Any shite de-icing tips for the frosty mornings?

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Err on the side of caution too much and the water you applied will just instantly freeze. I just splash a bit on all of the windows

It works better if you pour quite a large amount of tepid water slowly over the windscreen. I generally use a medium size watering can. Don't stop as soon as the ice is gone, but keep going: you need to gently raise the temperature of the glass as well so that it doesn't refreeze. The beneficial side-effect is that it completely demists the inside of the screen as well, so you can drive off immediately.

[Jack_Harpers_Teeth]

Fill hot water bottle with boiling water, place on top of dash. Go back indorrs, have cup of tea. Go back out and hey presto melted ice

 

Yup, works a treat, though I suggest putting the bottle on a metal tray and that way some of the heat from the underside of the bottle heats the tray up too up for extra glass clearance.

[Baz]

I won't scrape, since scraping ruined the windscreen of one of my Smarts....I find de-icer (Even if it DOES actually de-ice the screen....Which often it doesn't!) makes the inside of the glass mist up....I just start up, turn on my music, maybe check my texts/e-mails on my phone, and wait for the windows to clear before driving off....Wouldn't advise using hot/warm water, especially if any of the glass is damaged.

 

I've always been very surprised that heated screens haven't become universal....

[face]

I thought Ford had some legal rights to heated front screens?

 

Or is that a myth?

[DSdriver]

Now is the time to go around the car with a jar of vaseline petroleum jelly and work it into the door seals with fingers then wipe of the excess with a rag. It stops the door seals from freezing to the door. Tendency is when the door freezes up to pull so hard you tear the door seal which then lets in water and acts as a rust trap.

The heater in the DS according to a famous quote "only works well in summer". Probably something to do with the car having the internal volume and drafts of a barn.

[Baz]

I thought Ford had some legal rights to heated front screens?

 

Or is that a myth?

 

I must admit, I've heard that too....This being the case, I don't think they should be allowed to prevent the use of such an important safety feature by other manufacturers....

[Junkman]

In an ideal world, I would go back to bed if I find the windows of my cars frozen over in the morning.

 

In the real world, I subscribe to the philosophy that the ice came the old fashioned way, so I remove it the old fashioned way.

For this, I have a scraper bought by my Dad in Austria in the Sixties. Like everything else, it is a lot nicer and better than the shiny rubbish from China they force you to buy nowadays.

[Junkman]

I must admit, I've heard that too....This being the case, I don't think they should be allowed to prevent the use of such an important safety feature by other manufacturers....

 

Those pure convenience options should never be hyped as 'important safety features'.

This would mean, everyone driving a car without those dizzying wires in the screen, drives a non-roadworthy death trap.

Next thing is claiming air conditioning is an important safety feature, because it helps to demist the windows.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I thought Ford had some legal rights to heated front screens?

 

Or is that a myth?

 

No, it's true. They own the patent. Quickclear here, Instaclear in the US. They're great for frost but on the motorway my eyes focus on the tiny wires in the screen every couple of miles.

[dollywobbler]

Glad it's not just me Peter. I find the quickclear screens infuriating at times, the absolute worst being when there's lots of spray or fog around.

[DSdriver]

I've just walked into the village and back. There was a person putting clingfilm on their windscreen. Any thoughts on this? I doubt if I will try it because I can never get the roll started.

[Spiny Norman]

I think domestic cling film would be too flimsy but I could be wrong. I used to use the heavy duty stuff we got for wrapping pallets with, it worked OK, but still left icy marks on the screen.

 

Does anyone understand the science behind why the inside of the screen suddenly mists up when you use de-icing spray, but not warm water?

[willswitchengage]

Re Face:

 

I've fallen for that before - they may have just pinched the image from another listing/supplier and the product sold will look different, and, I imagine, be far inferior.

[FredTransit]

just got 2 spray bottles of de icer from poundstretcher for 98p for the two Odd though it said 99p on it. I just paid what I was asked!

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Glad it's not just me Peter. I find the quickclear screens infuriating at times, the absolute worst being when there's lots of spray or fog around.

I wonder how much crossover there is between people who notice Quickclear wires and those who are irritated by excessively bright LEDs.

[M'coli]

Does anyone understand the science behind why the inside of the screen suddenly mists up when you use de-icing spray, but not warm water?

Yes - of sorts. It takes energy to melt a substance, even though the temperature of it stays the same - it's known as the heat of fusion.

 

De-icer has a far lower freezing point than water, but readily forms a solution/mixture with it, even when the water is ice. Thus to liquidise the water, the de-icer and water mixture MUST drop in temperature (due to the heat of fusion) andd so cools the windscreen even more, promoting misting of the screen.

[richardthestag]

old blanket over screen if frost expected, it goes in the boot in the morning to give it a chance to thaw out before the next big freeze.

 

I use a crappy scraper on front side windows while engine is running with rear demist on and full heat and blower to the screen vents. By the time i get in 4 out of the 10 demist threads on the rear screen that still work have done their best. RV8 is blowing warm air about 3 mins after a cold start, happy days.

 

Vaseline on the door rubbers to help me get in and out

 

WD40 at the ready for frozen tailgate lock which isn't on the central locking any more. all the doors are on remote central locking

 

I do have a heated frontscreen out of my last Range Rover in the shed and keep meaning to fit it whenever there is a nice day but always find something more useful to do like ripping the arse out of a crate of brown beer.

[cobblers]

Ideally, own a vehicle with an ignition key so worn that you can remove it after you've started the engine and turned the heaters on to full defrost. Use the key to lock the door behind you and go back into the house for 10 minutes and try and squeeze out that turd that's probably not worth gambling the drive to work over.

[brickwall]

My Range Rover classic warms up very quickly - getting inside is the thing! You can forget opening the tailgate.

[Pillock]

The sad thing is there's cars that are now on the "shite" list (Top-line Sierras, Scorpios and even a widemouth Fiesta Ghia) that have heated screens. This makes me feel old. However even on my 09 Focus the heated screen ends up looking like a frosty barcode, it's not exactly the most reliable of technologies.

 

I tend to use a plastic card, anything I don't mind ruining. We have RFID tags to get in to one of the sites I work at, apparently they're a fiver a pop. Bending them and using them to scrape ice is a great way of destroying them! My only other fail was using a card one morning, it snapped in two and jabbed me in the hand leading to bloody ice (as in a mixture of ice and blood) all over the car. The irony? It was my Blood Donors card I'd used.

[retrogeezer]

I've got some 5mm thick foil insulation stuff on a roll for lofts or something. I just cut off 2 long strips for the front and rear screens and it works a treat. I have also used warm water for 20 odd years with no problems..

[forddeliveryboy]

Glad it's not just me Peter. I find the quickclear screens infuriating at times, the absolute worst being when there's lots of spray or fog around.

I wonder how much crossover there is between people who notice Quickclear wires and those who are irritated by excessively bright LEDs.

 

Not just excessively bright leds, all of them! Taillights made out of led always flicker at a high frequncy in my peripheral vision, distracting.

[Pete-M]

Quick Clear screens don't bother me, although I have to admit I was driving a posh new Transit with one recently and I notice it more now than I used to...

[Pete-M]

Only things I know of with quick clear screens other than Ford (or Ford owned) stuff are Caterhams.

 

Rolls Royce / Bentley used something similar in the later Turbo R jobbies for the heated rear window.

[RichL]

No probs with the windscreen on my '04 Focus. All the elements work, but I do agree in bad light/mist/fog they can be very annoying. Alternator howls in pain when asked to run the heater blower motor at the same time. Heated rear window however is an epic fail. Only about 3 of the elements work so I just don't bother with it now. Bit of cardboard over the back window is this years solution I think.I hate de-icer.

[panhard65]

The heated rear screen in my old '68 Rolls shadow had the really fine de-mister in it that you could hardly see like the ford front screen ones. Just one of many reasons that they used to be the best car in the world. Amazingly well built cars shame I sold it now

[M'coli]

IIRC Rolls Royce/Bentley licensed the heated screen from Ford, in the same way that they licensed Citroen's hydropneumatic suspension - and if you're building a car of that quality, why not? If your customers can't pay for it then they're not comfortably off enough...

[dollywobbler]

Doors freezing up is proper annoying. The BX is really bad for it. Might have to get the vaseline out, but I'm worried about it ending up on clothing as I get in. Mind you, when it gets really cold, the door handles themselves freeze up. Clearly Citroen in the 1980s didn't have access to a cold chamber, or didn't give a stuff.

 

Mind you, the 2CV can be as bad. Water trickles into the lock so you can't even get the key in. Quite often have to use my kettle of warm water just to get the door open (which then leaves lots of water in the lock ready for the next freeze).

 

At least the washer bottle on the 2CV is in the engine bay, so it actually thaws out as you drive along.

[cort16]

I once got my lips frozen to the door of a Cortina trying to blow through the little key flap. When I say a little bit of me went with the car when it was scrapped I actually mean my lips.

[davidfowler2000]

Sometimes, though, the hot water is the only way to de-ice a windscreen properly. I've never found de-icer to be pleasant to use in the inside of a screen, and I've had enough cars with leaky floorpans to need this sort of treatment!

 

These are better than nowt:

 

I got one of these. They make no difference to the interior temperature of the car but it's enough to thaw the windscreen. I also happened to have a spare battery lying around and built myself a remote control relay for it. Now I can remotely switch on the wee heater, perched on the dash pointing at the window, from the house 10 mins before I have to leave and I can go out to a lovely ice free windscreen