In the 1980s we had a truck from Texas bring us a load of stuff. South-central BC, Canada. In December. The Texan trucker was wearing polyester dress pants. Remember those? Hot in the summer, seemed like they weren't even there in a cold wind. It was -25 or -30 at the time. We got the stuff off the truck and he was headed to a hotel for the night before going back to Texas. I asked him if his antifreeze was good for -40. He laughed. No such temperature, he said. I told him to let the truck idle all night. Laughed at that, too, he did.
Next morning he called from the hotel. Did we have jumper cables so we could give his truck a boost? Yeah, right. My pickup boosting a 24-volt system in a Cat-powered Peterbilt. Told him to call the truck shops. One of them came and found that his antifreeze and diesel fuel were both solid. They able to tow his rig up to their shop and put it inside for a couple of days to thaw everything out. He had last fuelled up in coastal Washington state, a place where winter diesel, with much less paraffin in it, isn't necessary. The fuel had gelled in his tanks.
He said, "I ain't never coming back here again." He didn't, either.
