Being a lifelong Southern California resident, I've never had to deal with freezing temps. But now that I'm in Northern California, this morning was my first encounter with icy windshield. What's the proper way to clear the ice before driving?

Dr J

 

How about:

 

pee on it...OR...

start up the car...hit the defrost button and start scraping with the scraper.

 

Pour cool water over windshield until ice breaks up enough to scrape off with windshield wipers or towel.

Alternatively, you can use your windshield cleaning liquid. This will take a while, but you will be warm and toasty in your car while doing this.

Don't pour warm water onto the windshield. Tempting, but wrong.

 

i just start up my car hit defrost and scrape away.

 

defroster + Scraper

 

Easiest solution, get a carport or garage.

 

when it used to get cold here in tn i would get a 1 liter bottle and fill it with cold water and just dump it over the windshield while running the wipers. works pretty well for loosening it up.

 

Ice scraper, defroster, washer fluid. Not necessarily in that order.

 

What i do: I have 2 sets of keys on my key chain, with one key i start the car, with the other key, i manually lock the doors from the outside, i set the car on AUTO 32C on defrost both front and rear. I go back inside, brush my teeth and put on my boots/shoes then by the time your back out, the ice comes off much much easier with the scraper.

One thing you should never do is pour hot water on the windhshield, as tempting as it may be when your in a rush its a great way to end up with a nice crack in your windshield. Ive seen it happen all to often.

Also using windshield washer fluid and cycling your wipers on while ice is on the windshield is a good way to destroy your wipers. Just get off your *** and scrape the windows and save yourself the money. Especially if the ice is kinda jagged when it snows, it just destroys the rubber and you end up with streaks galore.

 

Oooooh... well, not knowing exactly what to do, I set the vents to windshield-foot, hot, fan level 1. I didn't put on windshield direct cuz that turns on the AC compressor, and I didn't want the compressor running as the car's warming up. Then I had the wipers going on slow interval... sat there for 2min till the ice started melting, and the rest of it finished off in another minute.

I read about the 50-50 mix of rubbing alcohol and water. Does that work well? Oh, and my windshield nozzles were frozen, nothing came outta those till engine was fully warmed.

I will be installing a remote-start alarm from another car after xmas break.

Dr J

 

Just put it to defrost. Works on the rear too (just FYI).

 

That's what I do!!!!

 

I get a jug full of hot water and splash it on there a few times. It works like a charm.

 

Push the remote start on my keychain and when i go it its all ready.

 

If you want it to crack, this is a great suggestion.

 

i just got some de-icer spray from Autozone. Turn on the defroster spray it on, and in about 5 minutes its melting away!

 

If I idle for 5min, with air blowing from the vent, I'll be golden... just wondering if there's a <5min procedure with the least amount of effort.

 

you're not talking about the windshield washer are you? cause I was in big bear last weekend and that didn't work cause it froze along with everything else

 

all I do is put a rubber mat (floor mat) under the windshield wipper (driver side duh) the night before and in the morning I pull the mat off start the car and let it run for 30sec-1min before I put it in gear, so it will have time to get all the fluids going real good. oh cardboard will do the trick to.

 

WINNAR

 

Standard windshield washer fluid will de-ice your windshield too.
It works before your defroster gets hot, just give the squirter a pull and drive away.

I don't understand why people scrape their windshield to get rid of frost...
Makes no sense....

 

curse at it.
take it from me.
i live in quebec.

 

frost or ice?
when there's a sheet of ice on it there's no way that washer fluid is going to melt everything w/o defrost blowing at it for a few min.

 

do you have water only for your fluid or a solution?

 

best post in this thread so far.

also they sell anti-iceing windshield washer fluid which is a great help and i use it every winter.

 

Until one day your windshield will crack with the ice on it.

 

Remote start FTW!
Best investment i have done to my max by far, start it when i wake up by the time i get out there most the ice is melted

 

start the car, window de frost on full blast, get out and scrape away while she get warmed up. then drive nice slowly with the tunes bumping.

remote start also sounds great. afteri get a tune up i might get one for myself too. im soo sick of waiting like 2 mins in the morning for it to warm up.

 

also.. like torgus said.. def worth the extra couple of bucks to get the expensive windshield washer fluid that is designed for melting ice,.. i think rain-x makes a good one .. walmart for under 5 bucks...after its defrosting.. u can spray the crap out of it from inside the car.. and it should help.. unless theres alot of ice,.. which if thats the case,.. get a piece of rubber or cardboard and put it on ur windshield so in the morning all the ice is stuck to that not the window .. g/l it sucks.. get used to it..wait till u get like a foot of snow and you have to shovel it all off ur car (dont scratch it )

 

I was thinking not to full blast it, cuz the bottom would be warmer than the top, causing the windshield to crack?

 

It's not like the defrost blows at +100* temps. It won't crack. Is your car the first one that has a defroster installed? That's what it's designed for.

 

It's my first time w/ice on the windshield. If I had to use the defroster, it's cuz the inside is foggy, so I use the AC function to dry the air and clear that up. I've never had to use the defroster's heat function to melt something on the outside of the window, which's my question and concern. I think in my situation, I'm lucky that it was just a thin layer of ice, I probably coulda scraped with a credit card. But if it's a thick layer of ice, I don't know if the ice could be melted evenly bottom to top.

 

You'll still need to put some elbowgrease into it even with the defroster on full blast. You can't expect to sit in your car for 20 minutes and have the ice completely melted. Put the defroster on full blast for a few minutes and give a few squirts of windshield washer and make them wipers go crazy. It's not rocket science...

 

start the car, wait 5 minutes, spray with windshield wiper fluid, wipe with wipers then drive off.

 

I still say put something like a rubber floor mat or cardboard under ur wipper and take it off in the morning. No scrapping, no buying fluids, takes $0 dollars and you can drive away faster than ur neighbor who is outside freezing their a$$ off scraping. Just my $.02 worth. you'll find its the best way know matter how thick the ice is.

 

trust me it's fine.

 

the formula is (Defroster)(t)+(Scraper)(t)= no ice on windshield and is (t) dependant on how thick the ice is and how f***in cold it is.

 

use this

 

what is it with everybody wanting to put water on the windshield? with a good scraper it takes minimal effort to clear ice from your winshield