Jim Henderson gave some good ideas especially the windshield wiper cleaner. keep that full and maybe carry extra with you, some trips you will have spray it to clean the nasty dried salt of your windshield every 2 minutes
make sure you have a good antifreeze/water mix in your radiator/coolant system. obviously add antifreeze rather than water. 50/50 is good enough mix to have in the system. (you probably have this already)
make sure the defrosters work (make sure the a/c works too, to dehumidify the air being blown on the windows) and make sure the rear defrosters work too.
have an Ice scrapper and snow brush/broom. Make sure you have fresh wipers before winter. Even replacing them mid winter or once they start to streak is a good idea.
remove all ice from the wiper swing area on the windshield before turning them on. Because scrapping ice off with wipers will just ruin them and they will streak while driving and blind you. some rain x might help.
make sure the auto wipers are off before starting the car otherwise they might try to turn on before they are unfrozen from the windshield and burn out the motor. Your LS probably has the windshield wiper heater, it usually goes on automatically but it's good to make sure it is in use.
make sure your mirrors are clean of ice and snow and you can see out your window thru them. also please remove as much snow as you can from your car. nothing is more fun than are car going down they highway throwing sheets of snow and ice onto other cars....
cops give tickets for this…
try to make sure you only drive on roads that have been salted or sanded already. even if there is 4 inches of snow on the road and the sand/salt is just laying on top of it, it helps.
I don’t think this applies to the LS because I don’t think the wiper arms go all the way up and stay. But I see a lot of people put their wiper blades up off of the window when it is snowing or they expect it to snow so they don’t get frozen and need to be worked free.
Listen to the radio. If you expect snow, plan for it. Leaving work or somewhere early because of snow is acceptable.
Give plows and salt trucks a wide berth they are nasty people and usually are working on no sleep and 9 pots of coffee. Salt will mess up you car and so will a plow or snow thrown by a plow.
If you have a manual trans and driving in the snow, drive it in as high as gear as possible, less torque to the back wheels. No sudden jerk of the steering wheel or slams on the gas or brake. Unless in a slide already, if sliding just mash the brake pedal and aim/steer, let the ABS do its job.
wash the car whenever you can to get the salt off, even the under carriage. You might not be able to do this for weeks at a time and then when you get back on the road it will get all salted up again in minutes! Also the salt does not clean off the roads until March/April. Rims for the winter might be a good idea too.
extra weight in the trunk helps with traction (sand bags, steel, bodies, etc)
Get a front wheel drive beater that you don’t care about. It makes for fun in the snow too…
