Buying car parts in Alaska

Ruts, and what they do

Studded tyres are legal here and widely fitted, and over a winter they wear grooves into the pavement. On the busier roads around Anchorage those ruts become deep enough that a car will follow them whether or not the driver wants it to.

Driving in a rut is a continuous steering load. Getting out of one — to change lane, to pass, to turn — means climbing the ridge between grooves, which is a lateral impact on the tyre and the steering.

What that wears:

• Tie rod ends and the steering rack, from continuous correction and repeated lateral loading.
• Tyres, unevenly, because the contact patch is not sitting flat.
• Ball joints, loaded laterally rather than vertically.
• Wheel bearings, from the side loads that come with climbing out of a groove.

Ruts also hold water and slush, which is a hydroplaning risk in a state that already has enough of them.

Cold as a season

Fairbanks and the interior produce sustained temperatures that most of the country never sees. At forty below:

The oil barely flows. Seconds to reach the top of the engine, and those seconds are the highest-wear period in its life. A synthetic at the correct low-temperature grade is not a preference here.

The battery is at a fraction of its rating while the starter has the thickest oil it will ever turn. Cold cranking amps is the specification that matters, and the rule is one-directional: meet or exceed the original.

Rubber and plastic are brittle. Seals tear, wiper blades split, hoses crack.

Block heaters, oil pan heaters and battery blankets are ordinary equipment rather than accessories, and there is a reason every parking lot has outlets.

Darkness is an electrical load

Winter days are short and in the far north barely exist. That means headlights, heated seats, heated mirrors, rear defrost and the blower running for essentially every journey.

That is a sustained electrical load on a charging system in the cold, with a battery that is already at a fraction of its capacity. A marginal alternator that would go unnoticed in Arizona is a flat battery here.

It also makes headlight condition a genuine safety item. A hazed lens scatters instead of projecting, and on an unlit road in December that is distance you needed.

Gravel highways

Large parts of the state's road network are unpaved, and some of the famous ones entirely so. Grit is thrown continuously at every rubber boot, so a split constant-velocity boot ends a joint quickly. Air filters load at rates no interval anticipates. Windscreens and paint take stones from every oncoming vehicle.

Washboard works dampers at high frequency and small amplitude for miles, which fades them in a way a single impact never does.

Frost heave and no inspection

The freeze-thaw cycle here is extreme and permafrost movement adds to it. Roads lift and settle unevenly rather than developing holes, and a suspension crossing that is worked through its full travel repeatedly.

Alaska has no periodic safety inspection. Nothing checks brakes, suspension, steering, tyres or lights on any schedule — which, given everything above, makes an annual look-over with the wheels off less optional here than almost anywhere.