wrenching on your car in crappy weather

A number of years ago, My mom's Ford LTD wagon wouldn't start when she went to leave work. Sounded like a starter problem. Long story short-There was about a foot of snow on the ground-she parked next to a chain link fence on the starter side-freakin Ford with their metric bolts-couldn't feel my fingers to bolt the starter back up. After all that, it wasn't the starter that was bad!