Cold Weather Car Care

Cold weather is finally here. Learn how to keep your car in tip-top shape during these winter months with these tips from AOL autos: Check Your Battery The battery is the part of the car that generally has the most issues when the mercury starts to drop. In fact, your car's battery loses about half of its starting power at 0 degrees. If your car is going to sit for an entire 24-hour period during times of cold weather, it's a good idea to start the engine up and let it run for 15-20 minutes to ensure that the battery stays charged. This way, you won't find yourself stranded with a dead battery when you need to get somewhere. Pep Boys also...

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Is Texting and Driving Addicting

A new study by AT&T shows that texting and driving can actually release the happiness-enhancing chemical, dopamine in people's brains. This means that texting and driving could actually be addicting. Learn more with this article from Kicking Tires: The study, conducted by the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in cooperation with the "Texting & Driving … It Can Wait" campaign, found that more and more people are demonstrating compulsive behavior — dubbed "cell-phone addiction" — with three-quarters of people admitting to at least glancing at their phones while behind the wheel. That's despite 90 percent of people reporting that they know better. "We compulsively check our phones because every time we get an update through text, email or social media, we experience an...

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Keep Germs at Bay in Your Car this Cold and Flu Season

This cold and flu season, make sure you're keeping germs at bay in your car with these tips from Kicking Tires: The flu is nothing to sneeze at. It sends more young children to the hospital than any other vaccine-preventable illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The best way to prevent it and its complications is to get the flu vaccine for yourself and your family. It's recommended for children as young as 6 months old. Of course, the vaccine's effectiveness varies widely from season to season, so parents need to be vigilant when it comes to containing germs. While many of us are trained to wipe down frequently...

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