The notches
Franconia, Crawford, Pinkham. These are not hills — they are sustained grades measured in minutes of continuous descent, and they ask something of a brake system that no amount of city driving does.
Braking converts motion into heat. On a flat road that happens in short bursts with cooling in between, and the system sheds it easily. On a long descent it is continuous, and the failures arrive in a predictable order:
- Pad fade. The friction material outgasses at temperature and its coefficient drops. The pedal still feels normal and the car stops less.
- Fluid boiling. Brake fluid absorbs water from the air over years regardless of mileage, and water boils far lower than fluid does. Vapour compresses, so the pedal goes long or to the floor.
- Rotor thickness variation, from extreme heat and uneven cooling, felt afterwards as a pulsation.
Engine braking is the other half and it is free. A lower gear on a long descent puts the energy into the engine instead of the friction material, which is what the low ranges are for.
An annual inspection with real scope
Every registered vehicle is inspected once a year. The safety portion covers brakes, steering, suspension, tyres, lights, glass, wipers, mirrors, the exhaust and the vehicle's structural condition. Emissions testing through the OBD-II system applies to newer vehicles.
The practical effect is that a winter's corrosion becomes a dated obligation. What fails, roughly in order: brakes on thickness or on a seized caliper, suspension on a leaking damper or a torn boot, tyres on tread, lights including a lens too hazed to project, and corrosion where it has gone structural.
The useful habit is to have the car looked at a month before the sticker month rather than in the final week. That turns a forced purchase into a considered one — the difference between the right part and whatever is on a shelf on the last day.
Frost heave, then mud
The freeze-thaw cycle here is severe and it wrecks road surfaces. Water freezes under the roadbed, lifts a whole section, then thaws and drops it unevenly. The result is humps and dips rather than holes, and a suspension crossing them is worked through its full travel repeatedly at speed.
That is what ends dampers here, and they fail gradually. A car that floats over a crest and takes two movements to settle has worn dampers whether or not anything is leaking.
Unpaved roads add abrasion to the same picture. Grit past a torn boot ends a joint in weeks rather than in months.
Cold, and what it exposes
Sustained winter cold rather than occasional cold. A battery delivers a fraction of its rated current at twenty below while the oil the starter must turn is at its thickest, so the demand rises exactly as the supply falls.
Replace a battery on age, before winter, at your convenience. The damage that kills it mostly happens in summer heat; cold is only what reveals it, and it reveals it in a car park in January.
What the rules and the weather here actually say
- Does this state inspect your car
- The annual safety and emissions inspection ended with the 2025 state budget, and by February 2026 neither state nor local police were enforcing an inspection sticker. New Hampshire Public Radio, read
- Emissions testing, and who is exempt
- A law signed in June 2025 repealed the vehicle emissions inspection and maintenance programme outright. US EPA, read
- What goes on the roads in winter
- Around 400,000 tons of road salt goes down across the state in an average winter, twice what was used forty years ago. NEIWPCC, quoting NH Environmental Services, read
- The climate, in a number
- The long-term average is 25 nights a year at or below 0°F. NOAA state climate summary, read
- The roads that decide how long brakes last
- The Mount Washington Auto Road climbs 7.6 miles at an average grade of 12 percent with no guardrails, and the operator asks for lowest gear on the way down. Mount Washington Auto Road, read
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