For lightish frost use a bank card or a similar card.
A use the for soon to be defunct Shell Mastercard by Citi!!!
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so what are people's opinions on using the air con to clear a windscreen.
Since I have not had my car through a winter yet I used the aircon to clear the windscreen but the car had warmed up in 4 minutes so I could not tell if the aircon itself cleared the windscreen or the heat from the engine.
And no I am not lying about the car warming up in 4 minutes.
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>>so I could not tell if the aircon itself cleared the windscreen or the heat from theengine.
If the ambient temperature is high enough for your air con to cut in, (above about 3C) you should not have ice on your screen anyway. Using aircon to demist is a good idea as the air is dried.
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I used the dashboard button on my new KA and the wipers cleared the ice after 60 seconds. A result I hear you cry! Oh bother you hear me cry! I simply could not get the interior to demist, quarterlights misted up so that I couldn't see the rear view mirors, rear screen interior running with damp, even had to put the windscreen heat on again to demist the inside and all this with massive flow of hot air thru all selectable vents! Back to Ford under warranty I hought, this is hopeless. Nothing moist in the car, no leaks. Then I turned the air selection from recirculate to fresh and all was well. What a twit! Using aircon would have helped too, see previous post by Diddy
Edited by Armitage Shanks {p} on 01/12/2009 at 13:55
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Grabbed what I thought was deicer in my rush to get out this morning and sprayed it all over the screen. As a mass of foam built up on the screen I looked at the can and realised I'd grabbed the tin of Rainex someone bought me last year.
Went back in, couldn't find any deicer or the ice scraper, so picked up a towel to clear the foam off and a card from my wallet. Cleared the screen - foam all over the car by now due to the wind blowing it off - got in, and had a layer of frost on the inside of the screen to deal with. Cleared it off with a towel, and ran the blower for a couple of minutes to get a clear screen while I scraped the mirrors and side windows. Total time about 15 minutes.
I've called into Halfords this morning for deicer and binned the Rainex.
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AshT, that's just funny even trying to visualise it.
Sorry to hear your plight though.
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I have always used warm water (ie from tap etc) for last 25+ years with great success & no problem.
A 2 litre plastic water or pop bottle filled with warm water is ideal. Brush off any snow with a soft brush, free off & switch on the engine & wipers, dribble the warm water down /over all the windows. I find that the water doesnt smear like de-icer, and helps to clean, clear, demist too.
I have heard tales of people cracking windscreens and the like but never actually witnessed this or spoken to anyone 1st hand etc who has suffered.
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Cold in North Manchester with heavy frost on the screen. Turned on engine and heated elements under the wipers. Gave it 30 secs and then got the wipers scraping and the climate control on full blast onto the screen. Was able to drive off within two minutes and whole car fully clear two minutes later.
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I have always used water straight out the cold tap, don't even worry about making it luke warm. Never let me down yet, but then again I do live in the mild south west.
FTF
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I have always used water straight out the cold tap don't even worry about making it luke warm.
If you're using water then it's wise to ensure that the auto wipers (which many cars have now) aren't on!
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If you're using water then it's wise to ensure that the auto wipers (which many cars have now) aren't on!
Don't they have to be manually switched on first? They do on my Vectra-C. Every time you turn off the ignition, before the auto wipers will work again, the wiper stalk has to be moved to switch the system back on.
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My Focus auto wipers are a pain, they work well, but if you forget to move the stalk to "off" after use when they have stopped anyway, on the next engine start they give one wipe. Great if the wipers are frozen to the screen.
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"Great if the wipers are frozen to the screen."
If I know we are in for a heavy frost ON, I pull the wiper arms away from the screen the night before to prevent this. I too have focuses with auto wipe and get the occasional wipe on start up when I least expect it. :-)
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If I know we are in for a heavy frost ON I pull the wiper arms away from the screen the night before to prevent this.
Hypothetical - Mine would be in the garage. I agree with lifting the wipers, common practise in alpine areas of Europe.
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Every time you turn off the ignition before the auto wipers will work again the wiper stalk has to be moved to switch the system back on.
That's the sensible way they should be done. Unfortunately nobody told Honda or Mercedes (or Ford, apparently, and maybe others).
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Morale of the story above.
Fit a webasto heater.................................
These little box of tricks warm the engine coolant while the engine is switched off and your in bed they run from diesel and even petrol, a clever bit of kit fitted as standard to most larger diesels and campers, and canal boat similar to a night heater in a truck.
These are available from about £300.00 + new plenty second hand and make easy starting in winter plus hot air on the windscreen first thing in the morning.
& No i don't work for webasto.!!
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The automatic wipers on the Skoda have to be turned on each time. Makes sense to me now.
From reading the manual,an auxiliary ,fuel burning, heater would appear to be available in some markets for VW/Audi group cars. I assume that the car would have to be outdoors as well.
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When not in a rush I hang an extension lead out of the window and run it into the car and plug in a fan heater,placed at the back in an estate with the rear seats down.All the ice melts in a few minutes and there is the bonus of a toasty warm car.Crack the sunroof open a bit to let any moisture escape.
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The automatic wipers on the Skoda have to be turned on each time. Makes sense to me now.....
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I'm somewhat confused about this on my Golf MK6. For safety reasons that is how I'd like it to be i.e. when ignition is turned off and then back on, you'd need to reactivate the auto wipers by turning off and on again. However I think that mine would start wiping if you drove away and reached a certain speed. Anyway I try to remember to turn mine off when I finish a journey.
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>>The automatic wipers on the Skoda have to be turned on each time>>
Same with my VW Bora's setup. If the ignition is switched off and you haven't cancelled the wiper setting (auto is position one), then after the engine is restarted you have to cancel and then reset the wiper switch to position one.
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The auto wipers on the Altea dont work when the screen is forzen becuase its not moving.
Once you are on the move, (after the doors lock) the auto wipers kick in. Never have to touch the wiper switch.
Its a pity the auto lights cant recognise fog.
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Its a pity the auto lights cant recognise fog.
My Vectra-C auto lights don't either.
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Fit a webasto heater.................................
These are available from about £300.00
The mains fan heater I put in my car if required cost about a tenner. OK it doesnt warm the coolant but it warms and defrosts the car, and how often do you need that in the UK? In Canada yes but UK?
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For lightish frost use a bank card or a similar card. Thumb on one side fingers near the far edge on the other zzzzzp! All is clean and bright.
And probably a scratchd windscreen to boot! No thank you, very much.
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To scrape ice, I use a trusty bit of Tufnol, which is an engineering material made from fibre & resin. This is ridgid but has a soft edge that does not scratch. Had it for about 20 years. Brilliant, far better than nasty plastic scrapers.
However I had to use deicer on the windows of SWMBO's Eos, they drop automatically about 10 mm when you unlock the car, but are very prone to freezing solid. So if they don't move I quickly lock again & keep spraying.
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>> use a bank card or a similar card. And probably a scratchd windscreen to boot!
Why "probably a scratchd windscreen". Explain.
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> >Why "probably a scratched windscreen". Explain.
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This could well be the result unless your windscreen hidden under the frost has no crud whatsoever on it since you last used the vehicle.
Does anyone clean the scraper after each and every stroke ?
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> >Why "probably a scratched windscreen". Explain. >> This could well be the result unless your windscreen hidden under the frost has no crud whatsoever on it since you last used the vehicle.
Doesn't sound at all convincing to me, and is untrue in the light of experience.
Does anyone clean the scraper after each and every stroke ?
Better not ever use the windscreen wipers, then.
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> >Why "probably a scratched windscreen". Explain. >> This could well be the result unless your windscreen hidden under the frost has no crud whatsoever on it since you last used the vehicle. Does anyone clean the scraper after each and every stroke ?
Thanks for explaining the bleeding obvious. I would never rub my windscreen with something hard unless I could be sure that nothing, of a sharp or abrasive nature, was hidden there under the cover of frost or snow.
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My experience is that screens scratch surprisingly easily, a colleague of mine kindly (sic) scraped my car with his credit card and it left many annoying scratches, luckily a large stone did me a favour a few months later so I got a new screen.
I use a scraper with a rubber blade, similar to the things window cleaners use, works in all but the hardest frosts and doesn't scratch. Never, ever use de-icer 'cos I believe it ruins your wiper blades and I like to see out when it rains.
Still amazes me the number of drivers you see with misted up / frozen windows now the weather has worsened, it's like they don't know how to use their heaters.
Oh, and I do wipe the scraper, don't have a scratched screen mind....
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