First thing, the best thing to keep your windshield clear is to park under a carport or in the garage. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of scraping. De-Icers come in spray cans and bulk buckets. They are very expensive and not good for the car exterior or rubber around the windows. The same goes for salt water. Sure melts the ice and rust out the body's metal. Dumping hot water on your window can shatter it. You also end up with a puddle of water that freezes over in the cold weather.
You do not want to pound on the ice to break it free. A winter or two ago, a friend from Detroit helped break off the ice by pounding on the windshield on my F150 to break off the thick ice. Days later, when the snow and ice melted, a small rock chip had made its way clear across the windshield. You do not want to scrap off ice with a sharp metal object like a knife, file, or putty knife. Even though it works great to chip off the ice, you will find scratch marks in the glass that do not come out.
A good way to loosen up the ice is to run the car a bit with the defroster turn up all the way. While this is going on, get a bucket of hot water and a rag. Soak the rag in the hot water and gentle wipe it over the ice. When the rag cools, squeeze it out to get rid of the cold water before putting it back in the hot water again. This keeps the bucket of water hot longer than returning the iced up rag to it. Sometimes a credit card (one thing that Citi Bank card is good for) or any other plastic card works. If we are talking ¼ inch ice, you want a strong scraper. A good scraper is a hard plastic spatula from the kitchen. There are ice scrapers you can get from the store. The molded plastic ones freeze up and snap when it is really cold out.
Keep scrapping. When the ice thaws from the glass, it pops off when you work the scraper up under it. It takes a lot of elbow grease and patience. Don't use any thing metal. Do not dump hot water on the glass. Keep the defroster running on high. Clear off the side mirror with hot water and a rag. Be careful not to crack the ice off because you do not want to break the mirror. Clear the entire windshield and windows so you are not looking out a little scrapped spot. You want to have a clear view of the road, especially in winter driving conditions.
Once the window are cleared off, you can cover them to keep the ice and snow off. I always cover the defrost vents around the wipers with a dry towel so that the defroster stays clear of snow and ice blows air well. Use a tarp, newspaper, plastic bags, or cardboard to cover the windshield and windows to keep them clear of ice and snow. I'll put a board or snow on the coverings to hold them down. You can shut the doors on the covering to hold them in place. I recently noticed that driver flip their windshield wipers in a locked position forward to keep them from freezing to the windshield.
There you go. Now your car windshield and windows are clear and ready for the road. Why don't you go in and get that cup of hot chocolate?
No comments:
Post a Comment