If you would like to be alive in several days, I would recommend that you stay warm with heavy clothes and an extreme cold sleeping bag. The second day of immobility without exercise, you will get very cold.

A stack of 120 hr candles will provide the comfort of light and warm drink.

He puts the Reflectix only on the windows? It makes sense that the windows would be the place where you'd lose the most heat but I never would of thought of selectively insulating the vehicle. Clever. That plus the rope between windows to cut the space in half would really create a space that can be heated with whatever source you have for twice as long.

And if you have Reflectix or a reflective windshield screen you can lay on top of it to prevent heat loss where your body contacts the car. Even though the seats are insulated, the Reflectix would bounce the heat back to you. Add a space blanket and your body heat alone would last longer.

Add a heat souce such as candle or the propane catalytic heater, or even periodically running your engine (assuming you clear the tail pipe and have enough gas and battery. Be careful to ration your gas and battery. They can be used with foam from a car seat to make a black smoke fire to attract SAR searchers.

They would, in theory. But you are adding complexity to the system, which is not a good thing.

I regard the car interior as the same thing as the interior of my winter tent. I don't need to heat the interior of the tent, why bother with that of the car? I simply need to keep that little sliver of air around my tender pink body at a comfortable temperature.

This is a pretty good situation for using MREs,along with their flameless heaters. I have never used one of these heaters, but I imagine they would take the sting off, once they have accomplished their task of preparing your hot meal, along with the indispensable nice cup of tea.

That would be very wise and is highly recommended in the teardrop trailer community.

Thanks for bringing that up.

I keep warm blankets & a Jetboil with an assortment of "just add water" type drink mixes & meals in my Jeep. I also always have at least 2.5 gallons of water in my SCEPTER GI RUNT for drinking & the Jetboil as well as extra wool caps, gloves, etc. I think I'm well covered if I'm ever stuck in bad weather somewhere.

I'm with Ponder on this. My winter kit includes wool, wool, more wool and a good sleeping bag with a fleece liner . . Depending on the size of the vehicle it could take a substantial amount of energy to keep the inside warm enough. So my thoughts are to not create heat inside the vehicle as much as to keep the 98.6 inside my body.

I've got lithium batteries and LED lights for light. I switched to 123A batteries in the car because the LED road flares I have run on them . . so I standardized on 123A batteries for the truck.

If I'm in serious trouble, I'll just activate my PLB.

Agree with the tent analogy and the use of MRE's. I have food in the truck kit but MRE's might be better for winter. Thanks.

Yes, I, and many other Honda Element owners, just cover the windows with Reflectix. Just cut each piece (scissors are sufficient) a half inch or so larger than each window and they stay in place after you apply light pressure to them in the corners and along the edges. They roll up quite compactly. I already keep a sunshade in the car at all times but for winter-survival would be good to augment with Reflectix there, as well.

I've woken up in the morning (30s-40s temps) in the back of the Element, pulled the Reflectix off the rear windows and been struck by the instant draft that comes in.

Some Element folks have used Reflectix below their sleeping pads if camping in extremely cold weather. Also have a Reflectix piece for your sunroof if you have one. It can be held in place with Velcro or temporarily with duct tape, I suppose.

My loosely rolled Reflectix pieces measure 7"x18." Rolled it tighter and got it to 6.5" diameter. This excludes pieces for the driver and passenger windows. I leave those uncovered when camping.

This photo below shows one of the Element's suicide doors. As you can see, my cut was pretty sloppy, that piece could be smaller. This is the first time my photos have not displayed in the post. Is that a forum formatting change? Or must I have done something differently in posting the pics?

If you have your family or friends in the car and don't have sleeping bags in the car for everyone, they may appreciate the entire car being warmed.

These winter car survival discussions always make me think of the James Kim family's ordeal in 2006.

Thanks for the pics, I think I'm going to get some and make coverings for the glass on my SUV. I also carry a couple of these which might be good under sleeping pads and bags.

http://www.rei.com/product/407106#pr-header-407106

I had to chuckle with the "remove before driving" instructions on the sunshade in the pic!

LOL! I hadn't noticed that before. Guess I must've been removing it before driving.

Call me Einstein.