: measured, not glanced at.
• A/C: because sitting in traffic without it in August is genuinely dangerous.

Keep in the Car

Jumper cables or a jump pack, a tire inflator, a flashlight with working batteries, water, a phone charger that does not depend on the car, and paper copies of insurance and registration. Screenshots are useless when the network is down.

Fuel

Through the season, try not to let the tank drop below half. It costs nothing and it means you are not sitting in a fuel line the day everyone else decides to leave.

After a Storm

Do not drive through standing water — a foot of moving water floats most cars, and water pulled into the intake destroys an engine instantly. If your car has been through flood water, have it inspected before you start it. Salt water is worse; it attacks wiring and connectors for months afterwards.

Get Checked Before June

We will look over the whole vehicle and tell you honestly what needs doing before the season. Call (941) 766-1444.