While the recent snow and ice is keeping many accident repairers busy during the early part of the year, it should also be having beneficial effects on mechanical business, according to figures released by specialist insurer Warranty Direct.

It has found that certain components are almost three times more likely to fail because of harsh weather, something that could be adding hundreds of Euro to motorists servicing bills.

Warranty Direct analysed data from its 50,000 live automotive policies and found that ignition coils in particular are almost three times more likely to fail between December and February than between June and August. Other major components badly affected by the weather are fuel injection pumps, and electrical components like central locking and heating. Wipers have also proved to be an area of particular failures, as many motorists burnt out systems trying to use them when frozen.

Other serious and expensive failures were torque converters, which take longer to reach operating temperature in the cold, and automatic clutches which can struggle to cope with wheels spinning on slippery roads.